That’s because a movement called “Lunch Beat” has gained a ton of momentum recently in the Kingdom of Sweden.

Lunch Beat started a few years ago when a small group of people decided to spend their lunch break dancing in their office garage. Since then, the movement has grown in leaps and bounds, and today’s Lunch Beat events are put together by a core group of organizers at venues all throughout Sweden.

The lunch-time gatherings, which can include as many 600 patrons, include a mix of working professionals like engineers, insurance brokers and designers.

For 60 minutes during the traditional lunch hour (noon through 1 p.m.), workers pretend their weekday lunch is a Saturday night while a DJ plays techno music.

The only rules at Lunch Beat: No work talk, no alcohol, no drugs, no networking and, most importantly, no gawking — patrons must be there to dance.

Discover how organizations are significantly cutting costs and saving time with an automated travel and expense management process in this special webinar from Concur and Business Finance Magazine.

Learn more

Click here to download your free webinar!  

Click here to read the free whitepaper!  

So how do employers actually measure engagement?

Employee engagement is made up of four key components, according to the staff over at Dear Workforce. So if your finance department (and ideally your entire company) embodies all four, chances are you have a very engaged workforce.

1. Company values

When employees are truly engaged, they support the company’s overall goals, as well as the values it stands for. On the other hand, if many staffers don’t embrace the company’s mission, they’re more likely to do only the bare minimum.

2. Leadership

Of course, even if a company has a mission statement everybody can get behind, it means little if the CFO and CEO don’t practice what they preach in their day-to-day operations.

3. Management

It’s just as vital for department managers and supervisors to follow upper management’s lead when it comes to embodying the company’s values. After all, these are the folks employees are reporting to directly. If workers see that their boss doesn’t care, they’re more likely to follow suit.

4. Employee focus

This is probably the most important factor in employee engagement. In order for people to really give their all, they need to know that they not only do they have a future in the company – but also that the company will help them reach their goals.

Home sweet home! It may have just gotten a little sweeter for employees, thanks to a new proposed rule out of IRS.

The Service has issued the Local Lodging Expenses rule, which states that there may be circumstances where your company can reimburse employees for lodging expenses they incur while not away, without having to include them as income.

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. IRS has spelled out all sorts of conditions and situations where the new rules would – and would not – apply.

Here’s a rundown of what you can expect.

Safe harbor qualifications

Normally, companies can reimburse employees without taxing them on it, for lodging for business-related trips.

But with the new rules, you will also be able to treat local lodging as business expenses – if they meet certain safe harbor requirements:

• The lodging is necessary for the employee to either participate in or be available for a business meeting, conference, training activity or other work-related function.
• The lodging doesn’t last longer than five calendar days or happen more frequently than once a quarter.
• Your company must be the one to require the employee to stay overnight, and
• The lodging can’t be considered lavish, extravagant or offer any significant recreational component.

Of course, that all hinges upon your company maintaining an accountable plan in the first place. To do so (as per Publication 15):

1. Expenses must have paid or incurred while performing services as your employees. They can’t be an amount that would have otherwise been paid by the employee.
2. Employees must substantiate within a reasonable time period (ideally 60 days).
3. Employees must return any amounts in excess of substantiated expenses within a reasonable period of time (in general, in 120 days).

It’s not a done deal, yet — comments on the proposed rules are due by July 25. But until the final version’s released, IRS says your company can rely on the proposed version to shape your policy.

We’ll keep you posted.

Info: The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on April 25, 2012.

The folks over at TechRepublic offer the following painless tactic employees can use to compare one set of values to another — when they have sheets of Excel in front of them.

It’s in the Go To feature and here’s how it works:

• Hit F5 to launch the Go To box
• Click Special
• Select Row Differences in the Go To Special dialog box, then
• Simply hit OK.

Once you follow those prompts, Excel will highlight the value in all of the columns that don’t match the corresponding values in the first column that was selected.

Pass this time-saver along to the rest of your Finance staffers.

Nearly half (40%) of employees said they think it would be OK to date a manager and use social media to talk about that relationship.

That’s according to a recent study by Workplace Options.

By far, younger employees — those between the ages of 18 and 29 — are much more comfortable with dating a co-worker than other groups. In fact, almost 85% of employees in this age group said they’d date a co-worker.

On the other end of the spectrum, 90% of employees between ages 46 and 65 said dating a work colleague is a bad idea.

The study also found that 70% of all employees said romantic workplace relationships can improve morale and employee performance.

Readers, what do you think: Is it OK for employees to date a manager, is dating a co-worker a morale booster?  Let us know in the Comments section.

And employers of all stripes can learn a few things about what to avoid from Walmart’s costly overtime settlement.

According to an investigation by DOL, a number of different stores that are part of Walmart Stores, Inc., classified current and former vision center managers and asset protection coordinators as exempt. Because of this misclassification, Walmart didn’t pay them overtime for any hours they worked over 40 in a single week, which is a clear violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards.

Result: Walmart agreed to settle the lawsuit for $4.83 million. On top of back wages and damages, the retailer was hit with $463,815 in civil penalties for the repeated nature of the violations.

Why? For the first time since the health reform law went into effect back in 2010, the DOL has begun auditing health plans to make sure they’re complying with the law.

Even if the High Court does strike down the entire law, employment law attorneys expect the feds to hold firms responsible for any violations that were made while the law was still on the books.

That means it’s in employers’ best interest to take a business-as-usual approach to complying with the law now.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt employers to look for aspects of their plans they may want to change if the law is struck down – and talk to their providers about how to make that happen (Supreme Court is expected to rule by June).

In the meantime, a breakdown of what the DOL will be looking for from employers when it comes to healthcare reform compliance can be found right here.