5 Leadership Behaviors that Loyal Employees Trust

Is any relationship completely equal? Not really, because one party always wields more power than the other. There are leaders and followers, as well as employers and employees. We might like to think equality, common goals and unquestioned commitment are the norm, but it simply doesn’t happen. It’s true in personal life and in the workplace.

Leaders today talk a lot about loyalty, retention, and the business value of empowering employees. Nonetheless, research and blogs abound which discuss the erosion of employee loyalty to the workplace, especially among Generation X and Y.

So, is there a way to increase loyalty and engagement in the workplace? I believe there is, but it requires a near-equal exchange of information about the business’s goals and challenges and a shared sense of the value of work. This is true for CEO’s and for employees alike. It’s a two-way street of respect and trust.

All great leaders know that getting there is the challenge. Here are 5 behaviors for leaders and hiring managers to adopt when struggling to keep employees happy and loyal:

1) Tell the truth
Not everyone is a star. Pick out those with leadership or other valued talent potential and nurture them. This will come back to the business as these individuals, in turn, nurture other workers.

2) Communicate roles and responsibilities
Provide a path to success not only for those with leadership promise but for all employees. Sometimes this will mean difficult changes, but remember the most important skill of a leader- never surprise an employee with bad news. Have a development plan for all, and a get-well plan for those whose performance lags. Make sure everyone knows the plan.

3) Create a workplace culture that values real people relationships
For many employees, workgroup relationships drive engagement and loyalty more effectively than foosball machines, logo T-shirts, and Thirsty Thursday gatherings.

4) Be fair and open
This does not mean to treat everyone equally- it means having transparent processes for managing and leading. Employees are more likely to respond positively to change when the process used to manage change is fair.

5) Model the behaviors you seek
Just as the headmaster at the high school did, accept your responsibility as a leader and act with engagement, commitment and responsibility. Do this every day.

Each of us possesses skills, strengths, talents and flaws. Each of us seeks to belong, to be engaged, to relate to those around us. Loyalty is built on relationships, shared understanding and trust. Engagement and commitment require loyalty, shared goals and fair treatment. Don’t take loyalty and engagement for granted- create a remarkable culture where there are possible and rewarding outcomes of the workplace.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Discipline safety violators- don't just "yell" at them

What do your supervisors do when they catch workers breaking a major safety rule- do they simply yell at the worker? A new court ruling highlights the importance of enforcing safety rules with discipline and documentation.

The case:

When a New York bridge worker fell to his death, OSHA cited the employer with a serious-violation fine. The company appealed, saying it provided the correct harness, but the employee ignored supervisors who “yelled” at him about it. But the court let the fine stand, saying that oral warnings alone aren’t sufficient. The company had a progressive-discipline plan for safety violations and supervisors should have used it.

Let me ask you- how do you handle the situation when you find someone committing a safety violation? Does it have to be “major” for you to react? Someone once told me that “what you walk by, you approve”. If you allow it one time, what does that tell the other workers? We must use discipline EVERY TIME we see a safety violation. Most of you have guidelines- if you don’t, get them! However, the key is how you honor those guidelines? If not, it can get you into a lot of trouble, and can be very expensive.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Want healthy food? Don’t eat out!

If you plan to chow down tonight at a big chain restaurant, there’s better than nine-in-ten chance that your entrée will fail to meet federal nutrition recommendations for both adults and kids, according to a provocative new study.

A whopping 96% of main entrees sold at top U.S. chain eateries exceed daily limits for calories, sodium, fat and saturated fat recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “If you’re eating out tonight, your chances of finding an entrée that’s truly healthy are painfully low” say Helen Wu assistant policy analyst at Rand Corp.

The restaurant industry is employing a wide range of healthier-living strategies: putting nutritional information on menus, adding more healthful items and launching a 2011 program at nearly 100 brand restaurants in more that 25,000 locations that offers children’s meals in line with 2010 dietary guidelines. Other findings of the study:

---Appetizers can be calorie bombs

Appetizers averaged 813 calories, compared with main entrees, which averaged 674 calories per serving.

