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The growth of telecommuting is occurring at an ever‐expanding rate and bringing with it the challenge to organizations to enhance development opportunities for both telecommuters and their managers. Reports a survey of the use of telecommuting by a sample of 91 companies among the top 1,000 firms in Canada. Found that telecommuting is typically introduced for reasons of economic efficiency, and little thought is given to the development needs of telecommuting employees despite a clear need for telecommuting expertise. Concludes that telecommuting will bring significant changes in management‐employee relationships and the need for new designs in human resource development programmes.

Introduction There is little doubt that organisations wishing to survive in the increasingly competitive environment of the 1990s must have a clear plan for their acquisition and utilisation of human resources. The various activities carried out by the personnel function, such as selection, recruitment, development and assessment have a far greater impact on organisational excellence if they are part of a thought‐out human resources plan, rather than piecemeal, and perhaps disconnected outputs of the personnel department. Because of the realisation of the need for integrated planning, human resources planning (HRP) has become increasingly well accepted, but there is still a large gap between theory and practice in HRP. There is considerable lip‐service to the need for sophisticated HRP, but many practitioners continue to use simple HRP techniques and less frequently use the more powerful techniques that are available. This may be a function of the gap between theory and practice as practitioners are likely to prefer to work with the techniques that they understand and which they control, rather than having to make use of what they see as “sophisticated” planning models which typically require the help of a head office planning or computer department.

How do you judge whether a letter of reference is credible? Probably on the basis of the specific information it contains. Human resource professionals require letters containing specific information for making placement decisions, but they may be influenced by the way the letters are written as well as the factors wchich appear to influence how credible the readers judge a letter of reference to be. The provision of specific examples raises credibility, but so does using a “better” writing style. Some recommendations are made to practitioners for accurately assesing the credibilty of letters of reference.

In this exploratory article we argue that changes in society, the nature of work and of the employment relationship have changed the nature of careers and consequently require a re‐conceptualization of the nature of career development. The traditional functional models of human resource management are hopelessly inadequate in addressing the changed reality of competitive advantage in business organizations of today. We propose new models of career development in the context of the era of the portfolio career reality, draw implications for human resource management practice and suggest fruitful avenues for future research.

The lagging growth in productivity of many western industries has at last captured public attention. Many observers attribute the problem, at least in part, to management reluctance to invest in the capital equipment necessary to automate production systems at fully competitive levels. Not all such investments, however, result in equivalent benefits. This article presents the findings of a recent survey on robotisation plans, and based on these findings, a conceptual model is developed which attempts to set out the different factors which should be considered when introducing industrial robots. In addition, some attention is given to the related literature on the reasons for automation in general, and robotisation in particular.

Seeks to provide understanding of the challenges facing management development in South Africa in the next decade: a desperate shortage of managerial skills; a particular need for trained Black managers to fill the opportunities that are opening up. Describes management development techniques and programmes offered in South Africa, and the kinds of institutions and organizations that offer them. Suggests that, despite the need, surprisingly little Black management development has been accomplished, and what has been done has often not addressed the marginal position in which many Black managers find themselves, nor used effective techniques which adequately match local culture. Draws on the authors′ research, and personal work experience in South Africa, for recommendations for improving South African management development programmes in the 1990s.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Proposes the concept of women‐friendliness, as a measure of organizations′ receptivity to women, and explores the roles of the human resources function in achieving it. Different human resources management strategies are linked to the role, prestige and attitudes of the HR function, to the attitude of the organization′s CEO towards women′s issues, and to the institutionalization of the HRM strategy. Proposes an agenda for research.

The workforce is aging in all industrialized nations and the retention of older workers will become one of the dominant issues in the coming decades. Training is an important component of retention and the availability of training is critical for retaining older workers.

Studies conducted in 2001 and 2003 assessed the extent to which Canadian organizations are adapting their training practices to respond to the aging workforce. Human resource executives were asked the extent to which their organization was currently engaging in training practices targeting older managerial and professional employees.

Organizations were most likely to be providing access to training and retraining, but fewer than 10 percent of the organizations in 2003 were highly engaged in doing this. Organizations were less likely to be adjusting training methods to accommodate the needs of older employees. There was little attempt to provide age awareness training to managers of older employees.

The challenge for organizations will be to close the gaps that currently exist between the practices that are important in retaining older managerial and professional employees and the extent to which organizations are engaging in these practices. Ensuring access to training, customizing training methods, and providing age awareness training require immediate attention.

Little research has been conducted on older workers in Canada. The findings raise some serious concerns about the response of Canadian organizations to the aging workforce and identify areas of training and development that need to be addressed.