Story: Workforce composition

A personal time card, which each employee pushed into a special clock to mark the time they started and finished work, was how many businesses kept track of their staff’s hours of work. In the 1970s Reg Smith (left) worked for the General Motors car assembly plant at Trentham, in the Hutt Valley. The attendance record on his time card was so good that he received a $100 bonus from managing director R. M. Corby (right).