bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Training managers to take account of recent legislation
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

Realising that the welter of material reported by the popular press on the functionings of the Industrial Relations Act 1971 could leave managements confused and appreciating that, though the Act requires management training, little has been done beyond providing information, Crawley College of Technology ran an Action for Management programme. Billed as a 5 × 2 hour session course it really wound up as a 5 × 3 hour session course. In the process some practical training initiatives were created, which could be of interest to training officers.
A LANGUAGE FOR A PURPOSE
Authors: WOODS EDWARD G
Published: February 2008

In an earlier article in this series, John Atkinson talked about the need for companies and language schools to work together when planning a language course. As he said then, so much time can be wasted with students being taught aspects of language which they don't need; and often, because there is only limited time available, this will result in their not being taught what they do require.
TRAINING
Authors: COOK ALAN
Published: February 2008

In the December issue of this journal I suggested that: • the financial evaluation of training costs is extremely difficult in the present state of our knowledge • the present system of grant aid is inherently inefficient and training is a special case because trained people, unlike other investments can leave the firm once they are trained, thus representing a dead loss in training costs. To meet this I suggested: • training costs should be amortised over a given period • if a trainee leaves, his outstanding costs should become a charge on the new employer and a credit to the employer who carried out the training (thus shifting the cost of training from producer to consumer) • Government support would be necessary for such a scheme in the way of collecting and distributing these payments via PAYE or National Health Insurance contributions. In this article I want to consider how such a scheme would work in practice and to discuss some points which have arisen from the earlier article.
A simple simulation
Authors: ELGOOD CHRIS
Published: February 2008

In our series on Business Studies in Sixth Forms there is frequent mention of the use of participative methods of learning and, in particular, of business simulations. There is a tendency to think that business simulations require the use of a computer but simple simulations can often be more effective. To show those readers not familiar with the simple business simulation what is involved and how effective this method of learning can be, we invited Chris Elgood, an independent consultant and foremost exponent in Britain of the simple simulation, to describe one of his.
The ‘decisions’ approach to business studies in sixth forms
Authors: Atthill Charles
Published: February 2008

In recent years there has been growing unease with the narrowness of the A level dominated curriculum of the sixth form. Recent research and the examination of available statistics of the courses followed by sixth formers suggests that A level courses are not appropriate for many of them. Nearly a third of sixth formers who embark on A level courses will probably fail or get no more than a single pass, although four‐fifths of them aim for three or more, while a significant proportion will drop out without ever sitting the exams. At the same time there is evidence of an increasing demand among sixth formers for the study of subjects of greater ‘relevance’ and ‘significance’ to the everyday lives which they will lead on leaving school, or further or higher education. At the present time it tends to be through General Studies as described by John Graddon in the February issue, that this balancing element is provided. It is in General Studies, also, that the various ability groups in the ‘new sixth form’ come together: the ‘traditional’ A‐level students, the post O‐level, but non‐A‐level students and the ‘new’ sixth formers who stay on but follow no exam courses at all. It is in this context that many new developments are going on which a few years ago would have seemed strangely alien to the traditional academic ethos of a sixth form. The study of sociology, psychology, business studies and ecology (not to mention more esoteric subjects) is becoming common, and a strong argument can be made for them.
Simplifying the objectives in INTERACTIVE SKILLS training
Authors: BROOKS EDMUND
Published: February 2008

The Human Resource School advances forceful arguments in support of this statement — that participative management raises the quality of organisational decision‐making and the level of commitment to those decisions. Support for this view comes from research by Coch and French, 1948, in the acceptance of new production methods; by Lewis, 1953, in the setting of production rates and by Katz and Kahn, 1966. Others argue equally strongly that participative management does not raise the level of employee motivation and commitment to action. Brayfield and Crocket in 1955 found that greater involvement in decision‐making did not invoke greater job activity, while Dubin (1959) and Goldthorpe et al (1966) contend that participative management is unlikely to derive support and commitment in that work is not a central life interest to the majority. Aronoff (1967) finds that commitment to the job and colleagues is possible only if people have certain personality characteristics, and that it is significant to the performance of the enterprise only in certain kinds of technology.
Does education create unemployment?
Authors: HOLLOWAY BJ
Published: February 2008

