PurposeChanging career patterns and the erosion of job security have led to a growing emphasis on employability as a basis for career and employment success. The written and psychological contracts between employer and employer have become more transactional and less relational, and loyalty is no longer a guarantee of ongoing employment. Individuals are thus expected to take primary responsibility for their own employability rather than relying on the organisation to direct and maintain their careers. The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine the assumptions underpinning the concept of employability and evaluate the extent to which employability has been adopted as a new covenant in the employment relationship.Design/methodology/approachThrough a review of relevant literature the paper discusses current research on careers and employability and examines the available evidence regarding its adoption as a basis for contemporary employment relationships.FindingsThe paper finds that the transfer of responsibility for employability from organisation to individual has not been widespread. There is still an expectation that organisations will manage careers through job‐specific training and development. Employability has primarily benefited employees with highly developed or high‐demand skills. Employability is not a guarantee of finding suitable employment.Practical implicationsEmployers can assist their employees by clarifying changes to the psychological contract, highlighting the benefits of career self‐management, and providing training and development in generic employability skills.Originality/valueThe paper questions underlying assumptions about employability and explores issues of relevance to human resource managers, policy‐makers, employers and employees.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to investigate the interpersonal communication skills that human resource (HR) managers expect managers in supervisory positions possess. Second, to identify which of these skills HR managers expect managers use to engender subordinate commitment to the organisation. Third, the paper aims to investigate what interpersonal communication skills that enhance employee commitment to the organisation are most lacking in managers in supervisory positions.Design/methodology/approachThe approach of the study is a series of in‐depth interviews with 32 senior HR managers in organisations with over 100 staff.FindingsThe paper finds that senior HR managers expected managers to be effective in interpersonal communication focusing mainly on the clarity and frequency of the messages, their ability to actively listen and the ability to lead in a collaborative way. The way messages were sent, especially their clarity, and a leadership style that engendered trust, was of the highest importance when HR managers wanted to enhance employee commitment to the organisation. However, these skills were also the ones found most lacking.Practical implicationsHR practitioners need to consider more explicitly what behaviours are important to promote organisational commitment.Originality/valueThis paper highlights that the interpersonal communication skills that enhance organisational commitment and are most valued by organisations are those that are most lacking in managers. This paper also provides insight for practitioners to the interpersonal communication skills areas that managers need to develop so that their interaction with staff may enhance commitment to the organisation.

Australia, together with most other developed and developing countries, faces a difficult demographic pattern in the first half of the twenty‐first century, due to a low and declining birth rate and an ageing population. This has led to an ageing workforce, with a relative shortage of younger entrants. One issue for government is what further steps they could initiate to persuade more people to remain in the labour force beyond the currently median retiring age of around 55 years. Employers will need to consider the degree to which they are prepared to reverse present negative attitudes towards employment of older staff, and workers need to resolve whether they need or desire to keep working and under what conditions. Boundaries constructed by government policy and employer actions, and their resolution by older individuals, form the content of this paper. The paper concludes that employers now face the management of up to four generational groups and resolving their intergenerational differences will present as a major future challenge. Revisiting practices for managing older workers will be essential and the paper offers suggestions for employers towards more effective utilisation of their older staff and more effective integration of workers of all age groups.

This paper has two aims. First, to consider explanations for the apparent gap between the paradigm of strategic human resource management on the one hand and actual HR practice on the other. Second, to generate practical advice for senior HR specialists who are aspriring to develop a strategic role for their function. the research underpinning these findings was based on case studies in three hospitals in Adelaide and a comparison of the findings with the situation at Leicester General NHS Trust where the first named author of this article was the HR director and a senior board member. the analysis reveals that specific features of each organisation's history, current structure and management, shape powerfully the nature of the HR function. Moreover, the local shaping factors define the degrees of freedom open to the HR function, so much so, that the notion that it can choose its organisational stance is here challenged.

Advances in technology have significantly expanded the capacity of individuals to undertake their work role outside the confines of their employers’ premises, and changes in industrial relations policies and practices in Australia have facilitated organisational willingness to explore such possibilities. A significant portion of all off‐site working is undertaken by employees at home, and this group increasingly consists of teleworkers who undertake data processing activities in a home office communicating the results to their employer via modem or phone. This paper considers whether such changes, especially the recent growth in teleworking, can generate potential work opportunities for those who have traditionally been marginalised in the workforce. In particular the paper explores whether teleworking might open employment opportunities to older workers. It concludes that though older workers might offer as potentially viable candidates for this type of work activity they are unlikely to be successful in gaining employment given present employer attitudes and practices.