Workplace safety signs and tags play a key role in helping prevent accidents to workers and visitors alike.
To make the most effective use of signs and tags in your facility that comply with OSHA regulation (29 CFR 1910.145), we’d recommend that you follow these guidelines:
- Identify all hazards throughout the workplace. In addition to obvious dangers, include those that are out of the ordinary, unexpected, or not readily apparent.
- Select or design signs and tags. Make sure they conform to OSHA requirements and are consistent in format.
- Use proper wording. According to OSHA, “the wording of any sign should be easily read, concise, and contain sufficient information to be easily understood.”
- Position signs carefully. Signs should be placed so that they’re easy to see and read from a distance and draw maximum attention to hazards.
- Identify safety and fire protection equipment clearly. This includes such items as eyewash stations and safety showers, as well as fire extinguishers and hoses.
- Employ tags properly. OSHA requires that “tags shall be used as a means to prevent accidental injury or illness to employees who are exposed to hazardous or potentially hazardous conditions, equipment, or operations.”
- Review your program whenever new hazards are introduced. If you just put up signs and tags and forget about them, your facility probably won’t be in compliance with the OSHA regulations. Check the program frequently to make sure that it’s still doing the job.
The workplace safety professionals at our agency would be happy to help you review your signage and tag policy. Give us a call at any time.
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Every business is vulnerable to disruptions. Most companies have taken steps to mitigate the impact of major hazards. However many businesses have neglected smaller, more probable perils, ranging from inadequate fire protection and offsite data backup, through the death or disability of key personnel, to over-reliance on a limited number of vendors.
While you can transfer many risks that could disrupt your business to insurance companies (through such coverages as Business Interruption and Extra Expense policies), this probably won’t be enough to ensure that the company will survive or continue its long-term growth and profitability. To prevent and/or reduce the impact of such a mishap, it makes sense to implement Business Continuity Planning (BCP). This process involves three key steps:
- Pre-disruption planning. Assess the “risk and threat environment” of your business and take steps to reduce these hazards and weaknesses.
- Disruption response. The extent and nature of losses will depend on the effectiveness of the emergency plans that you implement during the incident to provide a methodical, rational, and coordinated approach to dealing with the disruptions.
- Post-disruption recovery. While the first two steps can reduce or mitigate risk, the recovery process focuses on rebuilding and restoration. Although many businesses depend heavily on central and distributed computer resources, a comprehensive BCP involves a wide variety of crucial activities that need to continue with minimal interruption.
Your BCP should not be a one-time project that involves creating a plan and then moving on to “business as usual” – but a long-term commitment to design, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive, company-wide strategy to keep your business running effectively..
We’d be happy to review the risks facing your business and tailor a Business Continuation Plan to your needs.
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Three out of five firms that suffer a major disaster go out of business or are sold. Preparing your business to survive a disastrous event involves a multi-step process: assessment, planning, implementation, testing, and documentation.
- Assessment: Brainstorm and list all potential losses. Then rate them on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most disastrous and 1 having the least impact on the business.
- Planning: Formulate a comprehensive, detailed action plan, using both in-house and outside sources. The plan should include both steps to prevent the loss and remedies to take if the loss occurs. Be as specific as possible.
- Implementation: Act on the plan. Determine what steps you must take to now insure a positive outcome if disaster strikes; Who will be accountable for taking these steps when and to whom will they report?
- Testing: For example, if you’re planning to deal with a computer crash, data recovery is essential. Test back-up media regularly to ensure that they will be available when needed. All too many businesses lose data due to malware or mechanical breakdown only to find that their backup is either corrupted or unavailable when needed.
- Documentation: Put the details of the plan (who, what, when, and where) in writing. Keep one copy in the office, another on the computer, a third off premises – and make sure that every manager knows these locations. Finally, review and update the plan every six months.
Although nothing is foolproof, implementing these five steps can go far to prevent a disastrous loss, or at least, mitigate its impact.
To learn more about developing a disaster plan for your business, feel free to give us a call at any time.
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Most people who commit fraud at work are not career criminals – and are often trusted staff with no criminal history. According to criminologist Donald Cressey, there are three factors (the “Fraud Triangle”) that lead an ordinary person to fraud: opportunity, pressure, and rationalization.
Take this example: a bartender who splashes a little more scotch into his friends’ drinks when they come into the bar is succumbing to opportunity; his peers’ expectations that he’ll do this create pressure; while telling himself that “everybody does this – and we’re too stingy on our pours, anyway” provides a rationalization.
How can you use this three-legged tool to detect and deter fraud?
