Ah, the bliss of summer reading! Long days on the beach curled around a racy paperback, salt water hair wetting the pages, greasy sunscreen finger prints marking the cover...

We hope you all get to enjoy some of that quintessential laid back, sandy splendour but we're also aware - given the passion and enthusiasm of this community - that even while on holiday you might crave a quick dip in the RTW ocean. Or, if you're hoarding this year's annual leave for something special down the track, you might want to take advantage of the Christmas / New Year office lull to immerse yourself in ideas that will help to make your professional life in 2010 courageous, strategic and self-assured: a real year of the tiger!

Inspired by this deadly serious RTW anthem, we've compiled three volumes of RTWMatters Greatest Hits to get you pumped up and pointed in the right direction for the New Year.

Like the eye of the tiger, our Greatest Hits are focused on strategic planning. Strategy often gets lost in the day to day demands of RTW management, but a good battle plan allows you to allocate resources effectively, design processes that help rather than hinder people and foster a sense of collaboration amongst your team. In other words, we believe strategic RTW planning to be invaluable.

This summer, sink your tiger-teeth into the best of RTWMatters, new and old, and put yourself - and strategic RTW - at the head of the pack in 2010.

RTWMatters Greatest Hits Volume 1: Are we a team or a tug-of-war?

In an ideal world, the whole is greater that the sum of it's parts; the team is bigger than the players. However, not every team pulls in the same direction. If you're involved in an internal tug-of-war, it's not only team members who suffer: RTW success stories come apart at the seams.

This first volume of the RTWMatters Greatest Hits introduces you to all the key players in RTW and gives you the lowdown on how to foster collaboration, cooperation and a shared vision amongst them.

Is your team engaged and working together? Does everyone recognise the importance of their contribution? Is everyone responsive to your leadership?

The following articles will assist you to identify your own capabilities and that of your RTW team. You might also notice a few shortcomings. If that's the case, NOW is the time to invest in training and team-building. There's no slacking off in the new year of the tiger!

Return to Work Handbook extracts:

Key player roles and responsibilities

Getting the team onside

The partnership approach to injury management

Optimising workplace culture for injury management and RTW

Research articles:

Teamwork: What works?

Use training to get supervisors on the RTW train

Training program:

Return to Work Matters training program: Managing return to work for supervisors

RTWMatters Greatest Hits Volume 2: Injury Reporting Systems

Apart from long days lazing on the beach with pulp fiction in hand, the summer holidays are also the perfect time of year to get your house in order - and the RTW mansion is no exception.

This week, we're encouraging you to take stock of the ground floor apartments. Does your injury reporting process have a few cobwebs in the corners? Then chuck Volume 2 of the RTWMatters Greatest Hits on your iPod and, dust-buster in hand, indulge a spot of summertime cleaning.

It might seem like a hard slog at the time, but six months into 2010, you'll be patting yourself on the back for all the hassles you've averted.

Return to Work Handbook extract:

Injury reporting systems

Including:

• Eight reporting system 'must-haves'
• Short guide to best practice injury reporting

Research article:

Under-reporting injury in the workplace

Tools:

Incident Report

RTWMatters Greatest Hits Volume 3: Keeping workers healthy, happy and productive

We round off our trio of Greatest Hits by paying homage the holy trinity of workplace policy for the next decade: health, wellbeing and productivity.

We love looking at workplace health and wellbeing programs because we see a win from every angle. A win for workers, a win for employers, a win for government, a win for the broader community.

If you don't already have a health and wellbeing program in your workplace, we hope the collection of articles and tools below will get you as excited about them as we are. And if that happens, we reckon we've done our fair share of good deeds for 2010, before the year's even started!

Return to Work Handbook extract:

Health promotion, wellness & productivity

Articles and Case Studies:

Making the case? Top ten reasons to have a health and wellbeing program

The scientific method: Successful health and wellbeing strategies at the CSIRO

Research articles:

Healthy work = Healthy workers

6 elements of successful workplace health programs - the evidence

Toolkit:

Health, wellbeing & productivity: A toolkit for business

Download the Strategic Summer Reading Package as a PDF eBook.