Small businesses wait for verdict on 2017 health care costs
Here's an informative article on healthcare costs, from San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate) by AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg
NEW YORK (AP) — Autumn is an anxious time for many small and medium-sized business owners as they wait to learn whether their health insurance costs will go up for 2017 — and if so, by how much?
"There's always a lump in your throat because you don't know what you're going to get," says Darren Ambler, a managing director at Insight Performance, a Dedham, Massachusetts-based human resources provider.
Whether a business sees a minuscule rise, a double-digit percentage increase or even a decline depends on factors including the state where the company is located and how much its insurance carrier paid in claims over the past year. If the average age of a company's employees rose or fell significantly — quite possible in a business with 10 or fewer employees — that could also affect the outcome.
Most of the increase in insurers' costs is a result of rising prescription drug prices, Ambler says.
While companies with 50 or more workers are required to offer affordable insurance to them and their dependents, many smaller businesses also do so because they believe it's right or they want to attract and retain good employees. When their carriers hike the premiums, companies have to decide whether to absorb the costs, scale back their coverage or find other alternatives.
Several medium-sized clients of The Megro Benefits Co., a consulting company, are facing 38 percent increases in their 2017 premium costs. Surges like that have owners thinking about what's called self-funding, says Cheryl Kiley, an adviser at Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based Megro.
In self-funding, a business pays for all or part of employees' medical costs and hires an insurance company to administer its health plan. Companies typically purchase special policies to reimburse them in the event of employees' or dependents' catastrophic illnesses. Insurance companies charge less to administer self-funded plans because they don't have any risk, and employers also save because self-funded plans aren't subject to a 6.5 percent federal tax on premiums.
Although companies may be forced to find alternatives, Megro isn't seeing clients dropping insurance, president Bob Violasays.
"People won't come to work for them unless they have health insurance," he says.
RizePoint, which makes software for the food, lodging and retail industries and has about 75 employees, is paying 16 percent more for premiums on a policy that renewed Sept. 1. It's already considering self-funding for next year.
"It's a little bit risky," says Peter Johnson, a vice president at the Salt Lake City-based company. "But I don't want to see another 16 percent increase — it's nowhere near sustainable."
Johnson had budgeted for a rise of 12 percent. When RizePoint's carrier said premiums were going up more than that, Johnson searched unsuccessfully for a cheaper policy.
Rocky Finseth had the opposite experience. His premiums fell 11 percent although the policy was virtually unchanged from a year ago.
"I was surprised not only about the drop, but how large of a drop," says Finseth, owner of Carrara Nevada, a Las Vegas-based company that does lobbying on state and local issues in Nevada. His policy, which covers seven staffers, renews Oct. 1.
Finseth didn't question why his premiums dropped. He decided to use the savings to add vision coverage for his employees.
Some companies find that their policies have been discontinued.
"The plan we had was mysteriously canceled, and we were slotted into what we were told was the same plan, but when you looked at it, it was a worse plan," says Joseph Nagle, marketing director at EverCharge, a maker of electric vehicle charging stations. Among other things, the new plan had a higher deductible — $6,000 versus $5,000.
EverCharge, based in Emeryville, California, began researching other carriers and plans, chose three and asked its seven employees which they preferred. The company, which previously paid for all its staffers' insurance, gave them an option of continuing to have fully funded coverage, paying about $10 per month for better coverage, or $120 for another. They chose the middle option, and EverCharge was able to keep its health care costs unchanged, Nagle says.
Jason Anderson, owner of Datagame, a Kansas City, Missouri-based maker of software for online market research, hasn't received his renewal package yet. Anderson pays 100 percent of his three staffers' premiums, and 50 percent of their dependents' premiums.
He had a 5 percent increase for his 2016 premiums, an amount he doesn't see as significant. He says he can handle a 10 percent increase, but if he's facing a 20 percent hike, he might have to cut back on coverage for dependents.