You can’t do much with about rationalizing fraudulent misbehavior because everyone does it without announcing their decision in advance.
You can’t learn whether employees might be under financial pressure to commit fraud without investigating their personal finances – which is impractical and illegal. However, you might be able to minimize work-based pressures they face (for example, forbidding managers from ordering them to hit their goals at all costs).
Opportunity provides the most effective leg in the triangle to curb fraud by making it more difficult. Here’s how:
- Segregate duties so that no one has sole control over accounting, reconciling, custody of assets, and approval of transactions.
- Make sure that transactions which are unusual or involve large amounts have strong managerial oversight and follow-up.
In other words, develop effective control systems so that any larcenous employee will need to be clever enough to avoid several pair of eyes while running a gauntlet of people who reconcile accounts and monitor budget.
If fraud does strike despite these precautions, make sure that you have the right insurance to protect you from loss. For more information, just give us a call.
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With so many demands on their time, many business owners find it difficult to learn enough about their insurance programs.
You’ve probably found yourself asking questions such as:
- Do I have the right coverages to protect my business from financial loss?
- Do I have any exposures to loss that aren’t covered and should be?
- Exactly what am I buying?
- Am I getting the best value for my premium dollar?
As insurance professionals, we help you answer these questions because we:
- Offer policies providing protection against a wide variety of risks that can threaten your business – everything from Accounts Receivable and Business Interruption through Employment Practices Liability and Glass Insurance to Theft coverage and Workers Compensation.
- Recommend an insurance company (from among the quality carriers that we represent) that will provide quality protection.
- Make it a point to learn how your business works so that we can pinpoint potential sources of loss.
- Design a program that minimizes the impact of these losses (incidentally, we don’t always recommend insurance).
- Provide comprehensive protect that’s tailored to your needs – and your pocketbook.
- Work with you to make sure that your coverage stays updated as your business grows.
In short, we take over one phase of your business for you, and work with you to accomplish your first goal – protecting your profits.
To help us help you make sure that your business insurance makes business sense, please feel free to get in touch with our agency’s professional at any time.
We’re here to serve.
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In one of my favorite new age books, The Alchemist, author Paulo Coelho discusses four obstacles to realizing the journey towards our Personal Legend:
- The first obstacle is resignation to failure. We’re told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. In many cases, we’re the ones telling ourselves this – and we believe it!
- The second obstacle is misunderstood love. Says Coelho, “We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream.” In a sense, we’re afraid to change because the people around us might not love us as much if we do. For example, they might view us as a threat, mirror our own inadequacies, or break away from the norm or culture. Coelho encourages us to accept that love is a stimulus; that the people who truly love us want the best for us: to be worthy of the miracle of life.
- The third obstacle is the fear of failure. According to Coelho, “We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we might not understand how.” In my personal experience, when we follow our passions we get what we ask for – just not when or how we expect it. There is no journey without roadblocks, setbacks, and challenges. This is what strengthens us. Our character is no different than our muscles: You use it or you lose it.
- Finally, there’s the obstacle of self-sabotage. As Oscar Wilde said: “Each man kills the thing he loves.” According to Coelho, the mere possibility of getting what we want fills our souls with guilt. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be so fortunate when there are so many people in pain? Do I somehow think that I’m now better than other people because of my success?’ The ancient Greek term was hubris. When we become too full of ourselves and our accomplishments, the end is near. That’s why the journey is never about arriving, but traveling forever. Says Coelho, “I’ve known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reach their goal – when it was only a step away.” I know many of those people too.
When you think about your career, where have these obstacles shown up? Where do you have personal doubts about your ability to accomplish your Personal Legend? Who or what is attempting to hold you back from meeting these goals – or is this a story of your own making? Are you willing to accept that the journey toward success is guaranteed to come with more suffering than for those who are willing to simply be comfortable? Finally, are you willing to find joy in your success without the need to sabotage it?
Here are some Coelho quotes from The Alchemist:
- “If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
- “There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.”
- “To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation.”
- “The only reason why each day feels the same as the next is because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”
- “I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.”
- “Making a decision is only the beginning of things. When you make a decision, you’re really diving into a strong current that will carry you to places you had never dreamed of when you first made the decision.”
- “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream”
- “Every search begins with good beginner’s luck. Every search ends with the victors being tested severely.”
- “When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others about them, you are seldom believed.”
- “When something evolves, so does everything around it as well.”
- “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
- “The world’s greatest lie is that we lose control of our own lives and must let them be controlled by fate.”
- “Be worthy of the miracle of life.”
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