Unemployment and underemployment among graduates is a theme of growing importance. Soon this topic is likely to become a major national issue. Last year, Mr B J Holloway presented a paper at a local conference in Manchester. This address still seems to us to be the most authoritative and penetrating contribution presented on this subject. Accordingly, we invited Mr Holloway to update and restyle his paper as an article for this journal. The article is reproduced here by permission of the Course Organiser, Miss M P Reay and the University of Salford. The original paper, longer than this article, is one of six lectures on the common theme of ‘Unemployment and Occupational Training in the North West’. Copies of the complete series of lectures can be obtained from Miss Angela Barratt, The Registrar's Department, The University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, at a cost of £1 each.
The curious working of a curious Act
Authors: BROADHURST ALISON
Published: February 2008

That naïve piece of legislation, the Redundancy Payments Act of 1965, established the system by which employers pay monetary compensation to employees whom they make redundant, being partly reimbursed from the Redundancy Fund if they satisfy certain conditions. The size of the redundancy payments is related to the rate of pay, length of service with that employer and the age of the claimant. Perhaps artlessly, although in the best traditions of modern employment legislation, provision is made in the Act for appeals to be heard by those busy little bodies, the Industrial Tribunals. This apparently simple and just plan soon headed for problems; the Fund itself did not take long to go into the red and in the tribunals and courts legal technicalities reared their irritating heads. Even in the factories the unexpected happened, for in areas of low unemployment, to be declared redundant sometimes became a privilege; shop stewards demanded that those with the longest service should get the first chance of redundancy on the surprising basis of first in — first out. To study and report upon the working of the Act is a major undertaking and here it is proposed merely to look at some salient aspects which are of particular interest to management in general.
OPERATION VULCAN
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

So far, in this Vulcan series, I have described how the analytical movement completely revolutionised training for physical skills in the post‐World War 2 period. The two main weapons were job analysis and skills analysis. Job analysis provides the trainer with carefully‐defined objectives against which he can measure his own performance in terms of company objectives. Skills analysis, based on the concept of the sensory perceptions controlling the physical movements in continuous feed‐back, provides him with a tool for understanding and recording a skill, thus enabling him to communicate the various separate elements of any particular skill. These ideas had been developed in the UK from 1940 onwards but they did not make any significant impact on the working environment until the training boards adopted them, formalised them and to some extent simplified them and then popularised them from about 1965 onwards. In many countries this particular aspect of the training job has not yet been accomplished.
OPERATION VULCAN
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

In Vulcan II I described how the Perkins Project set out to apply skills analysis to craft jobs, how it failed in its original purpose and how it became converted into an investigation of the mental skills in manual work. These are the decision‐making and planning skills, sometimes referred to also as strategy skills. I advanced the point of view that the manipulative skills — those amenable to skills analysis — actually service the planning skills which are not amenable to skills analysis. I mentioned also that advanced manipulative skills are popularly referred to as knacks and that, in the same vein, the planning skills are popularly identified with experience. There is a tendency among researchers nowadays to talk about the experience factor when they are discussing planning skills. Hence the title of this present article.
Added value per £1 payroll
Authors: SMALLWOOD RER
Published: February 2008

This is the first of several articles by different authors on a new approach to measuring the efficiency of the human contribution at work. The chief virtue of the method lies in its simplicity and also in the ease with which the coefficient may be calculated from information readily available in existing records. It can be applied to small work groups, to departments, or to companies, even to whole industries and the national economy. It can be the means of comparing efficiency between different working groups or the performance of one group at different times or under different conditions.
What is interactive skills training? Why is it important?
Authors: BROOKS EDMUND
Published: February 2008

Most trainers are, by now, aware that they must include some programme for developing interactive skills. But this is not to say that the company's managers share their awareness or conviction. The trainer may have difficulty in getting across what he means by interactive skills and why they are so critical to performance. This article is presented as suitable material for in‐company use as a first step in getting managers interested in the interactive behavioural field. Edmund Brooks would be pleased to enter into correspondence with people involved in selling interactive skills training to managers. His address is North East London Polytechnic, Asta House, 156–164 High Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, Essex.
Customer contact skills
Authors: Nixon K
Published: February 2008

All airlines are concerned about their public image and are aware that this is created largely by their standards of personal service. Passenger Services Staff, Air Cabin Crew and Reservations Sales Agents present this service to passengers, face‐to‐face or by telephone. We are concerned with the first of these three groups; staff who assist passengers on the ground, at airports and town terminals. During 1970 and 1971 a working party of training and line managers from several international airlines, including BEA, met at the Air Transport and Travel Industry Training Board to prepare Training Guidance for Passenger Service Staff. These recommendations are now published.
Progress report on
Authors: BADEN HELLARD R
Published: February 2008