"I keep waiting for the shoe to drop," says Anderson, who acknowledges that he'd be angry at an increase in the 20 percent range. "I don't see 10, 20, 30 percent improvements in what I am able to charge my clients," he says.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Rosenberg, J. M. (2016 September 14). Samll businesses wait for verdict on 2017 health care costs. [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Small-businesses-wait-for-verdict-on-2017-health-9222107.php
Majority of workers cannot define copay, deductible
Do your employees understand the healthcare acronyms? Vlad Gyster explains how educating your employees can have a major impact on proper usage of healthcare benefits.
Very soon, thousands of employees across the United States will be choosing their health insurance. That’s scary, because there’s an emerging body of data that shows that most people don’t understand the basics of how health plans work. That knowledge gap may be causing some serious issues: From sick people not going to the doctor, to employees over-paying for health insurance.
If you're like most employers, there's a good chance that you're moving to consumer-driven health plan designs that employ a high deductible. In 2006, only one in 10 employees had a general health insurance deductible of $1,000 or more for single coverage. Today, nearly half do.
As adoption accelerates, benefit professionals find themselves in the midst of a developing crisis: Though HDHPs clearly help cut healthcare costs new research indicates that they do so in the worst way possible. Instead of shopping for better prices, sick people are simply not getting the care they need. As one of the study’s authors puts it: “We [didn't] find any evidence [employees] look for a lower cost. They just don't go."
Here's what’s puzzling: This isn't necessarily happening because of cost. This research is based on an employer that fully funded the deductible. As Vox explains: “In some cases, you could chalk this up to a liquidity issue: A worker might not have enough money in her checking account to pay for all the care below the $3,750 deductible. But that explanation doesn't work here: In this case, the employer put a $3,750 subsidy in workers' health savings accounts.”
So, what could it be? There could be many complex reasons. But there could also be a very simple one: 86% of people cannot define deductible, copay, coinsurance and out-of-pocket maximum. And people can’t properly use what they don’t understand.
A central assumption in consumer-driven plan design is that people can get the same care at a lower price and avoid care that they don’t actually need. To do that, employees need to be educated healthcare consumers, and companies have added tools to help. Utilization modeling and cost transparency technologies are becoming more and more broadly available. But there's a much more foundational piece of the puzzle that's been taken for granted.
In a paper published in Journal of Health Economics, researchers found that 86% of participants couldn’t define all of the following four terms on a multiple choice questionnaire:
· Deductible
· Copay
· Coinsurance
· Out-of-pocket maximum
While the healthcare industry is focused on utilization prediction and cost transparency tools, which are hard to create and implement, something quite basic is slipping right under our noses: Teaching people basic terms that they need to know to make informed decisions.
Understanding these terms is a building block of healthcare consumerism, without which a lot starts to unravel. If an employee doesn’t understand the terms that make-up every health plan design, it's hard to convince an employee to even switch to a high deductible health plan, even when it saves the employee money. It may also cause the employee to avoid care that she needs, because she has trouble predicting what she'll pay.
As more employers adopt HDHPs, a troubling reality is on the horizon: A healthcare crisis may be around the corner due to employees not getting the care that they need.
What to do about it
The good news is that healthcare consumerism isn’t a one-time event. It requires ongoing education and now is as good a time as ever to begin.
Here is something completely free you can do:
· Survey your employees to see what percentage understand basic health plan concepts.
· Send a weekly email to all employees defining each healthcare term, one at a time.
· Re-survey your employees with the exact same questions to measure the change.
This alone will give you a measurable starting point, a way to make progress, and measure the progress made.
See the original article from BenefitNews.com Here.
Source:
Gyster, V. (2016, June 27). Majority of workers cannot define copay, deductible [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/majority-of-workers-cannot-define-copay-deductible
Cyberbullies: Worse than Swirlys in the Bathroom Stall?
