Party Planning

if you’re charged with organising an office party, ensure that all staff are invited, to avoid potential discrimination claims: this means choosing a venue and entertainments that will suit people of non-Christian faiths or no faith and that they should have the choice to opt out if they feel uncomfortable for any reason – and if partners of employees are invited, make sure you include same-sex partners.

Pacing and getting home

If you’re organising or attending a work’s Christmas party, remember that alcohol can cause more than merriment: and that you can lose a job through your behaviour if you drink too much during a work event. Employers need to be aware that if they contribute to an employee’s drunkenness by running an open tab at the bar and or providing booze at the dinner table, and then need to discipline that employee for their behaviour they could actually be considered to have contributed to the problem, and might find themselves facing an Industrial Tribunal. And remember that employers who let staff drive when they are under the influence may be legally liable too – a company has a duty of care to staff which includes ensuring people have sensible plans for getting home when alcohol is involved.

Dressing up

If you have a workplace party, make sure that the Christmas tree and decorations don’t present risks to health and safety – and when people dress up for Christmas events in the workplace it can be a risky issue too: Converse trainers instead of safety shoes, sparkly dresses instead of T-shirts and trousers and distressed denim instead of polo-shirts and chinos can all lead to accidents as clothing dips, dangles and drapes into machinery around the workplace.

Traditions

Watch out for habits and customs. It’s not just mistletoe that can lead to misunderstandings: when employees have been used to getting a Christmas bonus or days off, and the company has to change the set up for some reason, it can lead to discontent: promises made verbally can be considered binding in law, so ensure managers aren’t mistakenly telling staff that ‘traditional’ benefits will continue unless that’s actually the case.

Entering a family-run business can be a difficult proposition for both family and non-family members. Here’s a simple guide to getting it right.

Check for Rules

A family business can often have no clear structures, as family members pick up (and put down) tasks and responsibilities in a fluid fashion. While this can be a great way to transfer skills, it’s also a recipe for chaos. A good business still has guidelines, job descriptions and clear lines of decision-making – if the business doesn’t seem to have this, think carefully about joining it, as you have no way of objecting to requests or arbitrary changes to your work, if that’s how everybody else operates. Remember that these rules should apply to everybody and prevent overdue leniency where family members are concerned, and stop nepotism.

Work Relationships

If you are in a family business as a family member, it’s important that you have a clear demarcation between family and work life. One way to do this is to have a separate workplace (even if it’s a desk within your home) that you only go to for your ‘day job’ and to have distinctive clothing that you only wear when you are ‘at work’. This stops you slipping into family relationships in the work zone and also stops the constant intrusion of work into family time. The rule should be if you’re dressed for work you are at work, if you are not dressed for work, work should not be mentioned.

Conflict

Every workplace has some conflict, but in family businesses it’s important to demarcate work conflict and family issues;

•    Never mention relationships or personal issues in a work argument – if your little brother outranks you in the office, don’t call him ‘baby bro’ in a work based argument, it’s an abuse of family privilege.
•    Keep work arguments to the workplace, don’t let them spill into family time or space
•    Keep to the policies established in the workplace when handling work conflict
•    If necessary, use an independent mediator to help you and family members explore work-based conflict.

Performance

Ensure an annual review applies to all staff – and don’t let off family members because you know their personal circumstances. It may be best to appoint an outsider to conduct reviews alongside the boss, to keep everything honest and fair.

There seems to be an increasing concern about the role of clothing in small businesses, particularly those that offer some kind of professional service. As companies downsize and out-source, it’s becoming important that the appearance of all those involved in a company reflect the company ethos, including the professional nature and status of the organisation. The loss of intervening layers of middle management often means that those at the front of the business, such as receptionists, are the figureheads for the business in general and so their appearance becomes vital.

However, it can be difficult for small firms to discuss, let alone impose, a dress code on members of staff who have got used to dressing casually or provocatively. One sensitive way of dealing with this issue is to hold a firm-wide seminar or lunch meeting on the subject of Appropriate Work Clothing using one of the many online guides to dressing for success. Divide the company on gender lines for this event and offer some light-hearted fun as well as serious exploration of what counts as professionally appropriate clothing.

