Recent high profile news stories about celebrities pilfering from supermarkets might seem odd, but most of us, at one time or another, have indulged in some petty theft, and one of the most common places to steal from is the workplace.

It’s not about money – it’s about control, and the reason many people steal at work is to have control over some part of their work life, or to gain something that they feel entitled to but are prevented from having – resentment pilfering is a major problem for big organisations. The minor risk is a big buzz when pulled off successfully.

The most stolen work items are paper, stamps, other forms of stationery and kitchen equipment such as spoons, glasses etc. The most common place to put such pilfered items is a handbag for women and a backpack for men, closely followed by concealing items in the underwear. Apparently around 30% of pilferers hide small items in their socks!

Those who take things from work often progress to shoplifting and more than half of us will shoplift cosmetics and toiletries (razor blades get taken by men, perfume by women) and small items of clothing such as bras, gloves, hats and costume jewellery.

Employers may offer CBT or other forms of therapy rather than prosecution, and it appears that many who steal from the workplace are actually deterred completely by getting caught – it’s only when they are confronted with the reality of their behaviour that they realise what they are doing is theft, and that is enough to stop them doing it again.

When schools or nurseries shut through bad weather, parents need to have a Plan B, especially if they have to combine working with childcare.  It’s a good idea to make sure you have the resources to entertain stuck at home children whilst continuing to be work, as best you can, from home. But finding the balance between amusing the kids and being an effective worker can be difficult. Here are 3 ideas to make the process easier.

Swiss Family Whoever

When the weather is bad outside, getting the kids to play survival inside is fun and even educational. Set up a tent in the living room (it can just be blankets stretched over chairs for the littlest ones, whilst older kids can use their ingenuity to build a camp from bedding and furniture) and turn off the lights. Hand out torches, and get them to conduct ‘raids’ into various rooms to get the equipment needed (food, books, phones, games consoles etc) whilst remaining silent. Back at camp they can work out how to ration the food etc for themselves. Smart kids will even set up their own missions and treasure hunts.

Winter Wonderland

Simple science can be good fun in bad weather if you take a few precautions. Ensure your children are well wrapped up in layers of outdoor clothing and that you have warm, dry garments to hand indoors. Then let them try a few experiments: examining snowflakes under a powerful magnifying glass, for example, or raindrop races down a window. Perhaps give them some equipment to try and make a wind gauge or if it’s very muddy outside, send them out to discover and identify bird and animal tracks. Even in a city you can get the kids to look at the growth of moss and lichens between paving slabs and on city trees and try to work out how the plant got there and what it survives on. Back home, write up a science journal and drink hot chocolate to reward the budding scientist.

Artistic Endeavour

Teens can be encouraged to make snowmen or snow angels if the weather is really bad, or even to paint pictures in the snow using food colouring. If it’s really atrocious outside, get them to customise their own old clothing, or yours, using fabric paint, scissors and ingenuity – then hold a fashion show!

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.

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.

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!

Over 100 runners recently high-tailed along the course of the Mayfair Park and Tower Race. It’s a tough urban experience, starting with a 4 km sprint around the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, then a run up the entire 56 flights of stairs from the ground floor of the Park Lane London Hilton to the Michelin starred Galvin at Windows bar and restaurant.

It’s not all arduous endeavour – the runners are then able to enjoy a restorative champagne breakfast at Galvins.  The Hilton in the Community Foundation organises the annual event to provide funding for young Londoners through an apprenticeship programme called Galvin’s Chance. The runners are a mixture of staff at the hotel, famous faces and keen amateur athletes and this year they have raised more than £20,000.

The young people helped by the charity don’t just get funds, as ex-offenders have the chance of training and mentoring, including apprenticeships in London hotels and eating houses. In association with the Springboard Charity these young people are found jobs, housing, and given basic life skill such as learning to budget and cook, how to look after their clothing and appearance when working in public, and skills such as handling and making complaints, negotiating with others and team-building skills. Many will undertake NVQs in hospitality at college while they are working as waiting or kitchen staff.

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.

IFF Research claims that British business will struggle to embed volunteering as part of the workplace, following the discovery that while 38% of those who replied said their employer encouraged or allow volunteering during work hours, only 7% of employees undertook such volunteering. 13% of responders said that their employer forbade or discouraged volunteering on work time. It suggests, according to the research company, that while a significant minority across the UK (27% of workers interviewed) had undertaken volunteering while in their current employment, only one in 14 of them had done so on paid time.

IFF suggests that motivating employees to volunteer on company time will give companies a reputation for good corporate social responsibility, provide for a more rounded workforce, and help create the volunteering culture the government feels essential to the Big Society.

An example might be the development of the Pet Society shop in Paddington. A coincidence led to an elderly woman visiting the shop asking for help because her recently deceased dead husband’s dog was pining, at the time an elderly man whose dog had died was browsing the shelves. It seemed only logical for them to arrange for the man to exercise the dog and that led to a volunteer run shop selling pet food, clothing and accessories plus hosting a fortnightly clinic with an advisor from the Dogs Trust to do health checks on pets.

Entirely volunteer staffed, the shop provides more than dog support – volunteers have been able to develop new skills that will help them get jobs. Wearing a uniform, using the till, developing relationships and offering advice are all key factors that allow individuals to ease back into working life after a period of unemployment, looking after children or relatives at home, or illness.

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.

There are some concerns in the USA about the role of uniform clothing in spreading disease in hospitals. The item of concern is scrubs, the overall style clothing worn by nurses and support workers in healthcare and the fear is that without proper guidelines, staff may spread dangerous bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA.
The problem may arise when people wear their uniforms outside of hospital settings – such as on their way to and from work. This would permit outside infections to travel into a hospital setting on the clothing but also give these transmittable conditions the chance to leave the hospital and contaminate the outside world.

Many institutions insist that people do not travel to work in their uniform clothing and leave it behind when they depart so it can be specially laundered to destroy any bacteria, but some do not and this is what is worrying health specialists.

Prince William had a different concern when choosing the uniform to wear to his wedding: he didn’t want to be suffering from heat-stroke! The tailor who made his uniform says that William ‘knew all the cameras and lights would make it very hot in the Abbey’ and they worked together to ‘get the look he wanted while using material to absorb the heat and make sure he didn’t pass out in front of two billion people across the world.’

In designing the outfits, which were hand-made, a special pocket was included to hold the ring so that Prince Harry couldn’t lose it!