Insightful post from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) by Jillian Caswell
Technology and an unending stream of social media messages, notifications, and alerts have invaded our personal lives more than ever before – leaving the door wide open for the bullies of yesterday to get off the playground and into the Twittersphere. It’s almost comical to hear of exes who continue to stalk one another on Instagram and we all compare our traditional 9-to-5 careers to the jet setting elite on Snapchat, but have you ever stopped to think how this can impact our work lives? Unfortunately, the reality is the more connected we become, the more insidious bullying, and its close relative harassment, can become. As HR professionals, we have a duty and responsibility to understand not only how technology and social media can hinder business operations such as lost productivity, but also how it creates an environment of opportunity for employees to fall victim to bullying and harassment.
Become Aware and Observant
This goes beyond monitoring your own company’s social media channels! Before you can hope to identify and rectify potential cyberbullying incidents in your workplace, you must first prepare yourself with an understanding of what kinds of harassment and bullying can transpire in the digital realm. If you’re new to social media, there are numerous resources online to get you the crash course you need to become familiar with popular resources such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Live streaming functionality with outlets such as Periscope and Facebook Live create additional areas of opportunity for workplace bullies to exploit. Knowing how to monitor, identify, and respond swiftly and appropriately to harassment in these mediums is key to building a solid company policy relating expectations for employee interaction with company social media channels as well as harassment policies that are inclusive of online activities, privately or on public channels. There are dozens of masks that the face of cyberbullying can wear, whether it’s an Instagram post poking fun at a specific employee shared with other staff members, a ceaseless spewing of threats on Twitter, or an employee texting explicit content to coworkers. By becoming familiar both with the platforms themselves and the different forms of harassment and bullying that can occur in these environments, you will add another resource to your HR toolkit in navigating potentially sticky employee relations issues.
It may at first feel overwhelming to think of all the different variations of harassment that can play out on the stage of our smart phones and personal devices; however, employers are responsible to ensure they can provide a workplace free of harassment – a bridge that bullying can often rapidly cross over. Cyberbullying is often also more difficult to detect as it can transpire well out of the watchful eyes of the company HR department. In addition to familiarizing yourself with the different social media channels, consider the following suggestions to build a robust defense to cyberbullying:
- Training – For both your HR department and the other staff, it can become quite enlightening to provide trainings on what does and does not constitute harassment. This is also a great opportunity to provide a refresher on company policy relating to bullying and harassment.
- Demonstrate Appropriate Behavior – Take inventory of your own social media use. Are there potentially offensive postings or messages on your personal channels (which we’re sure you’ve already have on a private setting – right?!) or are you yourself aware of (even if not participating in) derogatory commentary circulating online about other staff members?
- Respond Adequately to Violations – Multiple court cases have provided substantial monetary awards to bullied employees who proved their arguments that their employer was aware harassment was occurring. Ensuring appropriate discipline occurs for those violating bullying policies demonstrates company efforts to provide workplaces free of harassment.
What’s Next?
So you’ve brought yourself up to speed with the most popular forms of social media and established a solid company policy with no tolerance for bullying and harassment. Think you’re set? Not always. Social media and technology is evolving and morphing into new formats at the speed of light – meaning that as HR professionals, our organizations rely on us to stay just as current with the latest trends and changes in the digital realm as much as in the office space. Stay current with the changing world of social media and digital communications and you’ll continue to be as effective as you are in all your other HR competencies!
See the original article Here.
Source:
Caswell, J. (2016 September 15). Cyberbullies: worse than swirlys in the bathroom stall? [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://blog.shrm.org/blog/cyberbullies-worse-than-swirlys-in-the-bathroom-stall
Take out the earbuds
Intriguing artile from Benefits Pro by Marty Traynor
Walk around any workplace and unless there's a safety issue, almost every employee under 50 is wearing earbuds and remains focused on their own personal music zone. What a perfect metaphor for the barriers we must overcome to gain the attention we need for benefit purchase decisions.