The Metrication Board's fourth report, published in April, entitled GOING METRIC: PROGRESS IN 1972, was full of carefully couched ambiguities as is common with official documents dealing with delicate, or what are thought to be delicate, areas politically. Nevertheless it told a sorry tale of lack of progress with metrication in almost every area of activity within the United Kingdom.
Immigrants and selection tests
Authors: PEARN MICHAEL
Published: February 2008

A recent booklet published by ITRU described some of the problems involved in administering and interpreting selection tests, especially when coloured immigrants are being tested in this country. In general there is a tendency for immigrants to obtain lower scores on tests (of general intelligence, aptitudes or special abilities), which are commonly used as selection devices. If, for instance, a single pass‐mark is used as a criterion of acceptance a smaller proportion of coloured immigrants will be accepted, compared to their English counterparts. This would not contravene the Race Relations Act of 1968, nor Section 26 of the Industrial Relations Code of Practice (1972), if it can be shown that immigrants who obtain low scores on tests always do less well on the job, or in the training, for which they are being recruited. This point can be more easily grasped if it is phrased as a question: does a low score on the test mean the same thing for a coloured testee as it does for an English testee? Does a low score always mean less ability?
Recent thoughts on evaluation
Authors: RACKHAM NEIL
Published: February 2008

what is ‘evaluation’ anyway? THEORY IS HEAVILY PUNCTUATED BY DEFINITIONS, WHICH contribute to the impression of dreariness which generally surrounds theoretical writings. Undeniably, definitions have a useful function. They are tools which can help refine and clarify concepts; they provide a negotiable basis of understanding, an exchange rate between those people for whom concepts are currency. But tools can be misused. On the negative side, definitions provide a wonderful excuse for retreating comfortably into semantic argument and avoiding the messy business of doing any real work in the field.
Recruitment and Selection of Typists and Secretaries
Authors: ROMAN EVA , GOULD DEREK
Published: February 2008

This book is to be published in January 1974 by Business Books, price £5.25. These extracts are from the chapter describing recruitment and selection methods currently in use. Next month we shall feature extracts from the chapter on candidates, reactions to their selection interviews.
Disabled persons and the law
Authors: BROADHURST ALISON
Published: February 2008

Like other disadvantaged groups, the disabled receive scant attention from the thrusting world of modern business. Somehow they slip between the legal textbooks as well as the treatises on management. Nevertheless, some legislation applies peculiarly to them such as the Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts 1944 and 1958. The common law has generally regarded them sympathetically but the relevant law is somewhat fragmented and it seems obvious that a re‐assessment is now needed. There are reliably reported to be about 600 000 registered disabled persons although some who are eligible decline to register because they have little faith that the registration system will find work for them. The value of these two statutes is being questioned on a wider front and their repeal is mooted. Like the ablebodied, the disabled have rights under the law although they are noticeably reluctant to assert themselves in the courts.
Employee attitude surveys
Authors: ANDERSON MF
Published: February 2008

An employee attitude survey can be described as a diagnostic tool which collects large amounts of information under controlled conditions. It acts as a vehicle for communication, allowing employees to express their satisfaction and ideas for improvement as well as offering management unique and practical information to assist the problem‐solving process.
Progress in evaluation and cost benefit research
Authors: JONES JAG , ANDERSON WT
Published: February 2008

For the last seven years we have been involved in feasibility studies, applying the economist's rigorous cost benefit analysis techniques to training investments and activities. The progress of the research has been well documented in various journals. Very early on it was demonstrated that although cost benefit techniques could be applied to certain forms of operator training, they only formed a part of the armoury of a training evaluator when more complicated skills and job organisations were encountered. In 1970 a progress summary was published in this journal. As a part of the current debate about the evaluation of training we have been asked to write a further progress summary. Rather than repeating parts of other articles we have attempted to do two things in this article: first to clarify some confusion we see developing in the terms used by trainers, and secondly to air some ideas which are being developed in the various research projects in which we are engaged. In this way we hope we can illustrate, by implication, the current thinking in the ITS about evaluation of training.
Planning for the future in coalmining
Authors: Rutter Duncan
Published: February 2008

