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I begin by examining some ways in which organisations have attempted to improve their recruitment and selection procedures to minimise bias and unfair discrimination, and focus on the assessment centre as a potentially useful technique in this respect, especially for managerial selection. I go on to examine the assessment centre in more detail, including its origins, construction and uses, before discussing the strong evidence for its validity as a selection and assessment procedure. I then describe some recent British innovations in assessment centre design and practice, especially in its use for management and organisation development purposes, before discussing some of my own recent research, in collaboration with Ivan Robertson and Usha Rout, on participants' attitudes towards the use of assessment centres for selection and development purposes, including gender differences in attitudes.

Most approaches to the management of equal opportunity in the “race” field in the UK have emphasised policy development and communication, gender and ethnic monitoring, and attention to developing recruitment and selection practices that ensure a more representative workforce. Race training, especially racism awareness training, has often been given a key role. Organisation development (OD) approaches have not tended to be influential, despite the origins of OD in addressing practical problems of race relations. Drawing on empirical work with assessment procedures, in particular the use of developmental assessment centres, and on work on improving collaboration between nurses and social workers so as to enable women of Asian origin to enjoy greater access to hospital social work services, it is argued that such OD approaches as teambuilding, survey feedback and targeted career development are crucial to the management of equal opportunity, and to the management of cultural change.

Most organisations attempting to implement equal opportunity with regard to race issues have concentrated on policy formulation, monitoring and training. Despite recent criticism, racism awareness training has been frequently adopted, often in isolation from developments in other human resource functions. However, strategic integration of all the HRM functions is necessary if equal opportunity objectives are to be achieved. Drawing on empirical research in assessment centres and on interorganisational collaboration, it is argued that this requires developments in recruitment, selection, training, career development, appraisal and reward functions and attention to issues of cultural change.

Many British employers are less than enthusiastic about the Government's proposals to abolish the 26 wages councils which set statutory minimum wage rates for 2.5 million employees. In its response to the Department of Employment's Wages Councils: 1988 consultation document, the Institute of Personal Management continues to reject a “blanket” approach of total abolition of all wage's councils. The I.P.M.'s view, first formed in 1982 after a major review of the operation of wages councils, is in line with the recommendation of the House of Commons Employment Committee in 1985 that it is right to review and reform but not abolish wages councils.