With the fall enrollment season approaching, let's consider some of the ways we should work to “remove the buds” and focus employee attention on the process of benefit enrollment.
- Employer's earbuds must come out first. Employees are not the only ones ignoring the importance of benefit-related communications. Employers often think a simple introductory email is sufficient. That kind of communication is enough if the goal is to tell employees about an event. However, in no way does this type of message convey importance or opportunity. You must convince the employer that a well-designed campaign will be a big positive for them, both in terms of employee engagement and happiness with employee benefit options.
- Know your audience. Many otherwise great campaigns have failed because they are tone deaf to their audience. A program benefitting union members better not be littered with “employee” references. The graphics used to illustrate the benefit plan should also be carefully designed to match the demographics of the employee audience. Designers often tend to show “beautiful people,” but benefit plans need to be shown benefitting real people.
- Use multiple approaches to connect with people. You often hear about the importance of multi-channel benefit communications. Unfortunately, we cannot just say, “Alexa, create a multi-channel campaign to teach employees about their benefits and get them to enroll to best meet their needs.” We must do what's next best and create a campaign that gives employees information in multiple ways: web details, calculators, videos, printable pieces with brief, explanatory, and detailed options. Use on-site materials such as break room table tents and bulletin board posters to augment e-campaigns.
- Use “real speak” whenever possible. The benefits business is full of jargon. Studies have shown that words we use all the time are confusing; even a term like “premium” isn't clear. Most people think of premium as an adjective, meaning “expensive, special or high class.” They don't see it as an everyday expenditure, but rather as a luxury type of item. So when we say “your premium is affordable,” employees may immediately think we are trying to scam them. Watch the jargon, and use terms that make sense to employees.
- Get people in front of people. The best way to communicate is in person. Regardless of how effective an employer's enrollment system is, the most effective communications campaigns still have a human element. Personal meetings, group meetings or call center-based enrollments can all add the personal touch. Without a personal touch, a benefit enrollment campaign may seem empty to many employees.
- Make sure employees know what's in it for them. They need to understand the importance of good benefit elections for themselves. This helps ensure they credit their employer for offering a valued program, and ensures they will understand the importance of good choices in enrollment.
Good luck with your fourth quarter enrollments. Earbuds are not noise cancelling headphones, so there is still a great opportunity to break through to employees and make your benefit communications campaigns your best to date.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Traynor, M. (2016 September 13). Take out the earbuds. [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2016/09/13/take-out-the-earbuds?slreturn=1474041704
Daily Grind Getting You Down? Make Yourself Happier And More Productive At Work With These Simple Tips
Employee Wellness is crucial for productivity. Katie Sola gives some tips and tricks for your daily routine to have a happier self. See the article below from Forbes.com.
Eat a lot more fruit and vegetables: Eight servings, to be exact
You know fruit and veg are healthy, but did you know they can make you happier than a major positive life event like a promotion or a major raise? Scientists at the University of Warwick, Great Britain and the University of Queensland, Australia followed more than 12,000 randomly selected people for two years. They found that people who switched from eating few fruit and vegetables to eating eight servings a day experienced a spike in well-being equivalent to getting a job after being unemployed.
Exercise before work
It’s common knowledge that exercise makes you happier and more productive, but to gain the greatest benefits, you should work out before or during the workday. Researchers at the University of Bristol, Great Britain, found that office workers are most productive on the days they exercise.
“Critically, workers performed significantly better on exercise days and across all three areas we measured, known as mental-interpersonal, output and time demands,” research associate Jo Coulson said in a statement.
Watch a funny video and have a snack during the workday
Scientists at the University of Warwick, Great Britain found that watching comedic clips and eating chocolate and fruit made workers happier, and boosted their productivity by 12 percent. It worked in a laboratory setting, so it may well work in your office too.
Keep your commute as short as possible
Long commutes sap your happiness more than you think.
“Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness,” Robert Putnam told the New Yorker in 2007. He’s a Harvard political scientist and the author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
See the full article Here.