You can, for example, invest in some clothing props: these could be anything from fridge magnets of famous figures with a range of magnetic outfits through to paper cut-out dressing up dolls, right up to shop window dummies and cheap clothing in the form of second-hand or discount clothing. These can be used during the session to create the most and least appropriate outfits for various situations: work, barbecue, going to the theatre etc – this stops it feeling like a lecture and gives people an idea of how to put an outfit together: not a skill that everybody possesses!  If you really want to invest in your staff, you can even get an image consultant to come in and suggest the best colours for each member of the team to wear.

Once the seminar has taken place, you can have one-to-one conversations with any team member who is sloppy or overly sexy in their dress habits, confident that you can hold a conversation on professional grounds without it being seen as a judgement on personal style.

A recent survey by Peninsula, the legal specialists, discovered that over 60% of British workers have had a workplace affair.

For companies this is a dangerous issue: every employer wants staff who enjoy their jobs, like their colleagues and have fun at work, but when this good workplace vibe tips over into clandestine romance, it can lead to work-based rows, colleagues breaking up and others taking sides, people leaving the workplace to avoid a former lover and even to legal action.

Part of the issue is familiarity which causes us to get to know our colleagues better than anybody else – once we reach a point where the office, factory or shared workspace becomes our world, we start to expect to meet our emotional needs within it, and colleagues easily become sources of admiration, attraction and love. The team-building part of work can also lead to romances – when we’re encouraged to bond with our workmates, it’s easy for them to start looking like life-mates too.

It’s not all bad, around half the people currently working in offices have met a partner at work, according to the Industrial Society, but on the other side, around 20% of people regret work romances enough to leave their jobs, which can be damaging ot the company.

Some organisations try to control workplace romance by setting rules about appropriate clothing and ‘fraternisation’.  This rarely works and can lead to a different form of legal problem, when people object to being restricted in their behaviour. It’s better to try and widen the pool by bringing your workforce into contact with a similar workforce nearby – shared cafeteria facilities, organising sports such as 5-a-side football, running groups at lunchtime or gardening clubs to improve an industrial estate or suite of offices can all bring your staff into contact with people in a similar situation which sparks romance.

For many of us, the lives of Premier League footballers appear to be adult-rated fantasies of sex, shopping and international travel, but Blackburn Rovers have decided to kick against the trend by giving away a big part of their income generation to raise funds for the Prince’s Trust charity.

In addition to wearing the Trust logo on their shirts, the football team have committed to running fundraising throughout the season and to supporting work with disadvantaged youngsters in their region.

In Ireland a charity called Camara (West African for ‘teacher’) takes unwanted computers from Irish businesses and government offices, refurbishes them, loads them with educational software and ships them to Africa and the West Indies. This month it sent computer number 25,000 to West Africa, where it will help children learn how to use computers and to study other subjects that they may not have physical teachers for (such as sciences and languages) via the specially chosen software.

The charity’s Chief Executive said, ‘We have hit a milestone in Camara’s history in exceeding the 25,000 mark for computers distributed. I want to thank all of those that have given technology, time or donations and contributed in reaching this significant achievement.’

Several organisations now collect and refurbish office equipment for use in charities or as training aids for the homeless or the elderly who may be unfamiliar with new technology. There are also new charity recycling schemes in several UK cities offering people the chance to bring old but good work clothing into a depot where it will be redistributed to homeless people or those with special needs to help them dress appropriately for job interviews.

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.

Hilary Devey is the new female dragon in the Dragons’ Den and she’s launched into fire-breathing already by claiming that ‘Women want children, women crave the family life and you can’t ever have it all. Men can, women can’t’ in an interview she gave to the Telegraph newspaper.

While that’s a personal decision, every business has to ensure that women aren’t sacrificed to business imperatives, because it damages the organisation and may even lead to legal challenges.

Devey says her family may well have suffered through her determination, but both legislation and business logic dictate that making career progression difficult for women is bad business sense.

