David Cameron is about to announce that unused Government offices will be offered to budding entrepreneurs as launch pads for new businesses across the UK. The idea is to try and kick-start the economy through an entrepreneurship boost.

The huge stock of buildings owned by the government is to be used to match capacity to need by providing more than 300 premises at low rents for a year boosting Treasury finances and giving entrepreneurs a chance to rocket their business ideas into reality.

And like Cinderella, dress is all important. Rick Santorum, a candidate for the American Presidency, has been winning friends and votes through his dress code. While his rivals wear boring suits, he has launched out into what the Americans call a sweater vest – what the British have always called a tank top. However he does in the candidacy race, he’s certainly gained a massive amount of recognition through his appearance, and that’s a lesson for all entrepreneurs. Marketing matters, not just for your business, but for you as the figure who embodies the business. So self marketing means:

Look at what your competition is doing and dare to be different. Think about Richard Branson and the Virgin adverts which subverted the ‘traditional’ adverts of other companies, just as his jeans and shirt wardrobe subverted the ‘suits’ of his rivals.

Entertain people – wear something bright, something relaxed, something that people can talk about. Even if they don’t like it, they will remember you: bright polo shirts with smart casual trousers can look good for men, or for women, a jewel coloured camisole top under a designer jacket can really make you stand out from the crowd.

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.

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 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!

Just about every workplace research project and survey has proved that motivated employees not only get their motivation from being in a happy workplace, they motivate others to become more highly motivated, productive and energetic – and that businesses that are classed as ‘pleasant environments’ by employees are also those that have the lowest levels of absenteeism and sick leave.

So it’s in any employer’s interest to provide a creative and fun working environment to improve efficiency and performance. Here are a few tips to help turn your business into a great place to work:

•    Flexibility – allowing variety in working hours and working systems means that early birds and night owls can each schedule work time to suit their own natural energy systems. Occasional work from home also gives staff a break and a boost.
•    Exercise – getting a trainer or fitness guru into your workplace to give your team a workout can be a brilliant resource. Endorphins rush through their individual systems and collectively the idea of working out as a team builds confidence in each other. Get them to bring in their favourite T-shirt and shorts or joggers so they can get into a quick zumba routine or play a game of rounders in the car park at lunchtime.
•    Make fun a priority – have little games and contests – guess the number of bulldog clips in a jar or racing to answer the phone first are silly little bits of fun that can get everybody in the mood for excellence. Surprise a team with smoothies for breakfast or hire in a burger van for a day and let the whole organisation take a break for a burger and a cup of builder’s tea together.
•    Take ten-minute time-outs – buy a dvd and put ten minute yoga exercises on the company intranet: get each team, division or group to take little breaks. Work out ten minute walks that start from the office or factory and post them up around the building with jackets and umbrellas for people to borrow so they can get fresh air even if the weather turns nasty: get staff to take photos of fun things they see on these walks and post them on the intranet or on noticeboards.
•    Look for the fun side. If there’s a deadline looming, tell jokes about deadlines and reprieves. Get the funniest people in the organisation to share their hilarious experiences of dealing with difficult customers during coffee breaks. Put up a cartoon board near the coffee machine or water cooler and get people to caricature each other during times of great stress. When the tough times are over, make a wall of fame detailing those who really made a difference during the crisis, with thank-you notes from inside the organisation and out.

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.