Many people are finding the new focus on Halloween in the UK quite a struggle. Many of us do not naturally dress up and parade around, and we find the whole focus on costumes and sweeties (or candy, as the Americans would say) a bit like the worst kind of childhood party.

This isn’t the way to think about the day – by changing your mindset you can see it as a chance to boost skills, build team spirit and enjoy a completely different way of being involved in the workplace.

• Begin by making sure your costume is appropriate and allows you to work in comfort. Anything too provocative or topical may offend or upset others, so stick to a traditional costume or focus on something low-key like dressing as a cowboy, chef or vampire might help you get into the spirit. If you really can’t bear to dress up, then why not offer to photograph everybody else? That allows you to have a role and to take part in the fun without having to wear something silly.
• Take part in making plans – organise a committee of people who want to celebrate Halloween and ensure that all departments or teams are involved so that no one group.
• Plan the whole day – it’s too easy to spend ten minutes having fun and then the rest of the day feeling like a complete fool because nothing’s going on. Organise a little something for every hour of the work day, whether it’s putting photos of people in costume on the intranet and getting others to vote on who’s most scary, or a limerick competition with first lines based on famous horror stories, or a quick tour of the offices with some Halloween sweets for everybody.
• Charity fundraising can be a part of your day: either ‘fine’ people who haven’t dressed up, or charge those who have a small fee to have their photographs taken with some props you’ve purchased for the day, like a plastic skull and some black candles. Organise for somebody to tell fortunes (bad ones, of course!) and set a small charge for this with the money going to charity.

The Accrington Stanley team have demonstrated their support for the East Lancashire Hospice by wearing specially printed T-shirts for their team warm up each Saturday.

The T-shirts are designed to help raise awareness about the services the hospice offers as well as raising money for it. Supporters are encouraged to contribute to the running costs of the Hospice during a collection held before the match. The season-long partnership will have events most weeks to raise funds for the hospice.

Over in Coventry, shoppers were surprised by office workers dressed as animals. The ‘beasts’ who work in Homeless Internationals office usually wear office attire but for one day they put on animal costumes and travelled the city centre to raise funds for the charity’s slum dweller programmes in Africa and Asia. Two of the staff even chose to wear their costumes on their cycle to work, rather than donning their usual casual clothing.

November is a great time to organise a clothing based charity event at work, as it coincides with Halloween. Many employers are now offering the chance to wear fancy dress for the day as a way of building team spirit in the office or factory along with giving something back to the local community or a nominated charity.

Guiseley school in Yorkshire and Nailsea school near Bristol have been hitting the headlines around the world. But it’s not their educational standards or a heart-warming story of child-bravery that’s led to the Los Angeles Times and the Globe and Mail featuring these centres of learning.

It’s skirt length

Both schools have had problems with female students wearing skirts that are considered too short. Guiseley has opted for a no-skirt policy, offering girls the chance to wear smart uniform trousers instead, while Nailsea has a GCSE student refusing to attend school because she can’t wear an item she and her parents consider to be uniform appropriate and the school doesn’t, leading to an exclusion.

Uniforms at work can present issues too – employers have had to come to terms with cultural, religious and even colour-based complaints about uniforms. When a Traditional Chinese Medicine shopping chain was taken over by a larger health food chain, the staff at the TCM shops objected to wearing their new white uniform tops as they feared it would convince customers that they were in mourning for dead clients: white is the colour of death in China.

Making sensible choices that work for both staff and the company isn’t difficult. Clothing for work needs to be easy to wear and easy to clean, safe and smart. Involving employees in decisions about uniforms, perhaps by letting them choose clothing from a range authorised by Head Office, is a good way of giving an element of choice to the individual. Some schools in the UK have started making uniform clothing a semi-democratic choice too, by offering sixth form students a chance to vote for their uniform items from a predefined set of options. Hoodies have often been a contentious item for students and schools have found that offering a hoody with a large and clear school logo on the back of the hoodie meets the needs of the community to feel the children are not ‘feral youth’ and the desire of the students to look stylish.

In Burton, a group of young people involved with the Prince’s Trust are desperately seeking a project or two! They want to undertake some community work in the second two weeks of October but, as of right now, they have nothing to do.

Their previous projects have included helping local schools make nature gardens and allotments, assisting at day centres and lunch clubs and decorating community centres and church halls. They’ve even pulled on their overalls and run a car wash to raise money for a project. Now they need something big enough to keep around a dozen 16-25 year olds busy for a fortnight and they are keen to take on something big enough to allow them to manage the project, find the materials necessary to complete it, and even do the fund-raising to get started.

