In a recent HR webinar, I asked three highly revealing polling questions. Here they are:
- What have you done to show your value?
Nobody knows that you’re doing a great job unless you tell them. It’s not that they don’t care about you; it’s just that they’re running 75mph and barely have time to pay attention to anything but their own work. What effort have you made to get noticed by delivering a report or giving a workshop? Unfortunately, only 21% of respondents said that they created a strategic plan. As Mary Kay once stated, “most people spend more time planning their vacations better than their career.” Or, as I might add, their HR department.
- How excited are you about the HR opportunity on a scale from 1-5 (5 being very excited)?
Half of the respondents described themselves as fairly “excited.” Unfortunately, some 43% were just “ok or worse” with HR. Most organizations find the whole idea of HR boring. My guess is that is not the case at the 7% of companies where people said they were very excited about HR! I believe that if 7% can be excited, so can the 93%. It’s simply a choice. What have you done in HR lately that goes beyond administrative or compliance requirements? What have you done to help improve the quality of the workplace (getting rid of poor employees and replacing them with great ones is a start), increasing performance management (having a performance management system that actually works), boosting retention, and giving greater love to that 20% of your workforce that produces 80% of results? What are you helping your company do to become more creative, innovative, and interesting?
- What’s stopping you?
I often ask this question in workshops and in webinars. Time is always the most common response (one of those buts again), followed by the company or management. A survey of HR That Works members found that 84% of respondents said they would make better use of the service if they had more time.
Time management is a major issue!
Go to the time management training on HR That Works. Watch the two videos and then start putting them into practice. I would recommend that you start by tracking where your time is going and then eliminate five hours of the uncool, un-valuable work you do every week.
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The spread of social media has revolutionized not only the way we connect with friends and family, but also how we conduct business. However, this asset can quickly turn into a liability if misused – for example, in recruiting your company’s most valuable asset – its employees.
Many employers begin the hiring process by using social-media outlets to screen applicants. LinkedIn and Facebook can provide a wealth of information about applicants’ education, their friends, and their personal behavior. Some companies reject candidates based on the content of their social-media pages. This might include anything from inappropriate photos or comments, discriminatory or slanderous statements, and references to alcohol and substance abuse, to sharing confidential information about their previous employers(s), displaying poor communication skills, or exaggerating their qualifications.
Although all of these indicators raise red flags, you could be risking a costly and annoying discrimination lawsuit if you access social-media sites which contain protected class information that’s not privileged in the normal hiring process.
To minimize this risk, it makes sense to:
- When hiring, use outside third parties such as background-verification companies and/or recruiters who document content from social-media sites in selecting candidates
- Develop and enforce a comprehensive social-media usage policy.
- Purchase an Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) policy
For more information, please feel free to get in touch with our agency
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The growth rate of the rental equipment industry in the U.S. is skyrocketing by 24% a year, as more and more companies use the tax and other financial advantages of renting over purchasing. Renting also allows businesses to get the exact machine they need when they need it at a low cost, rather than spending a lot more to buy a device that would spend most of the time gathering dust.
On the downside, if using a piece of equipment that you have rented causes damage or results in legal liability, you could be out thousands of dollars – unless you carry Rental Equipment insurance.
This policy often costs less than similar coverage offered under your Business Owners Policy or standard Commercial Property insurance. Rental Equipment insurance gives you what you need, when you need it: you can match the length of coverage to the term of the rental, rather than that of your Property policy, allowing you to save money. In most cases, it also offers lower (or zero deductibles) than standard policies.
The policy includes both Property coverage that protects the equipment from damage and Liability insurance to protect the renter from legal claims based on the use of the equipment. It also streamlines the process of providing the Certificate of Insurance that rental companies usually require before releasing their machines.
To learn more about how Rental Equipment coverage can help you protect your business – and save money – just get in touch with the insurance professionals at our agency.
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The widespread use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is exposing more and more businesses to liability for sensitive data being compromised if these devices are lost, stolen, or hacked. How can your company protect itself against this threat – and how much authority do you have over an employee’s personal device if it’s also used for work-related activities?
