Posted By J Knight Hi Liam, Quick yahoo search turned up zero hits for this term in the UK; I've certainly never heard of it, John

Posted By Liam Nolan Hi, you may have heard of it by a different term - EPF (if I may) have turned out to be factors that will help an employee decide that they no longer wish to work in a place. It does sound like a phrase something our American cousin would coin. I believe it is usually associated with ambient conditions thar provoke population movements - for instance if a volcano was near a pop center and it threatened to erupt - this would be an environemntal push factor - ie the surrounding environment 'pushed' the pop to move. At the moment it is being used in a much more, dare I say it, sinister way. The national airline carrier (Aer Lingus) here in Ireland has had a 'discussion' document leaked which describes 'EPF' that would help employees decide if they wanted to take redundancy etc. Things like changeing shift patterns to make them unsocial and / or awkward for employees with young families. Another one mentioned is the 'tap on the shoulder' - middle management and supervisory staff being told there was no promotion prospects for them. A suggestion that a new tacky uniform would be introduced (polo shirt and jump suit - can you imagine?) would affect the older female employees and their physical atributes (not my wording of feelings so appoligies to any insults given). Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone had come across these type of EPF using safety as a basis for the push. (ie. using safety reasons to create an EPF). Liam