Source:
Sola, K. (2016, July 28). Daily grind getting you down? Make yourself happier and more productive at work with these simple tips [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/levelup/2016/07/28/daily-grind-getting-you-down-make-yourself-happier-and-more-productive-at-work-with-these-simple-tips/#14c8a80b31f5
Automation making huge retirement plan impact
Paula Aven Gladych gives great insight on how automated retirement contributions are helping increase participation. See the full article from BenefitNews.com below.
Retirement plan participation has increased 19% in the past five years because of design features that make it simple and quick for employees to participate in their workplace retirement plans.
Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust examined the savings behaviors of 4 million defined contribution plan participants from 5,000 companies and found that features such as automatic defaults into diversified investments, target-date funds and automatic escalation have had a huge effect on employee savings rates.
The company’s Plan Health Index is a retirement plan health measure that includes a plan’s participation and savings rates and its diversification as a measure of employee retirement readiness.
Employees “have to join the plan, be saving at an adequate rate and be adequately diversified for their time horizon. If they are doing all three of those things well, they have a good chance for a good outcome, assuming they started saving early enough,” says Joe Ready, executive vice president and director of institutional retirement and trust at Wells Fargo.
To score well on the Wells Fargo Plan Health Index, employees need to participate in their workplace plan, save at 10% or higher, including the employer matching contribution, and have their retirement savings in diverse investments.
“Plan health across our book of business increased 37% from five years ago,” Ready says.
Participation increased 19%, contributions were up 7.3% from five years ago and diversification improved 26%, according to Wells Fargo research.
Generationally, millennials are reaping the biggest benefit from this industry shift toward automatic features. They have essentially grown up with these options, Ready says, and they have the highest increase in participation in the last five years. They also are the most diversified generation, taking advantage of target-date funds and other managed account options.
Millennials are also taking advantage of Roth 401(k) features at a higher rate than other generations. Wells Fargo found that 16% of millennials are taking advantage of a Roth option, compared to 12% of other participants.
“They are engaged,” Ready says. “They are thinking about their future taxes and tax diversification. That’s pretty good.”
The key drivers of plan participation are income, automatic features, tenure and age, Ready says. Wells Fargo analyzed tenure and found that once a company’s employees are hired and with the company for two years, their attrition rates tend to drop off dramatically.Ready encourages employers to design their retirement plans so that loyal employees, those who have stayed longer than two years, are eligible for the employer matching contribution. It’s a balance between helping employees achieve their retirement goals and wanting to invest in those who are invested in their company, he said.
Ready encourages employers to design their retirement plans so that loyal employees, those who have stayed longer than two years, are eligible for the employer matching contribution. It’s a balance between helping employees achieve their retirement goals and wanting to invest in those who are invested in their company, he said.
The way the matching contribution is designed can also have a major impact on how much employees save for retirement. If a company switches from contributing 50 cents on the first 3% to 25% on the first 6%, it automatically gets employees saving an additional 3% they wouldn’t save otherwise. Automatic increase is another feature that is underutilized, according to Ready.
Many companies set their automatic increase at 1% per year with an opt-out option. Ready says that whether the auto increase is 1% or 2%, the opt-out percentage is the same, so why not make the auto escalation 2% per year, bringing employees closer to that 10% savings rate sooner?
“It makes a material difference, especially at a younger age, to get to a higher savings rate quicker. It makes a big difference in outcome,” Ready says.
Two-thirds of Wells Fargo’s clients use an auto increase program, but “less than 30% of those plans implemented it on an opt-out basis,” the research found.
Having an opt-out option — meaning employees have to make the effort to opt out of the increase – takes advantage of participant inertia, Wells Fargo reported. Even with an opt-out option, 79% of plan participants stayed with the automatic increase on their retirement savings accounts.
