Ever feel a little guilty about taking the time for that pick-up game of basketball or a weeknight watercolor class? You shouldn’t—it’s good for you and your job. That’s what doctoral candidate Victoria Daniel and Dr. Yujie Zhan of Wilfrid Laurier University discovered in their research titled “Wearing Many Hats: How Employee Personal Life Engagement Enriches Creativity at Work,” presented in April at the 2018 Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Chicago, Illinois.

People who were exposed to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center (WTC) have elevated rates of alcohol- or drug-related death, reports a study in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "Following a major disaster, alcohol- and drug-related mortality may be increased," according to the new research by Jim Cone, MD, and colleagues of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Employers would do well to address social determinants of health (SDH) when deciding upon health insurance and wellness plans, according to a "fast-track" paper in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

More than three in four U.S. employees (76 percent) have dealt with issues negatively affecting their mental health, according to new survey results from the American Heart Association (AHA). A whopping 96 percent of the workers surveyed said that mental health is as important as physical health. The online survey also revealed that 42 percent of employees say they have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder by a healthcare professional.

Employees have come to expect to be rewarded for a variety of professional achievements or practices, including safety and industrial hygiene. In fact, 79 percent of employees want rewards programs, and 73 percent think rewards encourage engagement, according to research.

The term “Safety culture” has become like the term “engagement” in popular management writings. There is no common agreement on the term. We are left with (mis)interpretations of terms like “safety culture,” which lead to haphazard attempts at changing organizations toward improvement.

Besides breakups and meeting “shawty” on the dancefloor, pop music obsesses over another aspect of contemporary culture: working nine-to-five. Since Elvis Costello penned Welcome to the Working Week in ’77, Dolly’s hit about tumbling out of bed to pour “a cup of ambition” has been streamed 8.46 million times and The Bangles’ Manic Monday dominated the charts in over ten countries.

Picking up the pieces for those who were devastated by Hurricane Florence involves more than discarding flood-damaged furniture or finding a new place to live. In addition to the harming physical health and property, natural disasters can affect mental health as well, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

Workers in Europe are regularly exposed to racism and xenophobia at the workplace, according to experts attending a recent trade union seminar in Brussels, who said racism does not always take the form of subtle discrimination but can also include explicit abuse. Delegates at the seminar, which was organized by the European Trade Union Confederation and European Trade Union Institute, shared their experiences of discrimination and debated what unions can do to tackle the problem.

Despite its seriousness, sexual harassment prevention training inspires entire (albeit, tongue-in-cheek) episodes in popular American television shows, including The Office and NCIS, and memorable skits in many other venues, including Saturday Night Live. With all of this attention, it is easy to believe that sexual harassment prevention training is no longer needed.