Adapting the workplace

Women with children or elderly relatives for whom they are primary carers need different work structures. This can actually add depth and value to a business: in Norway many women pool their resources, bringing elderly relatives to each other’s houses and ‘parent-sitting’ as part of job-share arrangements. This means that they become very loyal employees as they don’t wish to give up such mutually satisfying work-life arrangements. In parts of South East Asia, lunch rooms are turned over to women in the afternoons so they can feed babies and help children with homework before returning to their desks to work an extra hour in the evening to make up for their family time. And in Africa, many women who have to leave the formal workplace to care for children set up ancillary businesses to keep in touch with their old workmates. This can range from cleaning the clothing of their former bosses to making snacks that they sell to their former colleagues.

In the UK, the request for flexible working is a right that employers have to treat seriously but perhaps looking at the entrepreneurial instincts of women in the workplace would help us have more female dragons!

Regus, the virtual office people, have conducted some international research that shows we are still highly national when it comes to packing for our business travel.

Nearly half the Australian business travellers who responded packed bathing trunks, a swimsuit or a set of sports clothing, compared to just 27% of the rest of the world.

On the other hand, only 6% of Australians packed hygiene supplies like hand sanitising gel, while, in the rest of the world, 15% of business travellers packed some kind of disinfecting toiletry.

7% of business travellers from the Indian sub-continent packed a musical instrument. A quarter of Chinese travellers tucked a lucky charm into their case but 39% of them packed a computer game. 24% of those Indian travellers took a suit when they travelled, but less than 5% of Australians packed a shirt, let alone a suit. One did take along his snake-catching kit though!

Many people entering the workplace for the first time after school or college, or returning to work after a break, are finding it difficult to master buying and wearing a work wardrobe. It’s particularly tough when you have a limited budget, if, say you’re in your first job and juggling student debt and the need to pay for food, rent and other unavoidable bills.

Larger firms are giving advice and even seminars to new staff to help them through the first few difficult months but if you don’t work for a company that’s going to train you to buy the right gear, here are some tips to help.

•    Try to develop a sense of your new workplace before making an investment in workwear.  You can do this by wandering past the building at lunchtime and seeing what people are wearing as they come out, or by Googling a big firm on the internet to see what the people in news stories and on the company website pages are wearing. That stops you buying garments that are too casual, like vests for the office, or too formal, like shirts for the building site, and that are therefore never worn.
•    Get a friend to come and help you sort your current clothing out before you buy, often a fresh pair of eyes can show you how to use items you’ve barely or never worn, or shows you could sell barely worn and unwanted garments to help fund your new purchases.
•    When buying casual, check the washing labels as it can be annoying to have to use special washing machine programmes or even hand-wash work clothing.
•    Set and budget and buy online. Online retailers often provide discounts for multiple purchases so, for example, you can buy six polo-shirts and get one free, or get free delivery which allows you to buy another shirt! They don’t do that on the high street.

News from Scotland suggests that charities may experience up to a 25% drop in income as a result of a massive decline in clothing collection and it’s happening because firms that sell on donated clothing to make money are cutting into the charities’ income!

The British Heart Foundation says that it could be losing around £3 million annually. Firms are distributing leaflets that meet the law by saying that the bag with which the leaflet is given away is from a limited company, not a charity, but the print is very small and the large print, includes words like ‘kindly donate’ and that the items will ‘reach those who do not have possibility to purchase new footwear and clothing’ along with logos very similar to those of major charities. Some companies are even asking for ‘donations’ of old mobile phones and laptops which they simply trade in or resell.

Charities are asking for householders to be given clearer information from collectors about where the proceeds of their goods are going so they can make an informed choice about where to donate their unwanted clothing and other items.

In happier news, the armed forces charity Help for Heroes is close to achieving £100 million in public donations. The charity builds recovery centres for soldiers injured in recent conflicts and offers a range of opportunities such as retraining in independent living, providing resources for ex-service people to find work, undertake sport and other healthy activities, helping them to live an integrated life with their families and wear stylish clothing. Recently £8 million was spent on building a pool and gym at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court in Headley, Surrey.