And in Grimsby, a woman in her seventies has made a large donation to charity after her faith in people was restored by a local business. Sylvia Smith was conned out of a large sum of money by fake roofers who pretended to mend her roof. When her story make the papers, a local business, Roofing Solutions, stepped in to do the work for free. Sylvia said, “[I went public] … to warn other people about the traders. I didn’t do it to get anything for free, so I decided to give £500 to St Andrew’s Hospice when [Roofing Solutions] refused to let me pay.”

So whether it’s young people working in the community or local businesses restoring faith in human nature, the relationship between charity, work and improving their immediate surroundings is clearly vital to people and their neighbourhoods.

Apparently, British parents are going to spend nearly £7 billion on looking after and entertaining their children this summer. This breaks down to around £110 per child, per week, for the six week summer break.

A third of parents who responded to a survey on this subject said the costs were impossible to afford and one in ten relied on family members to provide free child care.  Nearly two-thirds of parents are expecting to use discounts and vouchers alongside free activities like museums just to keep the kids busy.

Amusing children

Children are rarely amusing, and difficult to amuse, when the novelty of a long holiday has worn off. There can be few things more annoying than a bored child so preparing some plan B activities can be essential to family harmony:

Old clothes

Using adult clothing as dress up is something that children like to pretend they have grown out of around the age of five or six. But a twist on this theme can keep them happy for hours. List famous characters: Napoleon, Hermione Granger, Dr Who, Boudicca, Eminem, Lady GaGa in sealed envelopes and put old clothes in a huge hamper. Let each child pick an envelope and then, when they all know who they are ‘playing’ go through the hamper and make costumes. They have to stay in character for a preset time, speaking and acting like the name they picked and the winner gets to decide what to have for dinner.

Old paint

If you can bear it, give the children the inside of the garage, leftover paint and brushes. Designing and painting a mural can keep children amused for days, especially if the weather is bad. Make sure they wear suitable protective clothes though.

Work and Family

Employers can help by:

•    Researching the options available locally: a notice-board near the kettle can help parents identify opportunities to amuse their children and earn a little sanity for themselves.
•    Offering networking opportunities: allowing parents to share childcare ideas and even bulk-buy solutions such as a coach trip with qualified childcare workers as group leaders.
•    Providing a work-based solution such as a short-term crèche in the workplace for one week of the summer holidays – usually the first – so parents can feel sure they have childcare cover in the first few days and then have time to sort out other options: this can be really valuable for parents who are dealing with the first summer holiday.
•    Ensuring they have a plan to learn from each year’s experiences with holidays: for small businesses in particular it can be the case that all employees have children of a similar age and so there are new things to learn every year. If summer holidays don’t go well this year, make sure the same mistakes are never made again. Kids never forget a bad summer but businesses may not survive one!

In Ireland, a major energy provider has won the battle not to compensate its staff after removing the uniform privileges it had offered.

Over 600 employees of Bord Gais brought a court case claiming they deserved compensation after the withdrawal of uniform allocation. Bord Gais is a partly state-funded company whose staff said they had incurred expenses in maintaining or buying items to replace the corporate clothing that was previously issued every two years. The management countered this claim with the statement that as staff were not required to buy new uniforms, but were allowed to wear clothing of their choice, no compensation would be paid. Previously the employees got two uniform jackets, four pairs of trousers or four skirts, eight shirts, and two ties which were issued in 2004 and 2007, but not in 2009 when the company decided an allocation of workplace clothing would be reckless in the face of potential rebranded due to changing EU energy legislation.

Bord Gais has now said it will discuss a “common sense approach” to the issue of branded corporate clothing with unions with a view to cutting costs in a difficult economic environment.

Other employers may wish to look at this ruling and see if it effects their own uniform policy – in other EU countries staff are currently challenging the issuing of uniform items that have to be dry-cleaned as the employees say this is an unfair requirement. A case in Italy has been won on this basis but is being reviewed under appeal in a higher court.

Oceanair International’s staff came up with a brilliant way to help the British Red Cross, and the people who travel on their flights.  They’ve agreed to store, sort and send on to the charity the unwanted possessions of emigrants. Many of Oceanair’s clients have piles of household goods and clothing that they don’t want or need and yet don’t want to throw away when moving abroad.