---Family restaurants fared worse than fast-food restaurants

Entrees at family-style restaurants on average have more calories, fat and sodium than fast-food restaurants. Entrée at family-style eateries posted 271 more calories, 435 more milligrams of sodium and 16 more grams of fat than fast-food restaurants.

---Kid “specialty” drinks often aren’t healthy

Many drinks offered on kids’ menus have more fat and saturated fat on average than regular drinks. While regular menu drinks had a median of 360 calories, the median number of calories in kid specialty drinks, such as shakes and floats, was 430. The message to parents is that it’s the little extras you order that add up.

The lesson here- DON’T EAT OUT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO!!! It is simply much easier to control what you put in your mouth, and what it is make of, at home.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service



Report: Worker's Comp Insurers May Be Pressured into a Hard Market

(parts of this article first appeared in National Underwriter Magazine)

With the current investment environment not benefitting Worker’s Compensation insurers, companies may be pressured into a harder market and thus higher rates as they try to achieve underwriting profits in a line that hasn’t seen combined ratio of less than 100 (the profit line) since 2006.

Even if interest rates rise, the benefit in improved investment returns may be tempered by the corresponding possibility of higher inflation. Historical results have shown that medical inflation often moves in the same direction as general inflation. Rising medical costs would increase Worker’s Comp loss costs.

Everything you read says that Worker’s Comp rates will be rising. However, there are some ways that YOUR BUSINESS can offset those increases to some degree. Remember, decreased frequency of claims, as well as better claims management, leads to a lower Experience Mod factor. With a lower Mod factor comes lower premiums and more credits! YOU really can control your Worker’s Compensation premiums to a degree, and it’s that control that is critical to not only your premiums in the next few years, but your overall operations as well.

Don’t forget- your insurance carrier doesn’t pay for your claims- you do!

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

How Big is Your Risk Appetite?

You are walking toward your car through a dark parking lot late at night. You hear a noise behind you. You look back and see nothing and continue at a slightly faster pace. You hear another noise behind you- again no one. What do you do at this point? The answer is simple- you either turn and run away or you turn back and face whatever it is. One of these two responses is hard-wired into our brains.

Even though our human fight-or-flight is part of our DNA, some things do influence what we actually fear; such as the culture we grew up in. For example, people in South American jungles do not fear large insects, snakes and other reptiles because they grew up with them. But if I were to see a python, I would run immediately. Conversely, if a person from South America were to see Lady Gaga walking down the street, they might want to run away just as fast!

When your organization faces a deadly risk, does it fight or does it run far away from it? More importantly, does your organization influence, foster or try to overrule the natural response of your employees?

In order to be able to face your true risks and not run from them, you must first understand what those risks are. Does your organization actually know what risks they are facing in the future? The first step is to perform an overall risk assessment. This requires a very thorough evaluation with assets, employees, customers, and suppliers. After you know what your risks are, it is much easier to get your people behind dealing with the issues. If we need to “hardwire” anything in an organization, I think it’s better to focus on embedding day-to-day risk management capabilities in the organization that routinely seek out those “scary sounds in the night” and decide on how to handle them individually.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Employee turnover- what's the real problem?

Do you know what your employee turnover rate is for your company? If you don’t know, find out. If you need help figuring that out, please give me a call and I can help you through the math to come up with your turnover rate.

Many times when I visit with potential clients (or with current clients), I ask them what their employee turnover rate is. They usually come up with some number off the top of their head, and you can tell it is a complete guess. I believe it is very important to not only know your current employee turnover rate, but to have goals in place to reduce that number as well. Employee turnover is VERY expensive for your organization- there are many costs associated with constantly having to hire new employees because someone is leaving:

---Hiring costs
---Training costs
---Loss of productivity
---Potential loss of business revenue
---Also, higher claims ratio than businesses with lower turnover rate!!!

As I visit with potential clients or current clients about their employee turnover rate, I find many owners or managers are resigned to a higher-than-necessary turnover rate, telling themselves that “that’s just the way it is in today’s market or in this line of business”. Granted, some business types are inherently more inclined to higher employee turnover rate than others, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved!

