By allowing staff to loosen their ties and leave their jackets at home, the TUC is hoping most employers will adopt a more relaxed approach to office attire, if only for the hottest days of the summer, and help make work a bit more bearable. (more…)

But the one which stuck most with staff was the requirement to monitor what their friends were writing on their profiles, and to delete anything that might ‘violate AP standards’ - in other words, you’re responsible for your friends as well as yourself. Kevin Keane, of the AP staff union, the News Media Guild, said “It is making some people cringe. It is not appropriate for a company that heralds free speech”. (more…)

Different people are using it in different ways, and many finding it opens up some great new ways to keep in touch or to make new contacts. Problem is, it’s just like any other social network in that it also opens up some very effective new ways to lose your job, if you’re not thinking about the implications of how you’re using it. (more…)

You can also read more about the event (with other tools and games to fiddle with during your precious break times) at www.workyourproperhoursday.com

Try the Long Hours Clinic tool now

If you’re one of them, you might be missing out on extra £5,139 a year if you’d been paid for the additional 7 hours and 6 minutes that you’re on average putting in.

The biggest increases in unpaid overtime have taken place in London, the East Midlands and Eastern England. The South East and Scotland have been better at keeping up their work life balance though, with the number of people working unpaid overtime actually falling slightly.

If the average unpaid overtime worker did all their unpaid work at the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be Friday 27 February, which we call ‘Work Your Proper Hours Day‘ - a light-hearted awareness day for staff to work their proper hours for at least one day a year and for employers to thank their staff for regularly putting in all those extra hours at work.

But while some of this increase is due to the longs-hours culture that still dogs too many British workplaces, the recession will now be making many people scared of losing their job in the year ahead and joining the ever-growing dole-queue.

It’s understandable people are going to be putting in extra hours if they think it can help protect against redundancy or help keep their employer in business. But this doesn’t mean people should ignore excessive working.

Friday 27 February should still be used to think through working hours. Long hours are bad for people’s health, and employers should never forget that each extra hour worked makes people less productive once they’re over a sensible working week.

We think the recession should, if anything, provide a spur to make workplaces more productive, and for managers to get staff to work together more effectively, not just compete for who can stay the latest.

Find out more about Work Your Proper Hours Day 2009.

Given that staff may end up having to do more themselves this year, we’ve redeveloped our online secret Santa tool, to make it easier to arrange low price gift giving amongst your colleagues. You tell us your colleagues’ names and addresses and it will do the rest, pairing people up with someone, but keeping it all hush hush as to who bought what for who.

Give it a go now at www.worksmart.org.uk/santa - It’s a fun, inexpensive way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive in workplaces that might not have had much to smile about recently.

You can also use our online greetings cards to send a personal Christmas message to friends and colleagues. You’ll find a selection of Christmas themed cards in our ecards section.

And to help those at work over the festive break, we’ve put together a guide to the pitfalls of working through Christmas and the New Year. Banned from sticking up tinsel, or worried you’ll have to work through Christmas lunch? We’ve got answers for your festive problems.

And of course, all of us at workSMART want to wish all our users a very happy Christmas and a great start to the working year in 2009.

This could have a huge impact on the firms they work for, who may stand to lose valuable commercial or customer data, or lose money through damage or downtime due to attacks, not to mention getting people into trouble - whether or not they know what they’ve done wrong.

The benefits that the Internet brings to UK business are growing every day. Social media and networking are increasingly important to people’s professional and personal lives. But employers have to put time and money into making sure their staff are aware of the dangers associated with working online, or they could just be pouring all the money they spend on the rest of their computer security systems down the drain.

So, to do something about this, we’ve got together with GetSafeOnline.org and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) to produce Not Safe For Work? - a free online toolkit for people at work in the UK. It has video interviews from industry experts, quizzes and reading lists, and can make you a personalised advice prescription, tailored to your own Internet usage.

Have a go now, it could tell you something that will save you a lot of grief.

And hey, let’s be careful out there!

But if you’d just rather browse the web in denial, we can (with tongue firmly in cheek) recommend a helpful utility called Recessionblocker.com, which simply screens out any of the gloomier words that might upset you when reading the news.

The TUC’s Brendan Barber said: “We were surprised how many times we found that employers’ dress codes did not permit the wearing of comfortable sensible footwear by women. These dress codes – apart from being blatantly sexist – can lead to long-term foot and back problems. Feet bear the brunt of the daily working life and instead of worrying about what their staff look like, employers should focus on the effect that the wrong shoes and prolonged standing can have. Employers should look at encouraging their staff to come to work in comfortable shoes and, where possible, provide the option of sitting.”

So if you’re a city Cinderella, or worried you need special shoes to stay safe in your own working environment, check out all your problems in the TUC guide.

…and don’t get us started on neckties.