What’s more, because these gizmos are small and portable, it’s easy to misplace them. (The federal Transportation Safety Administration recently leased a warehouse just to store those misplaced or left behind at airports.)
Another emerging risk linked to these devices is a “bring your own” policy that many companies have adopted as a way to save costs by having employees spend their own money on smartphones and tablets that are constantly evolving and updated. This approach raises questions about separating company data from personal information on the device. For example, when an employee leaves, does a business have the authority to wipe the information from his or her smartphone? According to some authorities, if an employee connects a personal device to a company network, the company has inherited responsibility for the data stored on it.
To deal with this risk, you need to provide every employee who uses these devices with training, updated annually, on how to respond in case of loss or theft. To minimize potential liability for lawsuits by customers and clients, make sure that the individual responsible for the mishap informs management immediately. The compromised information might include everything from sensitive data (financial or medical) contacts, photos, call history, personal notes – you name it.
You can also use insurance to protect yourself against losses from data breaches. A policy will provide Liability coverage that deals with legal costs and third-party expertise (such as forensics firms to analyze a breach and call centers to provide information and public relations. Coverage might also include services such as access to tools to estimate costs, a checklist for your planned response to a data breach, and access to experts who can answer questions and review your company’s policies and procedures.
For more information, feel free to give us a call.
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A pipe bursts and water ruins a corner of your Brazilian cherry wood floor. A windstorm tears off half of the vinyl shingles on one side of the house. A fire burns a couple of kitchen cupboards. Although your Homeowners policy will cover such partial losses, the extent to which the insurance company must go to make everything look just the way you’d like can be tricky.
Let’s say that the new siding contrasts with the older, weathered shingles or that you can’t find replacement kitchen cupboards that precisely match the originally.
Your claim should put you back to pre-loss condition so the new part shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. For example, this might mean replacing the entire floor of a room even if only a portion needs repair, or repainting all four walls after damage to only one.
In some states, if replaced items don’t match in quality, color or size, the insurance company must make “reasonable repairs or replacement of items in adjoining areas.” Although other states don’t have laws on matching, some Homeowners insurers have added similar “non-matching language” to their policies.
Besides varying by state, insurer, and policy, the issue of patching versus full replacement can depends on insurance company adjusters.
If you can’t get make any headway with the adjuster on the repairs you want, consider going over his or her head to a supervisor, or file a complaint with the state insurance department. Another option is to hire a public insurance adjuster to work on your behalf through the claims process. These professionals usually charge about 10% of the final settlement.
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Employers and employees aren’t seeing the health and productivity boosts of using their vision plans, especially with an aging workforce. According to Transitions Optical, Inc., nearly half of workers fail to take advantage of their vision benefit, either by not enrolling (24%) or not using their benefit to get an eye exam (32%).
That’s unfortunate, because helping employees see well offers a number of benefits:
- Good eyesight boosts productivity. Nearly 35% of people age 40+ have trouble seeing print or numbers on reading materials, or signs, even with glasses, One in four employees age 45 or older take breaks to rest their eyes at work, because of fatigue or eyestrain. Uncorrected vision (so slight that an employee might not notice) can reduce productivity up to 20%.
- Mental health and eye health are connected. Vision problems can worsen mental decline. Older employees with poor vision are five times more likely to develop cognitive decline than their peers with good or excellent vision. Untreated poor vision in the elderly is also linked to dementia; older adults who have poor vision without intervention (such as eye care visits and cataract surgery) are almost 10 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
- Glare bothers most workers. Almost all people say glare affects their vision outdoors, and seven in ten agree that their eyes are sensitive to light. Glare due to reflections from a lens surface can also be present indoors, leading to eye fatigue. The right eyewear can help employees overcome their discomfort.
- Employees think vision plans are important. More than 90% of employees that agree this benefit will be more important to them as they age.
To learn more, just give us a call. We’re here to serve you.
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