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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.

Next month Mr Walsh follows up this basic information by proposing a training plan for VAT.

Mr Walsh has already accumulated a great deal of experience in training for conversion to the new currency. In this article he presents his views on the problems and suggests an action programme.

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.

Safety legislation is under review. In March 1970 a small but high‐powered body was set up to conduct a general inquiry across the whole field of safety legislation under the Chairmanship of Lord Robens. A review is certainly needed: ‘more than three lost day’ accidents in industry occur at a constant rate of around 1 000 per day, while it is suspected that other minor accidents are ten times as great as this. Every working day we manage to kill two men at work, yet there are firms which regularly record over 100 000 man hours of work without accidents. The discrepancy between the best firms and the worst in the same industry is unbelievable.

The author forecasts the likely changes to accident recording and reporting and assesses some of the unexpected consequences and implications of the SSP legislation.

Employee information. Few firms have thought of the need to tell employees about SSP and what it will mean to them not only as ‘sickness benefit’ but what variations it will make to occupational sick pay. Middle managers and supervisors, at the very least, should be informed of the broad resuls of SSP and what will happen when an employee has exhausted SSP.

The better‐known and probably most widely‐discussed job enrichment exercises are those dealing with blue‐collar workers: Volvo's break from the assembly line concept of car production, Saab Scania, Philips and other autonomous work group arrangements for the production of car engines, television sets, and accounting machines, and in the UK the Baxi job rotation scheme for foundry work. Broadly, but not wholly, the office development which mirrors the cell system of work in the factory is called client identity, this being a technique which can be applied to office jobs ranging from the general clerical to such specialised applications as the often ‘gutty’ job of the typist or punch operator.

Too often under‐rated, too often neglected and too often forgotten until there is a serious accident, is the job of the supervisor to ensure that his operatives have a safe place of work and work in a safe fashion. If we look at the situation sensibly there are four very important motivators to safety at work which can — if he becomes aware of them — prompt the supervisor to set an example which his operatives will follow. They are, in order of priority: concern for people, concern for production, the law, social costs.

Pre‐retirement activities, ranging from man‐to‐man counselling to weekend “bargain breaks” in hotels, are expanding. The most active organisation in the field is the Pre‐Retirement Association, covering the scope of personnel, education and training. Core contents of all seminars in this area tend to be similar, covering finance, health and fitness, and retirement activities. (List of commercial organisers included.)