The unwanted items, ranging from clothes to children’s toys to kitchen equipment are often in very good condition and the charity is able to sell them to raise funds for projects. So far more than £4,000 has been produced by selling the items in the charity’s shops, allowing vulnerable people in crisis in the UK and overseas to be helped in their most difficult experiences.

The ten lorry loads of material that have been transferred from Oceanair’s terminal to the charity’s shops have been pretty varied – including three pianos!

It might not be what you expect of largely Mormon Salt Lake City but for one PR agency there, it’s become a habit to forget to wear trousers.

For a five week period from mid July to mid August, Richter7 employees are encouraged to wear anything but trousers to work in a ‘no pants’ policy. Garments often seen around the water cooler include: shorts, skirts, capris, sarongs, breeches, lederhosen kilts, and saris. Lungis and dhotis have been seen and even a leopard skin modesty pouch a la Tarzan! And such unusual work clothing is even worn to meetings with clients. Those who forget and turn up in trousers are fined by the knickerbocker police.

There’s a serious side to this silliness though. Utah reaches 100 degrees regularly throughout the summer and the no-trousers policy allows people to dress to meet the weather, while encouraging them to donate good clothing to a national charity that gives garments to needy individuals by ‘popping pants’ into the donation bin placed in the centre of the building’s parking area. It’s also a way of encouraging staff to remember that charitable giving is important all year round, by offering a ‘Christmas in July’ approach to getting employees to give money, goods or even time to good causes.

Events being held to celebrate the ‘no pants’ approach include a “Cool Down” party, providing frozen treats for the 36-person agency every day that the temperature exceeds 100 degrees, and buying a new pair of shorts for each employee.

It may seem like summer is over already, but there will be plenty of sunny days ahead and it’s a good idea to think about workplace fundraising in the summer for three reasons:
1.    Staff who get the chance to take a break from work are generally more motivated on their return
2.    Investing in your local area and its community activities can bring increased awareness of your firm and ‘brand loyalty’ from local people
3.    The public relations that results from community work is positive and lasts longer than advertising for the same spend.

So why not try some of these?

Car Wash

It’s a classic American fundraiser and you can make it even more fun by having the company Chief Executive dress up in a silly costume (but it’s best not to pick a sexist girly outfit as that can backfire on you) and/or other sidelines such as apron-wearing volunteers cooking barbecue or offering soft drinks and home-made cakes for those queuing to have their cars washed. You get three chances to fundraise this way: once for the car wash, once for those who sponsored the CE to dress up and once on the sale of refreshments.

Travel-a-thon

These are catching on in city centres across the world. On a given day, everybody who takes part is sponsored to travel to work in a whacky, non-car-using fashion. Skateboards, inline skates, kayaks and skipping have all been used in the USA, and this can serve a second purpose of giving your less exhibitionistic employees a chance to try out public transport while still raising money for a good cause. Invest in printed T-shirts for participants so everybody knows they are raising money for their chosen charity and ensure they have good safety clothing such as gloves and knee-pads if they are using an extreme travel option.

Community Clean-up

This can be the simplest and most effective of all. Pick a local park or other public area, clear your activity with the council and the police and get gathering litter! People can be sponsored by the square metre cleared or the bin-bags filled. It raises money and improves the local area and if you wear printed T-shirts or overalls, gets you fantastic local publicity. Once again, ensure your teams are properly clothed and have good gloves and eye protectors.

In the USA, we’re constantly told, they are facing a workplace epidemic of obesity costing $168 billion every year – which is 17% of all medical bills in the States.

Dealing with this isn’t easy, especially for employers, and in the UK, large companies are looking to their US counterparts to see how they can best manage the issues surrounding workplace obesity and welfare.

It seems that Americans may be recognising that they need to lose weight and that many are focusing on ways to get slimmer and fitter at work. According to a survey of nearly 6000 workers, 18% claimed they had lost weight at work in 2011 compared to 16% in 2010. But 43% admitted that they had gained weight in their current job.

Reasons for this increase include comfort eating as a result of the increased stress of a recession; longer work hours leading to more time spent seated at work and a tendency to buy the cheaper (and therefore less healthy) options in work canteens and from fast foot restaurants.

28% of American employers say they provide gym classes or gym membership as an employment benefit and around half of those say that they provide places for people to change into sportswear or casual clothing so they can take part in classes or even go for a jog in their lunch break.

But around half of the companies also say that they are concerned about the additional costs of larger workers, ranging from extra time off sick through to having specially made clothing for those who exceed even the XXXL size in which many items of workplace clothing are now made.