Optimising bank working hours

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

This is probably an out of date concept these days, however if you ever ran a traditional business back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s as I did, one of the most frustrating things ever was trying to get my banking done over the counter.

Almost all businesses have to have cash floats, or make deposits etc. to ensure cashflow stays strong, or perhaps talk to a manager to make certain arrangements. I know I had to do this many, many times during my business life over the decades, however it always flummoxed me as to how bad the experience was.

You see, in Australia, banks didn’t really open their doors until about 9am. Then they would shut early - around 4pm, citing that their staff needed the extra time at the start and end of each day to cash up and reconcile etc.

The big problem with that, was that most business people couldn’t visit the bank except:

1. Before they opened their own doors early in the morning, or

2. After they closed up shop at the end of the day, or

3. During their lunch break

Because (1) and (2) was practically impossible, you used to get a massive rush during (3) when almost every business in town was in the bank to try and get things done.

Here is a rough timeline graph of the bank’s chosen working hours vs the customer demand during those hours:

As you can see, a lot of frustrated people on either end, and a lot of overworked, harried bank staff in the middle trying to deal with the uncommon rush.

Why didn’t banks ever implement a split shift system?

They could have easily split their staffing in half, and have half the team come in earlier in the morning to open up and do the morning cash processing, and offer counter service to businesses who needed to get their cash floats before starting the day.

Then, they could have had a ‘late team’ come in later in the morning to help the morning team cover the mid-day rush, and work later to finish cashing up and deal with businesses coming in after closing to deposit their daily takings.

They would still have had a full team on for the lunch rush (which would be lessened by taking care of the customer needs on either end of the day, with no additional staffing costs involved.

I would assume that workers with kids in school would prefer to work the morning shift and finish working when it was time to pick up their children from school. Alternatively, people who were studying or partying may wish to sleep in a little later and work into the evening.

As I said, this is probably all redundant now, in the cashless economy and online banking world, however it is something that I always thought about when I walked into a bank to do business, but ended up leaving in frustration and with a negative taste in my mouth.

Coding in silence

This Twitter poll I came across today got me to thinking. I know Kelly asked about podcasts here, but I have a lot of friends and colleagues who listen to music while working.

Here is my secret. I can’t.

Those of you who know me are probably saying “But you LOVE music! Heck, you played in several bands, you have a son who is a rising musician, you create and produce music on a regular basis, you tour the world to see bands and musicians in action regularly… How can you not listen to something that is so close to you while you work??”

The honest truth is that I love working in complete silence. Music and talking is a complete distraction for me when I am in a flow state.

I think it is probably the same reason that the poll responders above cannot listen to a podcast while working. To really get the most out of a podcast, you need to actually listen to the words and ideas being put forward by the speaker. It is of no use as just background noise. You might as well be working in a coffee shop if that is what you need (or use a background noise generator).

For me, listening to music is a bit like that. As a former keyboard player and guitarist in a band, I find that when listening to music, I go a bit deeper. I will generally isolate one particular instrument in the mix, even to the extent that I imagine playing that instrument in real time. My musician brain is constantly questioning note choices or picking out interesting chord changes or progressions. My producer brain is thinking about how everything is sitting ‘in the mix’ and listening for reverb and delay tails. There is a whole process of analysis that kicks off in my brain that means the music is a really interactive experience for me, and not just a soothing background lull.

For that reason, I cannot hold a complex programming concept in my brain or wind my way through complex logic problems while listening to music of any sort. It seems the synapses in my brain can only deal with one set of complex universal puzzles at a time.

All luck to those of you who can do both though. My own sons seems to traverse the world these days with earphones in and listening while interacting with other or carrying out day to day tasks. Sometimes I envy them. Often I don’t.