David Jones' article on North Sea Oil rightly stresses that energy planning, with its manpower and training implications, can be done effectively only over the longer term. Recent events have discredited the impression, commonly held in the 1960s, that sources of energy could be turned on and off like a tap to correspond with short‐term fluctuations in their price. Over the years, the National Coal Board have repeatedly emphasised the hard geological fact that coalmining capacity, unless it is continuously worked, can so deteriorate that it might be lost for ever. Much the same kind of consideration applies to coalmining skills. They cannot be turned on and off like a tap either. They take time to acquire, and people are not going to acquire them unless they have some assurance that they are going to be able to use them.
Polytechnics
Authors: GORE TOM
Published: February 2008

One of the problems bedevilling higher education in the further education system in the sixties was the dispersal of advanced courses with small numbers of students and the consequent uneconomic use of resources. This phenomena and the projected demand by the DES for higher education in the seventies led to the creation of 30 Polytechnics. The White Paper, Cmnd 3006, which outlined the master plan for these new institutions, is a remarkable document. It attempted to achieve several conflicting objectives and most of them, at the end of three years, have not been realised.
Industrial relations developing effective traning strategies
Authors: LEARY MALCOLM
Published: February 2008

In the first article of this series I posed some of the fundamental questions which I felt that trainers seriously concerned with industrial relations should ask themselves. This article moves on to more practical considerations, particularly those related to the actual planning of industrial relations changes and the design of appropriate training strategies.
Job‐related language training
Authors: COUTTS JENNIFER
Published: February 2008

In banks, hotels, post offices, restaurants, nightclubs, travel and tour guide agencies, airlines, shops and railways it is normally the larger groups of lower graded staff who are most frequently in contact with the foreign language speaking customers. While many companies are prepared to send individual managers to expensive language schools to learn the basic language skills they are frequently reluctant to establish a tailor made oral course for their ‘front‐line’ staff even though this would result in substantial savings in company time and effort and give them a strong advantage over their competitors.
A practical approach to job enrichment
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

Bill Walsh has a reputation for taking complex concepts which originated at the academic level and simplifying them for popular consumption. In this article he treats the subject of job enrichment in this way and summarises his experience in introducing it in practice.
Fair employment legislation
Authors: BROADHURST ALISON
Published: February 2008

With a distinguished air of insularity, Parliament proposes low‐key legislation on equal opportunity for men and women in employment. The traumatic experience of American businessmen who have been dragged by the law along this road, has been overlooked. Most businessmen in both countries would almost certainly deny that they discriminate unfairly and would offer all the traditional myths in support of their arguments. But the Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Equal Opportunity Act 1972 which now govern the subject in the United States have changed employment practices rapidly by attacking through the medium of corporation profits. We have chosen, so far, to overlook the harrowing transatlantic experience and continue as if it had not happened. The proposals current here at the time of writing are for a largely voluntary system broadly similar to that which failed in the States. American experience has proved that voluntarism is inadequate and that compulsion aimed at profits is necessary.
16 plus education
Authors: GORE TOM
Published: February 2008

The reform of 16+ education has been discussed for a decade. Agreement about its future profile has still to be achieved. Yet the urgency of taking a decision about it can hardly be challenged. Any proposed new system will take five to ten years to implement. In the interim the quality of the human resources needed by the UK for the next three decades to contribute to the standard of life and to strengthen democratic and social institutions depends largely on the tertiary system of education. And the present arrangements are unsatisfactory. Objectives and the methods of meeting them are seriously misconceived, muddled and costly.
Industrial relations
Authors: LEARY MALCOLM
Published: February 2008

Previous articles in this series have dealt with developing effective training strategies and discussed the role of the trainer in relation to a process of industrial relations change. The use of particular training methods and techniques can thus be seen as the last link in this chain; certainly many organisations see selection of training methods as the $64,000 question. At the end of the day industrial relations change boils down to changes in individual and group behaviour which are often fundamental. Yet this is the point where most managements come unstuck — how can these changes be brought about? A search for some magic formula in terms of a particular method or technique often results either in utter confusion when faced with the vast range of alternatives available or frustration that the one particular approach tried has not provided all the answers. In fact training techniques and methods associated with effective industrial relations change programmes have to be viewed as an integral part of an overall dynamic process rather than as the last link in a chain. We are therefore concerned with appropriate change techniques throughout the process.
Vision screening
Authors: BROMLEY JP , UNGAR PE
Published: February 2008

The article on tachistoscope training in the November issue of this journal described one method of improving clerical skills. In this article the authors emphasise the need to assess visual performance before undertaking training of this type.
DIS
Authors: MORGAN TERRY , RACKHAM NEIL , HUDSON HOWARD
Published: February 2008