The most important question you can ask yourself is “What the main reason we are having this high employee turnover rate”? Maybe it’s poor training methods, maybe it’s certain people in your organization that are running employees off, maybe it’s poor hiring procedures. Whatever the reasons, get to the bottom of it! This problem is costing you money in the long run, and costing you in additional insurance premium as well.

Happy, healthy employees make your sales go up, they make your claims go down, and they are a lot more fun to be around. Message me back and let me know if you are having employee turnover problems and what you would like to see your business achieve as a turnover rate in the future.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Vice President
Commercial Risk Service

You can’t out-exercise a bad diet

I saw this little saying this week, and it really hit home. Being an ex-athlete (and I stress the ex part!), I always thought that there was no amount of food that I could consume that I couldn’t overcome by just “working out a little longer”. After all, when I was playing ball in college, they used to force us to consume at least 10,000 calories per day during our heavy workout parts of the year. However, there were a couple of things I didn’t take into consideration:

---First of all, I was 18-21 years old when that happened. My metabolism at 18 years old was running like a car at the Indy 500. My metabolism at 50 is entirely different (now it’s more like a Ford Fiesta!).

---Secondly, we literally worked out 4-6 hours per day, at a very hard rate- probably at a rate that I could never achieve today, mostly because you need to refer back to the first reason (the 50-year-old thing!).

The truth is, after we get out of college, there is never the amount of time or energy to spend on those kinds of workouts. We have to become, for lack of a better term, smarter! Over many, many years, what we put into our bodies basically defines the health we will have as we get older.

Please understand, whatever we eat is totally up to us, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves- for instance, I usually say that I purposefully weighed more than 350 pounds at one time. After all, I never accidentally ate anything in my life! As far as our health, we definitely reap what we sow. However, you can turn that around- starting today!

Make the decision today that whatever you put in your body is something you can live with 10-15 years from now- because that is exactly what will happen!


Have a great week.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Commercial Insurance rates are rising, but only gradually

Multiple studies agree that commercial insurance rates are on the upswing. This includes Property, General Liability, Commercial Auto, Umbrella and Worker’s Compensation.

In March, insurance exchange MarketScout reports that commercial insurance rates climbed by 3%, outpacing February’s increase of 2%. Commercial Property and Worker’s Compensation rates led the way with increases of 4%. The results continue to show a slow and steady path toward rate increases in all segments. The combined ratio for 2011 was 107.1, a 4.5% deterioration from the previous year primarily due to catastrophe losses. This means that the carriers are continuing to tap into their reserves to pay current claims, and they must force rates up in order to compensate for it.

To be honest, we have had 9 straight years of decreasing rates in this country, so it was bound start turning the other way. Customers are used to having decreases in annual premiums at renewal, but they need to start getting prepared for some small increases in the next couple of years.

What can you as business owners do about this trend? Here are a few ideas that might still help with your bottom line:

---Don’t give up coverage if premiums go up- that is the natural tendency. However, this doesn’t work in the long run. Think about this- if you take away the insurance on a risk, does the risk change- NO! All that has happened is that you are agreeing to pay the full cost of the risk by not transferring it to the insurance carrier. If a claim happens, you will pay ALL of it!

---Review your current coverage limits with your agent prior to renewal. He (or she) should be doing this anyway, but if they are not, your property values and payroll values may be too high and have just been continued. (If nobody has reviewed your coverage every year with you, call us!).

---If you are having claims problems in a certain area, put an emphasis on why it has happened, and what you can do about it. Many times, claims occur because of a lack of awareness by employees or a lack of attention to details.

---Check you business’ website and see what you are claiming you do that you may not really do. Once again, your agent should be monitoring this as well. Presenting yourself to the insurance marketplace in the best light can help you attract the top insurance carriers, who have the best prices.

We are in a tougher pricing market than we have been in the last 5 years. However, that doesn’t mean that you specifically will have to pay more for your insurance. In a large way, you still have some control over your premiums for your business. Make the most of them!

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC

Commercial Risk Service

Spring is a good time to make your kitchen “more healthy”

Spring invites a fresh-start mentality. It is a perfect season to clean house, literally and figuratively. This year, incorporate changes in your kitchen that supports a healthier way of eating. How you stock and organize our kitchens can pave the way to eating better.

