HR Professional - October/November 2008 - (Page 12)

UPFRONT ALCOHOL | OBESITY | MANAGING BY THE NUMBERS AFTER-WORK DRINKS: BEWARE THE PITFALLS GETTING TOGETHER WITH CO-WORKERS FOR A BEVVIE OR TWO CAN BE A GREAT WAY TO NETWORK AND BOND WITH COLLEAGUES. HOWEVER, AS WITH ANY ACTIVITY INVOLVING BOOZE, THERE CAN BE DEFINITE CAREER PRATFALLS FOR THOSE WHO OVERINDULGE. A RECENT CAREERBUILDER. COM SURVEY FOUND SOME ALL-TOO-COMMON HAPPY HOUR MISSTEPS AT THE LOCAL WATERING HOLE: World Watch © RE D TA NGO/ DRE A MS T IME .C OM J A PA N E S E F I R M S F I G H T W E I G H T G A I N cafeteria choices and free pedometers to help employees lose weight. The move comes as Japan faces growing obesity—and the health woes that accompany it—for the ﬁrst time. A traditional diet heavy in ﬁsh and veg sheltered most Japanese from excessive weight gain; that is, until western fast food franchises set up shop in the country. Since McDonald’s and Burger King have invaded, Japanese waistbands have grown in lockstep with incidences of metabolic syndrome—symptoms linked with obesity, high cholesterol and blood sugar, large waistlines and risks of heart disease. Companies that fail to slim their staff face a larger share of Japan’s annual health-care budget, estimated at $285 billion a year. Private companies pay about a third of the total and those that neglect employee health will end up paying more. Source: Canadian Press 16% BAD-MOUTHED A CO-WORKER OR MEMBER OF MANAGEMENT SHARED A SECRET ABOUT A CO-WORKER KISSED A CO-WORKER DRANK TOO MUCH AND ACTED UNPROFESSIONALLY SHARED A SECRET ABOUT THE COMPANY SANG KARAOKE Source: CareerBuilder.com The Japanese government has delivered an ultimatum to the nation’s corporations: slim down your employees’ waistlines or face big ﬁnes. The country’s companies have responded by pulling out their tape measures and prodding those that don’t measure up—33plus inch waistlines for men, 35-plus inches for women—to start shedding pounds. Many ﬁrms, like Panasonic and NEC, have introduced aerobics classes, low-calorie 10% 8% 8% 5% 4% TIP FROM THE TOP TIM MILLER, VP, CIPD, DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE, STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, ON TALENT MANAGEMENT “The role of HR is to facilitate and support talent management, not to do it for line managers. If you try to do this through HR it will be a disaster. One thing we ﬁnd is that if you have not got great managers, you are not going to develop talent properly. If you get your management sorted out, everything else will follow. If managers are not doing what they are paid to do—and most of the time they should be improving people’s performance—get rid of them. Talented people don’t want to work for donkeys. They want to work for people who want to develop them.” –quoted at a recent CIPD talent management conference Source: CIPD 12 O c t o b e r / N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 8 HR P R OF E S S I ON A L http://www.CareerBuilder.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - October/November 2008

HR Professional - October/November 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Upfront Legal Compensation Human Capital Talent Management Murphy’s Law Wise Counsel On Message HR 101 Interview with Joseph McCool Off the Shelf The Last Word

HR Professional - October/November 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.