In 1971, through the pages of this journal, a group of psychologists and trainers, which included Morgan and Rackham, presented to the training world an account of ideas and techniques which they had evolved through two and a half years of research and development work. What they described, with ill‐concealed enthusiasm and excitement, were approaches to training managers and supervisors in the skills of dealing with others which, in the context of available alternatives, seemed to constitute a major breakthrough in both concept and method. It was expected that there would be widespread interest in the approaches — and this has been amply confirmed. However, the interest has been rather less widely translated into application — partly, we suspect, because of the high level trainer skills required to run this kind of training, which take time to acquire, and even more because of the resources needed to mount the training. These resources are beyond small, and most medium sized, companies. Three years on, we are unable to bring glad tidings that things are any different in these respects: if anything, we are more than ever conscious of the skills and resources demanded by interactive skills training if it is to be effective. But if you are a trainer in a small or medium company, please do not stop reading at this point. One of the purposes of this article is to describe the course that the Air Transport and Travel ITB now runs which makes this kind of training available to the managers and supervisors of companies who are unable, for one reason or another, to mount it for themselves.
Management of change
Authors: KING TAYLOR LYNDA
Published: February 2008

Western Australia was the first portion of the Australian continent to be ‘discovered’ — it was also the last to be opened for settlement. The early Dutch navigators of the East India Company, blown off their course by the gales that periodically sweep across the Indian Ocean, were the first known Europeans to touch the western shores of that continent, and the first settlement was founded in 1826. Western Australia's first railway was built in 1871 and was a privately‐owned timber line. Today the system operated is approximately 3 800 miles, partly on standard gauge railway and partly on narrow gauge. The former is modern and up‐to‐date whilst the narrow gauge is both expensive to maintain as well as to operate. Less than 1 000 miles of the entire system is on the standard gauge — this section however does carry over 50 per cent of the entire traffic. It can be said that the most useful car in Australia is the railway freight car for upon it is based the whole national marketing system and in it is carried virtually everything the Australians eat, wear and use. The Western Australian Government Railway (WAGR) Department employs a large number of professional men, technicians and unskilled labour, as well as providing work for thousands more in the supply of materials in every shape and form — and upon the Department to some extent has depended the development of the State. The railway system is divided into six districts namely — Metropolitan, Central, Eastern, Southern, South Western and Northern. Each is administered by district officers. In the districts there will usually be at least three senior officers of the operating branches, and this duplicates the management at district level and indeed at head office level. As in our own railway system, one finds that this hierarchy contributes very largely to the inefficiencies of the operation.
Models as an aid to training
Authors: MOSS MICHAEL
Published: February 2008

There is something uniquely fascinating about things which are smaller than life. From the model cars and trains of our childhood days, to the intricate scale models which draw visitors in their thousands to such places as London's Science Museum, somewhere along the line these miniature replicas of full‐sized originals have provided all of us with a memorable experience in our lives. While it might take a psychologist to identify the exact reasons why the everyday things in life, seen as it were through the wrong end of a telescope, should hold this fascination over the human brain, it is immediately obvious that the fascination exists, and that models can play an important role in teaching us about the full‐sized items they represent.
Another look at TOPS
Authors: TRIMNELL DOREEN
Published: February 2008

The last three years has seen the expansion both in variety and scope of re‐training courses organised under the Department of Employment. In the commercial sphere these courses cover secretarial skills, accounting procedures and general clerical work, but they are only a small part of the whole range of craft re‐training courses which are available to those who satisfy the Department they can benefit from a course and will reach an employable standard in the training occupation at the end of their course. The growing demand by many branches of industry for trained office workers has resulted in the Department of Employment increasing the facilities under the training opportunities scheme — commonly known as TOPS — for training in commercial skills in technical colleges and colleges of further education throughout the country.
Identifying training and development needs
Authors: COLQUHOUN JC
Published: February 2008

RECENTLY, AS PART OF A COURSE, A COMPANY HAD TO provide a relevant in‐company project for their training officer. After making a number of conventional and rather feeble suggestions it was eventually agreed that he would investigate the problem of low earners (these are operatives who fail to earn the minimum bonus and whose wage therefore has to be made up by the company). There were a significant number of these each week.
The use of management training
Authors: PRYNNE P
Published: February 2008

