McDonald's has inaugurated its first Hamburger University management training centre on the mainland, as foreign firms step up efforts to develop and keep local talent, The Huffington Post reports. Tim Fenton, the company's president for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, says the mainland's US$300 billion-a-year "informal eating out" market is expanding at an annual rate of 10 per cent, compared with 2 to 3 per cent in the United States. The new institution, set up in Shanghai, is the company's seventh worldwide.

Miss Hong Kong used for pay plea

A new trend has sprung up among Chinese white-collar workers involving the posting of photos of former Miss Hong Kong Michele Reis (right) in their offices and making her picture their computer desktop image, China Daily reports. The images are being used as a humorous way of reminding bosses about salary increases because the pronunciation of the celebrity's name in Putonghua, Jiaxin, is the same as the Chinese phrase for pay rise.

Workers 'never leave office'

Some people are checking e-mails around the clock - to the detriment of their private lives - and never feel they have left the virtual office, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Melissa Gregg of Sydney University conducted interviews with 26 employees. The participants believe checking and sending e-mails from home do not constitute work.