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This article explores the issue of sexual harassment within a large oil refinery. It considers the reasons for the occurrence of such harassment and the subsequent effects on individuals and victims. By means of a questionnaire survey, information was gathered on differing perceptions of what constitutes offensive behaviour and the frequency and nature of the incidents. Two vignettes provide a rich picture of the types of harassment, how complaints were handled and the differing impacts on individuals. Senior managers were interviewed to ascertain their perception of issues of harassment. Finally, suggestions are offered regarding future company procedures and management actions required to mitigate the issue of sexual harassment. The research highlights the need for management and employee actions, in terms of training and awareness of issues.

The study investigates the roles and capabilities likely to be required of customer service professionals (CSPs) in future service encounters. Following a literature review and the results from customer focus groups, a matrix for future customer service roles is developed in which the domains of technical interaction and emotional interaction are displayed. The matrix is tested against interview data from executives in leading service organisations and four key CSP roles are developed, corresponding to the customer service domains displayed in the matrix. The study concludes with a discussion of these four roles and the management implications of the study.

Some of the key issues facing banks in the UK are examined in order to become better at selling in the personal banking market. These issues concern attitudes towards organisational changes for sales including those of personnel and physical organisation. Implicit in these issues are matters of changes in management style, training, motivation and recognition of branch sales personnel and the direct salesforce. Interviews were held with senior sales and/or marketing executives in the leading banks and a building society. While each of the organisations interviewed has made considerable advances in achieving the required cultural change, Midland Bank is well under way towards accomplishing a sales culture. The results indicate that the radical change called for in developing a true sales culture requires major alterations to management structure and style and is most likely to be successfully achieved by “top‐down” target setting based on corporate business objectives. The need for different approaches in developing an appropriate sales‐and market‐orientation in counter staff and direct sales staff is discussed.

An overview of the health care systems in the UK and Canada is given, introducing the special series of articles comparing the two countries′ approaches.

The need for effective industrial sales‐force motivation is emphasised and the theoretical relating to Herzberg's theory is discussed. Previous empirical studies are reviewed and the results of a 1985 investigation of British industrial salespeople's views on motivation and dissatisfaction are analysed. Implications concerning the Dual Factor Theory and industrial salesforce management are examined.

Job satisfaction is an issue which has concerned personnel managers for many years. There are now numerous questionnaires and measures available to assist in the evaluation of job satisfaction. However, personnel managers have only a limited amount of resources at their disposal to improve job satisfaction. On a practical basis, what personnel managers need is a way of assessing how people feel about the varying options and facets which the organisation is or can offer. They need to know how people feel about the whole package deal the organisation offers, rather than how they evaluate each aspect in isolation. Some organisations, for example, offer high wages but low job security and uninteresting work. Others may be able to provide a secure job but not be able to pay very high wages. Hence, what the personnel manager needs to know is how they can improve the mix of facets and benefits that they can provide. The trade‐off exercise described in this article is a way of doing just this.

Because of a lamentable lack of evidence, no‐one really knows how extensive theft is in economic terms in companies. Employee theft is estimated by the US Government to be $40 billion a year. The enormity of this figure can be put into perspective when compared to the estimate of $4 billion annually for street crime. Moreover, law enforcement officials maintain that more than 90 per cent of crime today occurs inside businesses rather than in the streets.

Personnel managers are concerned with making effective use of people. Job satisfaction is thus an issue of fundamental importance in personnel management. Interest in job satisfaction has been maintained largely because of the costs which dissatisfaction entails. Job dissatisfaction has been linked with labour turnover, absenteeism, poor performance and productivity, and low morale. Many of these areas are ones which personnel managers have been able to cost. Job dissatisfaction has also been linked to industrial phenomena such as strikes, grievances, industrial accidents and sabotage.

This paper reports research that investigates the perceptions of service managers on the future of customer service. It provides insight into the evolving managerial issues through detailed interviews with senior customer‐service directors and managers in different service sectors. Service organisations that will be successful in the future will focus the roles and capabilities of their customer‐service staff on customer needs, and support them through active service leadership. A six‐stage approach to developing the necessary strategies for managing customer service in this environment is deduced.

This paper explores managerial issues in call centres through two intensive case studies in UK organisations, supplemented by interviews with five operations managers in other call centres. The research explores key issues from the perspective of managers, team leaders, and customer‐service agents. Our findings show a growing professionalism among those working in call centres ‐ in keeping with the prominent role played by call centres in the market value chains of many organisations. Managers are under pressure to meet the potentially conflicting goals of customer service and efficiency in variable circumstances which cause the work load on call centres to alter significantly. In this environment, decisions on the use of technology, and on the roles, skills, and competencies of customer agents, are critical. So too are the ways in which human resource practices are employed in this relatively new and fast‐growing form of organisation.