The following report is a summary of research work carried out at Sheffield Polytechnic and experience in the provision of management training courses specifically for the managers of small firms in the Sheffield area. Measurements of percentage return on capital and training activities in major industries reveal a strong tendency for firms with a low return on capital to be more involved with management training and also reveal that small firms are more reluctant to become involved than larger firms. Further information is provided concerning the design of management training activities specifically for the managers of small firms, based on experience gained by the Small Firms Management Service at Sheffield Polytechnic.
Finding out about FWH
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

A considerable number of articles have been published singing the praises of flexible working hours. This is not another of them. Nor is it one questioning the benefits. In offices we are rapidly reaching the situation where, despite the drawbacks of FWH (and there are some) not to be able to offer this type of working automatically reduces one's ability to recruit good staff. That is, the concept is rapidly catching on; staff like it, so, even if there is nothing in it for management one is bound to consider using it. Wisely then, many firms are asking their training officer to research and report on the idea. Where does one start? Reading the experience of others is a help. A list of articles, authors and publications is given at the end of this digest. There is also a brief paragraph on alternative flexibilities. At least one of the latter is considerably easier to operate and appears to have been highly successful in a large London office.
Further education teachers' certificate
Authors: GASKELL DJ
Published: February 2008

Personnel concerned with training, certainly in the early years of employment, especially when connected with a firm operating on a small scale, tend to find themselves involved with issues peculiar to their own industry and closely related to their own company. The wider issues of technical education are studied in the Further Education Teachers' Certificate course, available in many technical colleges up and down the country. This City and Guilds course (no 730) has recently developed in various directions which could be of considerable interest to industrial training staff.
Problems as training opportunities
Authors: WOOLRICH AE
Published: February 2008

This article describes recent experiences in the use of the critical incident technique as a means of identifying training needs of supervisors and managers in the knitwear industry. The work was initiated and carried out by Paul Carter and Eddie Woolrich, of the Knitting, Lace and Net ITB, in conjunction with the training officers of the companies involved.
The use of management techniques
Authors: PRYNNE P
Published: February 2008

A previous article on management training described some of the shortcomings in the national provision of management courses specifically for small firms and methods of overcoming some of the problems. Many of the findings were based on a detailed survey of 80 small and medium sized manufacturing firms in the Sheffield area carried out by the Small Firms Management Service at Sheffield Polytechnic. The use of management techniques in small and medium sized firms was also extensively investigated during this survey and this report describes some of the findings. It is now well known that small firms with less than 200 employees represent an essential and substantial sector of our national manufacturing capability and are frequently responsible for high financial performance and the introduction of new products and ideas. It is becoming clear, however, that so far as national resources are concerned, such as grants for new buildings and equipment, investment allowances, factory moving grants and management training and consultancy, the bigger firms are getting a disproportionately large share of the money and facilities available. This is mainly due to the fact that the small business has little management time available for information seeking and form filling and also providers of management training and consultancy tend to favour those firms who are most willing and able to pay high fees for extended services. Research at Sheffield has already pointed the way to the creation of better training facilities for small firms, but has also provided data on the extent to which modern management methods are applied in different industries and sizes of firm and related this to return on capital. Small firms are well known for their resistance both to training facilities offered, which they rightly say are inappropriate, and to management help available which is thought to be too costly and disruptive.
Industrial relations
Authors: GOLDREI DIANE
Published: February 2008

Industrial relations has been made the scapegoat for many of Britain's economic and social problems and over the past two decades there has been continual public debate about how the system should be changed.
Employee participation through share holding
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

Employee participation can be exercised at a number of different levels. For instance, worker representation on supervisory boards provides the means of workers influencing the top direction and policy‐forming arrangements with a company. On the other hand, works councils form a mechanism through which workers influence those day‐to‐day management decisions which affect conditions at the workplace. There is also a wide choice of ways in which employees may participate in the joint decision‐making process at each of these different levels. Of late, the public discussion has tended to assume — quite wrongly, as it happens — that employee participation can come about only through legally‐required institutions such as two‐tier management or works councils. Two‐tier management after the German model gives the worker the means of influencing ‘board decisions’ as of legal right. But, theoretically, it has always been possible for a group of workers to secure a significant voice at board level by the simple process of acquiring a sufficiently large proportion of the voting shares of the company. It is, of course, necessary, in this context, to be careful to include the word theoretically, because the practical problem of where they are to get the cash from, with which to buy the shares, is of over‐riding importance. But it is worth making the point that it is not necessary to make changes in the law to bring about this form of employee participation in the decision‐making process. Provided employees can be helped over the hurdle of acquiring a significant joint holding, there is available in this approach, a form of participation which stems from employees having the feeling that they have a real stake in the business as part‐owners. How effective is this form of joint‐ownership in influencing attitudes at work? What conditions have to be met to make joint‐ownership an effective motivator?
Assessment centres
Authors: VAN OUDTSHOORN MIKE
Published: February 2008

