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The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical studies in healthcare that have defined flexibility as an outcome, the purpose of this paper is to draw on classic management and sociological theory to reduce this ambiguity.

The paper uses the Weberian tool of “ideal types”. Key workforce reforms are held against Atkinson’s model of functional flexibility which aims to increase responsiveness and adaptability through multiskilling, autonomy and teams; and Taylorism which seeks stability and reduced costs through specialisation, fragmentation and management control.

Appeals to an amorphous goal of increasing workforce flexibility make an assumption that any reform will increase flexibility. However, this paper finds that the work of healthcare professionals already displays most of the essential features of functional flexibility but many widespread reforms are shifting healthcare work in a Taylorist direction. This contradiction is symptomatic of a failure to confront inevitable trade-offs in reform: between the benefits of specialisation and the costs of fragmentation; and between management control and professional autonomy.

The paper questions the conventional conception of “the problem” of workforce reform as primarily one of professional control over tasks. Holding reforms against the ideal types of Taylorism and functional flexibility is a simple, effective way the costs and benefits of workforce reform can be revealed.

Policies which help employees balance their work and non‐work priorities have become increasingly popular among UK employers in recent years. Along with a legislative imperative for family leave‐related policies, employers are being encouraged to introduce work‐life policies and make them more inclusive in order to enhance their business performance. This paper looks at how four financial services organisations have approached the work‐life balance agenda and examines the fit between the organisational intentions for work‐life policy and actual outcomes for both organisations and employees. Culture played a large part in determining the experience of policies but so did resources. What managers were being asked to achieve in the business was often incompatible with formal work‐life policies. Despite the rhetoric, work‐life balance was still viewed as a tool for, and was used by female parents, limiting its potential to achieve the promoted business benefits.

This paper aims to explore the introduction of teamwork in two health call centres, NHS Direct and NHS24, and intervenes in the emergent debate over teamwork in call centres. Although within the call centre work environment there is no obvious functional rationale for teamwork, teams can be “accounted for” with reference to other purposes, including performance management, normative control, governmentality and institutional isomorphism/management fads. This research provides additional explanations for the use of teamwork in such an adverse work environment.

The paper is based on qualitative data (interviews and non‐participant observations) from NHS Direct and NHS24, the English and Scottish tele‐nursing organisations in the UK.

In the two tele‐nursing case studies analysed, teamwork was introduced as an expression of managers' aspirations to emulate private sector practices and to reinforce new public management ideals. However, informal teamwork, which cut across organisationally prescribed forms, provided both emotional support and spontaneous knowledge sharing among nurses.

This is an innovative study because teamwork has not been thoroughly explored in a health call centre environment.

The purpose of this article is to assess whether tele‐nursing in Scotland (NHS24), when compared with traditional face‐to‐face nursing, facilitates greater employee control over working time and therefore a potentially better work‐life balance.

The article draws on evidence from two independent research projects; a survey of 64 ward nurses and midwives, which involved face‐to‐face interviews; and a field study of tele‐nursing in a large site in Scotland, using interviews and observations of 15 nurse advisors or tele‐nurses.

Three elements of work organisation are central in shaping nurses' working hours and their control over the balance between their work and their home life: the management of working hours; the degree of mutual dependency of nurses within teams; and the nature of patient care.

The two pieces of research reported offer a strong basis for comparative study. However, the two projects were designed independently, though research questions overlapped and one researcher conducted the field work in both settings; there is an imbalance in the number of interviews conducted in each setting; and the nurse advisor interviewees are of the same clinical grade, whereas a variety of grades and clinical areas are represented among the hospital nurse interviewees.

This is the first study of work‐life balance amongst tele‐nurses. The research demonstrates that call centre work has rationalised, depersonalised and yet enabled more “control” by nurses over their work‐life balance, while paradoxically offering less autonomy in their task environment. In conventional work settings professional values make it difficult for nurses to disengage from the workplace.

To explore whether ward management is an aspiration for junior nurses and midwives in the National Health Service in Scotland (NHSS) in the context of service redesign that is expanding career options in clinical practice.

The findings are drawn from research conducted in a large acute NHSS Trust. The fieldwork involved face‐to‐face interviews with 64 nurses and midwives and 1,084 survey returns (29 per cent response rate). Logistic regression was used to predict the characteristics of those who wanted to move into their line manager's role.