Millennials tend to be more diversified in their retirement investments than older generations, due in large part to by the increase of automatic features in plans. Because of that, Wells Fargo found that 78% of millennials are on track to replace 80% of their pay in retirement, compared to 62% for Generation X and 50% for baby boomers.
“Some of that has to do with the fact that millennials are getting into the plan at an early age, saving early and diversifying appropriately with managed products,” Ready says.
That said, only 28.6% of millennials are contributing to their retirement account at the 10% level, compared to 35.2% for Generation X and 44.5% for the boomers.
“I’m very bullish on millennials, the way they are participating and the way they are engaging in the Roth
and leveraging diversification products in their plans,” Ready says. “If they keep increasing their savings rate, they have the power of time.”
Ready says he expects the trend toward automatic features in retirement plans to continue. He also sees a future rise in technology with a purpose. Wells Fargo has a mobile app that gives employees a one-click option to sign up for their company retirement plan. The company will send a text to all new employees with a link to the retirement plan sign-up page. It might say, “You are eligible to join our 401(k) plan.” When the participant clicks on the link, it takes her to a pre-filled screen that tells her what the default saving rate is and the default investments. If the employee is happy with the defaults, all she has to do is click the enroll button.
“We have seen a material increase in the number of people enrolling because of that,” Ready says.
See Original Post from BenefitNews.com Here.
Source:
Gladych, P.A. (2016, July 21). Automation making huge retirement plan impact [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/automation-making-huge-retirement-plan-impact
What Employers Can Learn From Millennials
Great read by Christina Folz on generational communication.
It's a tale as old as time: Middle-aged and older adults kvetch about the next generation and speculate on what this world is coming to. Business author and consultant Jamie Notter recently shared a reference to young adults' lack of respect for elders and poor work ethic—from the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero.
"Every 20 years, a new generation comes into the work world as adults, and we all freak out about it," says Notter, who co-wrote the book When Millennials Take Over (Idea Press, 2015). As the largest living generation, Millennials (those younger than 35) have perhaps borne more than their fair share of scorn.
"We are really mad about how many trophies they got," says Notter, who is a member of Generation X and founding partner of WorkXO LLC. "We're constantly saying they don't get it, they don't know how to work in the real world." In truth, however, they likely understand more about the future of business than others, given that they are shaping it. "They have a lot to teach us," Notter maintains. "We need to shift conversation away from complaining and more toward being curious."
For their book, Notter and co-author Maddie Grant researched organizations that had alignment with the Millennial approach to business. These companies tend to be:
Digital. This is about more than technology. It's a philosophy based on the concept that software must work for the user—by being customizable and constantly updated. "We need to bring that mindset into leadership and business," Notter says. The American Society for Surgery of the Hand, a Chicago-based organization with about 20 employees, shaped its whole enterprise around the needs of employees rather than management—by letting people wear what they want to work, for example—and the organization has experienced off-the-charts engagement as a result.
Clear. "It's not just transparency for transparency's sake," Notter says. "It's about making things visible in order to improve the quality of decisions that get made." Menlo Innovations, a technology firm in Ann Arbor, Mich., pairs two software designers at a single workstation; one comments on the code as the other is writing it, and each pair's tasks are posted on a wall so they know what is expected at all times. "They charge more than competitors and still have people lining up," Notter says. "The product is that good."
Fluid. The hierarchy is still there, but everyone is actively engaged in the organization's mission. At Quality Living Inc. in Omaha, Neb., a rehabilitation facility for people with brain and spinal cord injuries, there is a standing rule: No matter where a person is on the organization's hierarchy, he or she must connect decision-making to the hopes and dreams of the patient. "For this to work, you need to be crystal clear on what defines success," Notter says.
Fast. All the organizations Notter and Grant studied were agile and quick—in part because employees are trusted to make choices themselves. At Menlo Innovations, for example, "decisions get made without e-mail and boring status update meetings," Notter says.
Instead, employees communicate and resolve issues using something Notter referred to as "high-speed voice technology."