REMOVE

Make room for better eating opportunities by cleaning out the old/ bad foods. Go through your cupboards, refrigerator and freezer and get rid of anything that is expired, unidentifiable, freezer-burned or stale. Throw away spices that are over 2 years old; they have lost their potency by now. Get rid of unhealthy snacks, soft drinks and sugary cereals. Once you eliminate what’s not helping, you open up your kitchen to healthy options.

REPLENISH

Fill you freezer with frozen vegetables and fruits with no sauces or sugars added. Frozen produce is comparable in nutrition to fresh produce. Fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables are your No. 1 ally for good nutrition. Whole grains have more fiber, mineral and health-protective antioxidants than refined; they will cause a slower rise in blood sugar and help you feel full faster on fewer calories. Branch out and try at least on whole grain you have never tried before. Quinoa and bulgur are especially quick-cooking and easy to use. Spices and dried herbs add flavor to foods, as well as enabling you to cut back on salt without sacrificing taste. The fresher they are, the more antioxidants and healing power they have.

Rearrange

A study in the journal Environment and Behavior found that we are more likely to choose a food if we are visually reminded of it or if it is within easy reach and it looks appealing. So set up a beautiful bowl of fresh fruit front and center in your kitchen and replenish it every few days.


With summer on the way, what better time to redesign and reconsider the way we eat?

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Older workers bring new risks

Changes in workforce demographics pose real challenges for employers and their workers compensation insurers. The average age of the U.S. workforce is older than it was 20 years ago, and the upward trend is not expected to ease anytime soon. The aging of our workforce clearly affects some industries more than others. But many employers are seeing the trend already and there is very little they can do to reverse it. Baby boomers make up the larger part of the workforce and, due to the financial crisis of 2007-2009; many of them are putting off retirement.


While fears about the higher incidence of injuries for older employees may have been overstated in the past, there is little doubt that older workers present different safety risks than their younger co-workers. Issues such as eyesight and hearing, the ability to lift heavy weights safely, and recovery time after injury all become a bigger concern with older workers. In order to address these risks and keep control of workers comp losses, employers must adapt their safety programs to take more consideration of the needs of older workers. As workers age, tasks that they could complete easily when they were younger become more difficult, and they may need additional help to complete those tasks safely.

Employers seeking to change the way employees perform tasks need to make resources available to evaluate work procedures, and then make the necessary changes to prevent injuries. Making support available is only half the battle, however. Keeping workers healthy so they are less likely to be injured in the first place also should be a key concern. Providing the necessary training to encourage healthy living needs to be carefully thought out and tailored to address the concerns and sensibilities of older workers.

By investing in the right tools and the right techniques, companies should be able to help their workforce and see a return on investment through lower comp claims, as well as getting control of health care costs for your business.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Tips for Controlling Worker’s Comp Medical Costs

The National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc. (NCCI) reports that medical services now represent over 60% of Worker’s Comp claim costs. In the past, indemnity costs, or the disability portion of Worker’s Comp, made up the majority of Worker’s Comp claims.

There are several ways available to help companies contain medical costs. Here are some strategies that work:

1) Workplace Safety

A critical step in a plan to keep medical costs down is concentrating efforts on workplace safety. With large employers retaining big chunks of the worker’s Comp obligations under large deductible plans, they have to redouble their efforts on preventing losses in the first place.

2) Bogus Claims

While establishing a culture of safety is essential to prevent workplace injuries, employers also should be guarding against bogus claims. In recent years as the economy went bad, employers have seen large increases in Worker’s Comp claims- not all of them legitimate- when some workers who feared layoffs or knew they were pending filed claims to secure income after their jobs were lost.

Establishing on-going testing of various job-related physical functions, such as hearing, gives employers a baseline measure they can track and respond to quickly at the first sign of a problem- rather than after a worker has filed a claim.

3) The right hires

Some companies are rehiring, which brings up a third important element in controlling Worker’ Comp costs; avoiding hiring workers who pose high claim risks. One thing that can help; make sure the job description adequately characterizes the demands of the job. Filling jobs with the workers who are best suited psychologically for those positions will help prevent injures; it will also help prevent a myriad of indirect costs associates with a Worker’s Comp claim.