In my first article for this journal I outlined what an assessment centre is, its history and how the method works. I shall not attempt to argue here the validity of the method nor to provide case studies of actual applications. Future articles will consider the relationship of assessment centres to psychological testing, validity and accuracy, and some case studies of unusual or unique applications.
A supervisory skills course for beqinners
Authors: BROWN FRANK
Published: February 2008

In the hospital service, where there are so many different disciplines, we have for a long time felt the need for a short course on supervisory skills. The line managers and I have got together and evolved a three‐day course for supervisors, irrespective of whether they are head porters in small hospitals, staff nurses, administrators, domestic supervisors or therapists.
Raising productivity in typing
Authors: Canning BW
Published: February 2008

The ubiquitous typewriter is certainly the office machine we could not do without. Every year in the UK at least a quarter of a million people learn some way or another to type. How many of these go on to become livelihood‐earning typists we cannot say for sure, but by the records of examining bodies the figure can hardly be fewer than 100 000. Even so, the supply of competent, trained typists does not meet the continually rising demand. Are there ways in which productivity could be raised, so as to bring supply nearer to meeting demand? Four possible approaches to this consideration may be the machine; the typist and the typing; the input; the supply of trained typists. The last of these has so many social, economic and political ramifications that it is discarded to await the results of more research.
A survey of publication policies
Authors: LETHBRIDGE DAVID
Published: February 2008

Management journals seem to have multiplied in number over the last decade. Who are they for? What sort of material do they publish? How many articles are accepted, and how many refused? Why are some rejected, and others accepted? Are contributors paid? How does the readership influence the editorial policy?
Organisation behaviour A NEW SERIES
Authors: TERRY PAT
Published: February 2008

Conventional training attempts to develop human resources by changing employees as individuals: it focuses on the technical aspects of the task and it is applied to individuals in isolation. Very often individuals are withdrawn from the working group for this form of development. However, people only very rarely work in isolation: they work with others in groups. It was a great advance when trainers took in the behavioural aspect of management with a view to improving performance in groups. But groups do not work in isolation either: they interact with other groups within the organisation. What matters to performance is the behaviour of people in organisations. To some extent organisations have a corporate life of their own and exhibit their own forms of behaviour. The natural development, then, of behavioural studies of people in working groups is the study of man at work in organisations.
Training in the economic facts of life
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the training movement today is the current assumption that society would function better if only there was a wider understanding of how it works. This understanding needs to be acquired at one level by employees and at another level by the general public. In our March issue we have already highlighted the pioneering efforts of SB Modules Ltd with their sound‐tape training pack designed to communicate the simple facts about how the money moves in a business. There seems to be developing a general conviction that more information has to flow about the performance of employing organisations. This means not only their current efficiency in producing wealth and profit but also their ability to provide security for employees, and a good service for customers while following a sound policy of environmental responsibility. The growing awareness of this need to be better informed is to be noted not only in the UK but in all countries in one form or another.
Manpower Development Service
Authors: HANSEN GARY B , BENTLEY MARION , CRAGUN JOHN R
Published: February 2008

This article is based on a paper presented at an international conference in Norway. Having read in ICT about the work of the Small Firms Management Centre at the Sheffield Polytechnic, Gary Hansen wrote to us to tell us about similar work underway in the US.
The information disclosure problem
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

Last month I ventured the opinion that the disclosure of financial information to employees is now recognised as a major and urgent training problem, that there is a powerful desire on the part of many companies to do what is right and useful in this matter but that there is no widespread confidence that we have the ability to do it effectively. This is a time for clarifying our ideas and trying out solutions on a pilot scale.
New look for the eurocompany
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

The Commission of the Common Market is, without any doubt, the front runner in the move to bring about more effective means of employee participation. What it ultimately achieves will lay down the pattern for industrial democracy for some time to come and will iron out the wide differences which exist at the moment. In May 1975 the Commission published a new version of its EUROPEAN COMPANY STATUTE: This document is important to all companies, whether inside or outside the Common Market, since it will, in the immediate future, be seen as laying down the main guidelines in this field.
Effective practical information systems
Authors: SMITH GEOFF
Published: February 2008

