ABSTRACT
The British retail banks have been investigated from many angles by social scientists and historians, but there have been comparatively few investigations of production and the labour process. This chapter deals with the production process and technical change and provides a chronological outline of the main changes in bank work during the long boom. It discusses the efforts of the banks to recruit and retain staff, with particular emphasis on the changing gender balance. The chapter focuses on the banks’ efforts to fine-tune their pay policies to achieve the desired gender balance. It explains attention is turned to hours and content of work to understand why bank workers had a positive view of technical change. The chapter aims to understand the timing and context of technical change and the changes in personnel policies that accompanied and defined decisions on production processes. British retail banks hesitantly and partially developed sophisticated policies to manage their expanding labour force.