Let’s face it- health costs are going to continue to increase in the current system we have. However, it is up to us to reduce the number of potential claims through creating the correct safety culture, making sure you hire the best people, and not allowing bogus claims to invade you corporate culture.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Texas Hospital refuses to hire overweight people

A Texas hospital already facing a lawsuit for discrimination has again made itself the target of intense criticism over its hiring practices. The Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, Texas says it won’t hire anyone considered obese, declaring that applicants must have a body mass index less than 35. Only Michigan and six U.S. cities have laws against weight-related hiring practices, so the policy could be legal- at least for now.


Here’s my question- do you think this business was right to implement this hiring policy? I am certainly not recommending adopting this policy at this time- I think you are just setting yourself up for a lawsuit if you do so. However, I can understand their logic- if you have a BMI over 35, you are considered obese. Obese people are more than twice as likely to need healthcare than a person not overweight, and when an obese person has an ailment; it is usually a much bigger health problem! Theoretically, if we only hired healthy people (and they stayed that way!), our health insurance would be a lot less expensive in the long run.

There are, obviously, many more issues to consider when hiring people for your organization:

• Is this person right for the job?
• What are their qualifications?
• How is their work ethic?
• Are they trustworthy?
• How will they fit in with the rest of the team?
• Will their salary fit what we can afford?

My point is this--- the overall weight of the future employee has not been a major consideration for employers in the past. However, with the information that we have about obesity and it healthcare ramifications, along with the continuous increase in health insurance premiums for small businesses, it’s no wonder that it has become a consideration. I think the Medical Center listed above in Texas has gone a little overboard, but it is a topic that EVERY employer has in the back (if not the front) of their mind these days, and with good cause!

Another thought- let’s find ways to help the employees we have now learn how to live healthier lifestyles.

Have a great week!

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Oklahoma weighs worker’s comp opt-out bill

A debate in Oklahoma over legislation that would let employers leave the state’s workers compensation system could spill over to other states that are striving to contain insurance costs, sources say. The issue is being led by large, multistate employers that have seen cost savings under Texas’ nonsubscriber system for workers comp, and hope to achieve the same benefits in Oklahoma.


Oklahoma H.B. 2155 and S.B. 1378 would establish an alternative workers comp system that would allow certain employers to exempt themselves from the state system. The plan would require employers opting out to establish a substitute plan- including medical, disability and death benefits for injured workers- that meets Employee Retirement Income Security Act requirements. Only “qualified employers” with 50 or more employees that have exceeded certain thresholds for workers comp losses would be exempted. Those thresholds include an experience modification greater than 1 or total annual incurred claims above $50,000 in one of the last 3 years.

The bottom line here is this- whether you call it Worker’s Comp or an alternative system that protects the injured worker for health, disability and death causes, you will still have costs fairly equal for both. What it really comes down to is reducing your claims and mitigating those claims that you do have. Until that is accomplished, this issue is more of a political football than anything else. Rates are extremely high in Oklahoma, and for good cause. I find the attention to safety, hiring practices, and handling claims in Oklahoma to be very lax compared to businesses in Arkansas. They are not paying attention to details and have given up trying to deal with them in general.

I would assume that if many of the large employers in Oklahoma leave the Worker’s Comp system, the program will get even worse, not better for everyone else. It seems to me that, just like the healthcare system in this country, we are attacking the wrong end of the problem. Why don’t we find ways to reduce and mitigate claims for worker’s instead of trying to change the mechanism that pays for the claims? The situation is the same in Healthcare- why don’t we try to show people how to be healthier and learn to prevent all the health problems instead of trying to change the payer system that supports these health problems?

I guess I would have to be a politician to be able to answer that, wouldn’t I?

