Hi guys

I just want to make sure I understand there is no way around it except using VisualForce.

I have an Employee object, with a field for First Name, a field for Last Name, a field for Middle Name.  And then I have the standard Name field (which I renamed to Employee Id) which is an auto-generated number.  (I wish to use the standard Name field to store the employee names but standard Name field is at most only 80 characters long, which can sometimes present challenges for names.)

I have some other objects that have lookup to Employee.  In those edit forms, when I click the lookup icon, the lookup screen displays Employee Id.  I know I can tailor the page so it'll also show Last Name, First Name, Middle Name.  But I can only choose the employee by clicking the Employee Id, and when the lookup icon closes, it is the Employee Id that is displayed in the original form (from which the lookup window is called).  

1. Is there any way that, instead of showing Employee Id, that I show the Employee Name (which is a formula field in the Employee object)? (without using Visualforce that is)

2. I really was hoping I could make the Employee object to work like the standard Contact object, so that when you're in the edit form, the name is split into FIrst Name/Last Name fields, but when you display the Employee record in detail form it shows as one field.  Has anyone successfully implemented an Employee object like a Contact object?

Thanks