Last month Geoff Smith described how to develop a system of financial reporting which adequately relates to the business activity of a company: How effectively does it use its resources of people and money; how is it growing; how is it providing security for participants? Now he looks at a method of reporting cash flow; profit and loss and balance sheet in relation to each other.
Participation through added value
Authors: WREN ALAN
Published: February 2008

Having an interest in behaviour and attitudes at work, I had ideas, when appointed to the company, of involving employees in its affairs. However, the setting‐up of a works council in so small an organisation, where all the employees are known to me, seemed somewhat artificial. Every employee who wanted it already had access to the managing director! The works council idea was shelved. About a year ago the question of a bonus scheme was raised by employees. Earlier attempts to introduce bonuses in the company had been abandoned as being too difficult or too costly to install or run. An examination of various possibilities showed that an added value bonus scheme could be appropriate and had the great advantage of being participative in style. Here was a basis for employee participation with a genuine purpose. What follows describes how the scheme evolved and its effects so far.
Integrating selectioon and placement
Authors: DOBINSON CH
Published: February 2008

To the well‐known saying that ‘Psychology has caused us to forget what we used to know about human nature’ we need to add the words ‘and human abilities’. Standardised tests, generally answered on paper, have for years had too great an effect in deciding what human beings should be allowed to tackle. Inadequate allowance has been made for motivation, for will power and staying power, human characteristics which do not readily lend themselves to the machinations of office‐bound psychologists. Unemployment is one of those phenomena which provides activities for statisticians, but however large the number of unemployed, and however generous a Government Training Opportunities Scheme (TOPS), at the other end of the statistics are human beings with desires and aspirations — and abilities. This fact is as plain as a pikestaff and if it is considered with the other fact that simultaneously with large numbers of unemployed there are always large (but smaller) numbers of unfilled vacancies, one wonders why the scheme of skill assessment in operation at Bellshill (Government) Training Centre had not been put into practice all over the country many decades ago.
Organisation behaviour
Authors: GILL JOHN
Published: February 2008

Action research has been described as the basic model — underlying most organisation development activities. It is, however, a process which is not too well understood but which apparently offers some promise of effectively applying behavioural science findings to organisational problems whilst at the same time adding to social science knowledge. In this article the history and development of action research is considered; action research is then defined by contrasting and comparing it with pure and applied research and consultancy; finally through an examination of some cases its advantages and limitations in practice are explored.
Supervisory training and development in Holland and Denmark
Authors: LOWNDES RICHARD
Published: February 2008

As a result of an award made to the Anglian Regional Management Centre under the JW Platt Memorial Fellowship Scheme, which financial aid was supplemented by the resources of ARMC and Thurrock Technical College, a study visit to key centres of interest in Holland and Denmark was undertaken during June 1974.
Who is versatile?
Authors: CM  , SMITH MC
Published: February 2008

What does versatility mean to the average production manager? Does he consider it a necessary quality in his operatives for the smooth running of the factory, or unimportant because his production never varies? It must therefore to some extent depend on what he is producing and whether the product is subject to seasonal and/or fashion fluctuations in demand. If the product requires frequent job changes for operatives, demanding them to adapt constantly to different machines and materials, versatility is a trait at the head of his list of priorities in the qualities required in his staff.
Films business behaviour
Authors: HUGHES ALEC M
Published: February 2008

Training Films International began to build up its distribution service with films on industrial safety and health and now has a very useful library of films on these subjects. It has now started to extend its scope with films on other aspects of management. Alec Hughes reviews here the American series produced by CMA Productions concerned principally with individual behaviour. Made between 1972 and 1974 the series is naturally geared to American situations many of which would be different in some of their implications for British audiences. All are colour films.
Flower power in industrial relations
Authors: LEARY MALCOLM
Published: February 2008

Recently a large food manufacturing company approached the Food Drink and Tobacco Industry Training Board's advisers who specialise in industrial relations training for assistance in setting up a training programme for their junior management. Its purpose was to help them influence more effectively the industrial relations situations with which they were faced. Like many other organisations this company was meeting more pressures from the shop floor, union initiatives and ever increasing uncertainty and doubts on the part of junior management, who were responsible for playing a positive and constructive role within a changing industrial relations environment.