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Melanomas rising, mostly among young women

Planning to head to a tanning salon to beef up your bronze look for prom and graduation, or to get a head start on beach season? Young people might want to reconsider. A dramatic rise in skin cancer rates among young adults is leading health officials to shed light on the risk factors, specifically tanning salons, which women are more likely to use. Women under the age of 40 are hit hardest by the escalating incidence of melanoma, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers examined records from a decades-long history in patients 18-39 from 1970 to 2009. Melanoma cases increased eightfold among women in that time and three-fold for men.
“We need to get away from the idea that skin cancer is an older person’s disease,” says report co-author Jerry Brewer, a dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

According to the National Institutes of Health, excess exposure to ultraviolet light increases risk for all skin cancers. UV light is invisible radiation that can damage DNA in the skin and can be generated by the sun, sunlamps and tanning beds. People with fair skin are at higher risk. Fair skin has less pigment to protect the body from UV radiation. Other risk factors include:

---One of more severe sunburns as a child
---An unusual number of moles
---A family history of melanoma
---An exposure to UV light

The possibility of skin cancer might seem remote to young people, but it is not. “The people most affected are not just Baby Boomers but actually young adults,” says Kavita Mariwalla, director of dermatological surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Tanning before prom or big events has become a “norm” for many teenagers. What they don’t know is that each time they visit a tanning booth, their risk of skin cancer rises.”

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We know that ultraviolet radiation is linked to cancer, so avoid exposure to it. The most recent research shows that there is no such thing as a healthy tan.

Please let you employees know about the dangers of the sun’s damaging rays, as well as the increased dangers of tanning beds. Remember, a large part of living a healthy lifestyle is also in the prevention of major diseases, and skin cancer is one of them.


Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

What is your corporate strategy for Risk Management?

Does your company have a comprehensive strategy for defining and managing risk? Who is managing that strategy?


With the fall of Lehman Brothers and all of the economic disasters of the last 3 years, 2008 is viewed as the year that the banks fell apart. However, 2008 should also be remembered as the year when the true value of risk management became evident. A complete risk management strategy takes into account all the factors that present risk to a company-
1) Resources
 2) People
 3) Business continuity

Questions concerning how your company defines risk:

---What risks are you willing to accept as a company?
     Your philosophy should be based on the views expressed by your executive team regarding the role of risk management within the company. Things to consider are the type and extent of risk analysis performed, and how much risk your company is willing and able to take on. And because risk is ever-changing within an organization, it requires a clear and constant line of communication between you and your executive team.

---How will you manage the risks you don’t want to retain?
     After you know what your risks are, you need to decide if you’re going to retain, transfer, mitigate or eliminate them. So how do you make those decisions? The best method is to perform a thorough cost/benefit analysis. For example, which risks can you eliminate altogether by discontinuing a product, changing a location, or choosing a new supplier? Can you provide safety training to employees that will help mitigate another risk? Also, insurance is a critical tool when you choose to transfer risk. Compare this information against the identified risk, and that will allow you to develop a detailed strategy for risk management.
After you have established your corporate philosophy and have identified your complete list of risks, you will be able to successfully deploy your strategy. The success of your risk management strategy lies not only in developing open lines of communication with your executive leadership and in performing a thorough analysis and review of your exposures, but also in choosing the right partners for the risks you choose to transfer. Through this process, you will implement your risk management strategy in the most effective way.


Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Vice President
Commercial Risk Service

Joint Pain and Heart Disease are more likely for Obese People

A new government survey helps quantify what public health officials have long known: Obese adults are significantly more likely to report joint pain, heart conditions, high cholesterol and diabetes than people at a healthy weight.


Among their findings:

---59% of obese adults reported having a heart condition, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes or ministrokes vs. 18% of adults at a health weight.

---55% of obese adults said they had high cholesterol vs. 21% of adults at a healthy weight.

---22% of obese respondents said they had diabetes versus 4% of adults with a healthy weight.

---40% of obese adults said they spent ½ and hour or more doing moderate or vigorous physical activity three times a week vs. 72% of those at a healthy weight.

Let’s all say it together- DUH!!!

Obviously, the people that are at a healthy weight got that way by eating right and exercising properly. There is NO QUESTION that if you are obese for any period of time, you WILL end up with some of these health problems- that is a certain!

The question is- what are you doing about it? Knowledge without action is meaningless. If you are at a healthy weight now, good for you- keep it that way. If you are obese (or worse), NOW is the time to start attacking the situation. Ask yourself these questions:

1) How much sugar do you eat each day?