Moving into their line manager's job was a career aspiration for only 10 per cent of nurses and midwives and current managers reported there were already difficulties recruiting to senior posts. Those who wanted vertical progression preferred the clinical specialist/advanced practitioner route. By comparison, the ward manager (charge nurse) role was perceived to be very unattractive because of: too little patient contact; the stress involved in meeting the workload demands of multiple roles; and poor pay and rewards.

The research and policy review covers the devolved NHSS though similar trends have been noted elsewhere in the UK and internationally. The paper is of broader interest to those interested in the impact of managerial responsibility on healthcare professionals.

The paper highlights the need for reform in the ward leadership role since it is pivotal in the operation of hospital services.

Previous research has examined the role of nurses in managing healthcare services. The paper extends this retrospective work by exploring the perceptions and career intentions of the nurses and midwives serving under the current generation of nurse managers.

To examine the factors which influence the implementation of employees’ right to time off for dependants protected by the Employment Relations Act 1999.

The responses of two organisations in the same corporate group with identical policy provision are examined. Formal provision in the two companies was broadly similar providing an opportunity to examine how centrally developed, statutory‐based policy operates in different organisational contexts. Using qualitative reports from line managers and human resource managers the interaction and tensions between formal policy and informal, discretionary practice are examined.

Line manager attitudes to discretionary decision making and other company policies, especially flexitime, produced very different outcomes for employees highlighting a continuing challenge for governments and organisations: Is it more important to be consistent in implementation or responsive to individual circumstances?

The paper uses data from only two organisations, although it complements national research on the usage rates of parents’ statutory rights to leave.

Factors which can influence and detract from the effective implementation of statutory‐based employment rights are highlighted.

In focusing on parent's right to time off for dependant emergency an important element of the work‐life balance field is examined.

Using evidence drawn from case studies in four companies in the Scottish financial sector, this paper examines how both statutory and company family leave policies are operated by line managers. This paper considers the extent of line managers’ knowledge of statutory and company family leave policies and finds that their knowledge, particularly of statutory measures, is often wanting. In exploring the reasons for this situation, training on statutory and company family leave policies was found to be extremely limited and although support from human resource professionals was provided, line managers only referred to them in exceptional circumstances. This situation has clear implications both for consistency of operation of these policies and for the role of human resource professionals in ensuring that statutory and company provisions are effectively put into practice.

This paper seeks to analyse trade unions’ approaches to equal opportunities in Scotland, focusing on issues of: recruitment of membership from different groups; promoting diversity in post‐holding; and the role of “key equalities issues” in collective bargaining.

The paper draws on in‐depth interviews with equalities officers of 26 unions in Scotland. The analysis takes as its starting point the three models of equality policies identified by Rees: the “sameness”, “difference” and “transformation” models.

The paper argues that, although some equalities officers demonstrated a thorough understanding of the issues, union approaches to equalities in practice reflect the “sameness”, and to some extent “difference”, models: attacking direct discrimination and insisting that members should be treated the same, establishing some limited mechanisms to reflect on the different needs of groups, but being less able to tackle the underlying structural causes of inequality. It is suggested that unions need to develop a more sophisticated analysis of equal opportunities which fully reflects the differences between the experiences of groups of workers and which challenges the fundamental, structural inequalities within (and therefore seeks to transform) organisations and labour markets. A key element of this agenda must be the mainstreaming of equal opportunities within collective bargaining.

Further research is required on how unions are beginning to deal with the issues raised in the paper. The paper is also limited to the views of individual equalities officers – further research on local practice is required.

The findings will be of interest to organisations engaged in equalities work and unions seeking to develop policy and practice in this area.

The paper will add to the literature on unions’ approaches to equalities. It applies the Rees model to extensive new data, and is the first major piece of research to address these issues within the Scottish policy context.

This article employs linear regression techniques to model the variables associated with work‐life balance outcomes of employees. Using data from employee surveys carried out in four financial sector companies in Scotland, it was found that while the level of perceived availability did not have an impact on work‐life balance, organisational culture was significantly associated. This indicates that without a supportive work‐life organisational culture, the provision of arrangements in themselves will not necessarily lead to better work‐life balance outcomes. The analysis also shows that longer working hours, job status, take‐up and experiences of limited access to arrangements were significantly associated with work‐life outcomes. The findings are discussed in the context of recent government legislation and initiatives and further research examining the impact of work‐life initiatives on employees is recommended.

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.