Employee Health - my responsibility or yours?

So who is responsible for ensuring a healthy workforce? Is it all down to the individual or does the employer have a role to play in the well-being of their staff?

According to the latest article by resident Personnel Today blogger HR Harriet, employers do need to show concern for their workers, but 'you can lead a horse to water'... A challenging topic that is likely to become a big issue in the next few years.

Inmates or Teammates?

Are we turning the labour relations clock back to the Industrial Revolution as a consequence of the tough ecomonic times? Apparently so according to Derek Irvine in HR Toolbox. He looks at how companies have switched their emphasis from the person to the process, and how this has led to a dehumanising of the workforce. Well worth a read.

Crisis management - how did the Chilean mine owners fare?

The miners are rescued, the temporary village set up at the site has been taken down and for many of those involved in the rescue, life has already moved on. But perhaps there are lessons to be taken from the way the mine owners managed the crisis that can apply to any business?

This article by John Kershaw in Management Today looks at how the response in Chile was handled, and suggests that there are indeed parallels with how companies handle major events.

Small businesses ignoring HR responsibilities

Many small business owners and managers are busy finding ways to stay afloat in these difficult times. Perhaps this may explain the findings of a recent report in HR Review that suggests that a high proportion of SMEs are failing to put in place any sort of HR policies.

Understandable perhaps, but as the article suggests it is a very risky approach at a time when the likelihood of litigation from staff and ex-staff is higher than ever.

OrgSurv Briefs

A warning to those attached to their phones... Rescuers in China's southeastern Jiangsu province have freed a man who had gotten his arm stuck in a toilet while trying to retrieve his mobile phone. (ITN)

When rescue workers arrived on the scene, they found the man crouched over the toilet in a bathroom stall, his entire arm submerged deep into the drain up to his shoulder. Workers broke the porcelain bowl and hammered the pipes taking care not to injure the man.

After ten minutes of work, the man slowly removed his cut and bruised arm from the bowels of the bowl, retrieving his waterlogged phone, state television CCTV said.

And finally...proof that the world really has gone mad. Italian prosecutors have launched a real inquiry into a virtual crime -- a burglary of items including a jacuzzi, a designer sofa and a billiards table from the popular Facebook game Pet Society. (AFP)

The inquiry is for "illegal and aggravated entry" into someone's email account - a charge that carries a potential prison sentence of between one and five years in prison under Italy's criminal code, officials said on Friday.

"In order to furnish the house you have to go to virtual shops for furniture, clothes and gifts," the woman who reported the crime, 44-year-old Paola Letizia, was quoted as saying in Italian media reports.

Letizia, an official at the local car registration office in Palermo in Sicily, also reported missing paintings, carpets, an acquarium, mirrors - all for a luxurious home the woman had built up for her virtual cat.

Italy's postal police has been given the task of tracking down the thief.