2) How much of your diet is fried or grilled in butter?

3) How big are your portions that you eat each meal?

4) How much exercise are you getting every day?

LET’S MAKE SURE THAT OUR ACTIONS ARE REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE THAT WE HAVE ABOUT LIVING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Vice President
Commercial Risk Service

Worker’s Comp rates edging up recently

As most of you employers know, the Worker’s Compensation market has been VERY competitive in the last 3-4 years (or longer). Rates have consistently gone down, and scheduled credits have increased. In most instances, an employer is paying less for their worker’s comp now than they were 10 years ago, not only because the payrolls have been less, but because the rates are a lot lower!



However, in the last 6 months, the rates are starting to edge up a little. Carriers are being a little more judicious with credits, and loss cost multipliers are easing up recently. There is still much competition in the marketplace, but the prices are definitely increasing a little.


The question is- “How can you drive your Worker’s Comp premium down even in a market with slightly increasing rates”? The answer is not simple, but achievable:


1) Make sure you are doing all you can to change the “culture” of your organization so that all of your employees understand that you do care about their safety, and you have a program that allows them to get back to work as soon as possible.


2) Make sure you are hiring quality people that have not had prior worker’s comp history and prior health conditions that may not allow them to safely do their jobs.


3) Make sure your Supervisors and Department Heads are properly trained as to how to handle the injury of an employee in their area. Make sure that claim will be dealt with swiftly and correctly.


4) Develop a return-to-work program that is effective and easy to use.


5) Make sure you have a random drug-screening program and also included in that program is mandatory drug screening for on-the-job injuries.


6) Keep pushing safety to all of your employees. Safety truly is a matter of awareness.\


You CAN lower you worker’s comp premium even during a hardening market. The key is to keep you Experience Mod going down by executing the steps above. It’s up to you. Sometimes, accidents happen. However, reducing the number of accidents and mitigating the claims once they happen are up to you!


Bobby Bland
Commercial Risk Service

We have become a nation of over-snackers!

You are probably nibbling on something as you read this, aren’t you? On any given day, 90% of us eat between meals, and on average, we eat twice the number of daily snacks that Americans ate 30 years ago, according to a report by the USDA agriculture Research Service. We have become a nation of grazers!


It is often advocated to have a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack to prevent impulse eating and energy slumps that result from dips in blood sugar. Well-planned, healthful snacks can help you stay properly fueled and on even keel throughout the day. However, in spite of our best intentions, snacks may be sabotaging, not helping our efforts to eat healthy and manage our weight. Another study found that dieters who had midmorning snacks lost less weight than those who didn’t have a snack. What’s more, the USDA says that snacks provide over 1/3 of the empty calories we eat in a day.


With this perceived approval to snack, we seem to take every occasion to do so without regard for whether we are truly hungry. We eat after a 20-minute walk, munch through midday mood fluctuations and eat to beat evening boredom. What’s worse, we are training our children for more of the same.


The answer to the snacking problem isn’t so much whether to snack, but rather how to snack. The trick is to approach it strategically rather than mindlessly.


Following these guidelines should help you stay on the right snack track:


• Snack in response to true hunger
Before grabbing a bite, consider whether you are truly hungry, and if your next meal is within an hour or so, try to hold out. Avoid snacking out of habit, boredom, or other emotional reasons.


• Plan ahead
Don’t nibble on impulse or pick throughout the day. Plan a healthful snack, toting food with you if necessary, when you know there will be more than 4 or 5 hours between meals.


• Make snacks count
Snacks account for up to ¼ of our calorie intake, so choose nutrient-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy, nuts, beans, fish and lean meats.


• Watch your calories and sugar
Snack calories can add up easily, so aim to keep snacks at less than 200 calories, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Sometimes, a piece of fruit is all you need to tide you over. Stay completely away from added sugar on your snacks. This can spike you blood sugar throughout the day.


• Eat regular, balanced meals
Establishing a steady daily pattern of meals that include vegetables and fruit, grains and protein will set the stage to prevent you from munching throughout the day.

