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There is renewed interest in the professions as a range of occupations pursue professionalisation projects. The purpose of this paper is turn analysis to an important omission in current research – the skills deployed in the work of these professions. Such research is necessary because skills determine the formal classification of occupations as a profession.

Drawing on qualitative research, this paper explores the deployment of skills in work of one newly professionalised occupation in the UK’s National Health Service – physiotherapists.

The findings point to a disconnect between how this occupation has become a profession (the skills to get the job, and related political manoeuvring by representative bodies) and the mixed outcomes for their skills deployment (the skills to do the job) in work as a profession.

The paper provides missing empirical understanding of change for this new profession, and new conceptualisation of that change as both symbolic and substantive, with a “double hybridity” around occupational control and skill deployment for physiotherapists as a profession.

Aesthetic labour explains how employees are required to look and sound the part in many contemporary workplaces. That such corporeality affects workers' employment prospects, including career progression, is now well documented in research. As such, it can result in employment discrimination based on physical features, more commonly known as ‘lookism’. However, very few jurisdictions proscribe lookism, and little is known about the efficacy of those that do. Based on archival research, this chapter examines the procedures and operation of physical features inclusion in an Equal Opportunity Act in one jurisdiction that does proscribe ‘lookism – the state of Victoria in Australia. As the first analysis of such laws, the chapter provides an important opportunity to assess the efficacy of legal attempts to address employment discrimination based on employee appearance. In so doing, it draws out lessons about the legal challenge to lookism.

The purpose of this article is to initiate critical reflection on the assumptions and evidence underpinning the work‐life balance debate.

The article reviews a range of international literature focused on and related to the work‐life balance debate and issues.

In the work‐life balance debate, over‐work is perceived as the problem. Nevertheless, beyond working time and the provision of flexible working practices to enable child care, there is little in the debate abut the need to change work per se. The debate also narrowly perceives “life”, equating it with women's care work, hence the emphasis again of family‐friendly polices.

The article suggests that reconceptualisation is required in analyses of both work‐life balance and the relationship between work and life.

The article implies that current work‐life balance policies are myopic in terms of addressing the needs and aspirations of employees.

The article offers a synthesis of evidence that is wider than that typical in current analyses of work and life.

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.

For service organisations the interaction between front‐line personnel and the customer is crucial as they aim to create high quality service encounters. Much research has focused on attempts by organisations to inculcate the “right” kind of attitude in their front‐line employees. This paper seeks to extend this analysis by pointing to the increasing importance not just of having employees with the “right” attitudes, but also possessing aesthetic skills. The emergence of aesthetic skills reflects the growing importance of aesthetic labour in interactive services. That is, employers' increasingly desire that employees should have the “right” appearance in that they “look good” and “sound right” in the service encounter in retail and hospitality.

The paper mainly utilises responses to a structured questionnaire from employers in the retail and hospitality industries in Glasgow, although reference is also made to a similar employees' questionnaire.

The evidence from the questionnaires suggests that employers in the retail and hospitality industries are not generally looking for “hard” technical skills in their front‐line personnel, but rather “soft” skills. Such “soft” skills encompass attitude and, importantly, appearance – what we term “aesthetic skills” – and the latter is often underappreciated in academic and policy‐making debates.

The findings of the survey suggest that academics and policy‐makers need to expand the way they think about “soft” skills. Specifically, they need to be aware of the extent of employers’ needs for both social and aesthetic skills.

The findings of the survey have implications from a policy perspective and policy‐makers may need to think about if and how these needs can be incorporated into education and training provision.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more comprehensive understanding of why social inequalities and discrimination remain in the creative industries.

The paper synthesizes existing academic and industry research and data, with a particular focus on the creative media industries.

The paper reveals that existing understanding of the lack of diversity in the creative industries’ workforce is conceptually limited. Better understanding is enabled through an approach centred on the creative industries’ model of production. This approach explains why disadvantage and discrimination are systemic, not transitory.

The findings suggest that current policy assumptions about the creative industries are misguided and need to be reconsidered. The findings also indicate how future research of the creative industries ought to be framed.

The paper provides a novel synthesis of existing research and data to explain how the creative industries’ model of production translates into particular features of work and employment, which then translate into social inequalities that entrench discrimination based on sex, race and class.

The purpose of this article is to consider why work‐life balance has become a major issue, and the likely outcomes of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules.

The article reviews international evidence on hours of work and time use, and the academic literature on employees’ attitudes towards their hours of work, and perceptions and complaints about work‐life imbalances.

Working time has not lengthened and complaints about time pressure are unrelated to hours actually worked. The sources of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules will lie in a combination of other trends – increased labour market participation by women, work intensification, the spread of feelings of job insecurity, more work being done at odd hours, the spread of new information and communication technologies, free time increasing more slowly than spending power and aspirations, and relatively long hours becoming most common among employees (and the self‐employed) in higher status jobs. An outcome is unlikely to be a general downward trend in hours worked on account of the substantial opportunity costs that would often be incurred by employees, and because some (mainly middle class) employees have access to a number of effective coping strategies.

Nearly all the evidence considered (and available) is from Western countries.

Regulation of working time with the aim of delivering more acceptable work‐life balances needs to deliver flexibility (at employees' discretion) rather than any standard solution.

The article offers a synthesis of evidence from sources that are rarely drawn together – mainly labour market research, and leisure studies.

The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of different forms of organisational representation on the provision of work‐life balance employment policies.

The article uses on‐site semi‐structured interviews with employees, HR and line managers and trade union representatives in four case studies as well as survey responses from a total of 17 institutions in the financial services sector.

Employees do influence work‐life balance issues in the financial services sector, and work‐life balance initiatives had greater breadth, codification and quality where independent unions were recognised. In all cases however, the extent of departure from minimal statutory levels of provision was not great.

The nature of the study and its focus on Scotland may limit the generalisability of the findings into other sectors or regions.

In light of the evolving work‐life balance legislative framework, this article should be of practical interest to trade unions, practitioners and academics. It demonstrates that organisations and unions need to retain and develop a focus on work‐life balance applications.

The article indicates the prevalence of management control of the work‐life balance agenda and management's discretion in the operation of work‐life issues. Employees and their representatives accepted this control, and their private individualised responsibility for balancing work and life, without challenge. These results inform current understanding of how work‐life balance legislation, based on a voluntarist agenda, translates into practice.