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Vice President
Commercial Risk Service

                                       
                             Be careful of too much salt intake

Most people have heard the warnings- consume less sodium, or face an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. Some people have taken heed. However, for the most part, we as a society are eating WAY too much sodium.

What are the main culprits of over-indulgence of salt? Some you already know- but some may surprise you:

1) Bread

That’s right- bread is the #1 source of sodium in American’s diets! People get twice as much sodium from bread and rolls as they do from snacks such as potato chips and pretzels. Consider that a 1-ounce slice of bread has between 100 and 200 milligrams of sodium, depending on the type and brand. By comparison, an ounce of potato chips has 120 milligrams.

2) Cold Cuts

Be very careful about packaged cold cuts and their salt level. Remember, salt is used as a preservative on meats. Fresh deli meats still have a relatively high salt content, but not as high as pre-packaged cold cuts.

3) Pizza

Some specialty pizzas can have up to 2,500 milligrams of sodium in one bite- more than the recommended amount for the entire day!

4) Soup

Canned soups are very high in sodium. Also, be careful with pre- packaged chicken stock. The less-salt version if preferable.

5) Fast food burgers

Basically, if there is a drive-thru window at the restaurant, don’t pull in!

Heavy doses of salt, fat, sugar, and calories are in store!

6) Cheese and pasta dishes

Remember this- all of these products are processed- with salt as a major ingredient for the processing formula.

7) Chinese food

Ever notice how most all Chinese food kind of has the same taste? That’s because of the MSG and other ingredients in it. Stir frying fresh ingredients is great and very nutritious- however, beware of the salt content in soy sauce.

8) Processed Poultry

I know, you are thinking “what can I eat?” Try to stay with free-range poultry. In addition, buying a whole chicken and cooking it is much better than processed chicken parts.

The government’s dietary guidelines advise to reduce your daily sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams per day. In some people, sodium increases blood pressure because it holds excess fluid in the body, placing an added burden on the heart. Some people, especially some African Americans and others who are genetically predisposed, are more salt-sensitive. When they are exposed to sodium, they retain more fluid because of the way their kidneys handle sodium.

Don’t necessarily be fooled by just the taste. Foods that have salt on the surface, like potato chips, taste saltier than they are. Some cereals have more salt in a serving than you’d get in a serving of chips.

The key thing to understand is that the taste for salt is acquired and can be reversed to a lower level. If you don’t eat as much salt in your diet, you won’t crave as much salt in the future!!! If the food industry would collectively help lower the sodium, even a little, in processed foods, America’s taste for salt could gradually be diminished.

Look out for yourself- read the labels!

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service

Panera's pay-what-you-can cafes are a big hit

Panera Café Group is testing a format that is not only working, but benefiting others as well. The menus at Panera Cares Café in Dearborn, Michigan don’t list prices, only suggested donations, and rather than handing money to a clerk, customers would drop their coins and bills into donation bins at the counter. They can pay the full suggested price, pay more, or pay less. They can even pay nothing if that’s all they can afford! Mostly, it is a place where everyone who needs a meal can get one.

The question is- can the café sustain itself- pay its bills and cover its costs? After assessing the café’s first year of performance, the Panera Group has its answer: not only will it continue the Dearborn Panera Cares Café and others in Clayton, Missouri and Portland, Oregon, it plans to launch more in other cities.

Getting the message that these cafes will succeed if people in those communities do their part is the key to their success. It’s done through signs in the dining room and through employees, who embrace the café’s social mission.

I applaud the Panera organization for their idea and their execution of this concept. It speaks more than anything else to the general good heart that most people have. Customers come by and give more than what a cup of coffee costs in order to help other people they don’t even know. Look for more of these concepts to pop up throughout the country. I am sure that some businesses will abuse the concept, as surely as some people abuse the Panera goodness of heart. However, for the most part, I believe that people want to do the right thing.

I am not suggesting that any of you restaurants go to this concept immediately. However, the lesson to be learned here is broader than just for restaurants- believe in the general goodness of the human soul. Understand that if you are doing things for the right reasons, it will come back to you much stronger than you gave. Treat people the way you would like to be treated if you were in their place. Sounds a lot like the Golden Rule, doesn’t it? Guess what- it is!

Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service