In other words, they talk to each other.
Read the original article posted on SHRM.org on July 27, 2016 Here.
Source:
Folz, C. (2016, July 27). What employers can learn from millennials [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0716/pages/when-millennials-take-over.aspx
Is There Really A Five-Second Rule About Food On The Floor?
Are your employees being break-room conscious about food safety? The article below gives more insight on the "five-second" rule and how it may effect your employees safety.
Original Post from CNN.com on June 15, 2016
When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick up within five seconds? This urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won't have much of a chance to contaminate it. Research in my lab has focused on how food and food contact surfaces become contaminated, and we've done some work on this particular piece of wisdom.
Where did the five-second rule come from?
Five seconds is all it takes
Should you eat food that's fallen on the floor?
New Workers Are at Highest Risk for Heat-Related Death
Did you know new employees or workers coming back from an extended break are at more risk of heat stroke? It is important to make sure these workers review safety procedures and gradually build up their tolerance to the heat. See the article by Dana Wilkie below and make sure your new workers are safe.
Original Post from SHRM.org
Who would you guess is most at risk for heat-related death while on the job?
It’s not necessarily older workers, first responders or those who toil outside all day.
Instead, the majority of recent heat-related deaths investigated by federal authorities involved workers who’d been on the job for three days or less.
That finding by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) highlights how important it is for employers to ensure that new workers—and returning employees who have been back to the job for a week or less—are prepared to protect themselves, OSHA authorities said.
With weather forecasters calling for above-average temperatures across much of the country this summer, the standard precautions—drink lots of water, take frequent breaks and spend time in the shade—may seem obvious. Yet those precautions may not be enough for new workers or employees returning to the job after extended time away. OSHA recommends allowing new or returning workers to gradually increase their workload and take more frequent breaks as they build up a tolerance for working in the heat.
Prevention
Construction workers make up about one-third of heat-related worker deaths, but employees who work outdoors across many industries—agriculture, landscaping, transportation, utilities, grounds maintenance, emergency response, and oil and gas operations—are at risk when temperatures go up. Additionally, indoor employees who do strenuous work or wear bulky, protective clothing and use heavy equipment are also at risk. High humidity increases the chances of heat-related maladies such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
In 2014, 2,630 workers suffered from heat illness, and 18 died from heat stroke and related causes on the job, according to OSHA.
Under the general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers are responsible for protecting workers from hazards on the job, including extreme heat. To prevent heat-related illness and fatalities, OSHA offers these suggestions:
- Prepare a heat acclimatization plan and medical monitoring program. Closely supervise new employees, including those who are temporary workers or returning seasonal workers, for the first 14 days on the job—or until they acclimate to the heat. Though most heat-related worker deaths occur in the first three days on the job, more than one-third occur on the first day. If someone has not worked in hot weather for at least a week, his or her body needs time to adjust.
- Encourage workers to drink about one cup of water every 15-20 minutes, even if they say they’re not thirsty. During prolonged sweating lasting several hours, they should drink sports beverages containing electrolytes.
- Provide shaded or air-conditioned rest areas for cooling down, and encourage workers to use them.
- Provide workers with protective equipment and clothing, such as hats, light-colored clothing, water-cooled garments, air-cooled garments, ice-packet vests, wetted overgarments, and heat-reflective aprons or suits.
- Be familiar with heat illness signs and symptoms, and make sure employees are, too. Some heat exhaustion signs are dizziness, headache, cramps, sweaty skin, nausea and vomiting, weakness, and a fast heartbeat. Heat stroke symptoms include: red, hot, dry skin; convulsions; fainting; and confusion. In general, any time a worker has fainted or demonstrates confusion, this represents an emergency situation.
- Tell workers to notify a supervisor or to call 911 if they or their co-workers show signs of heat illness. Implement a buddy system where workers observe each other for early signs and symptoms of heat intolerance. Have someone stay with a worker who is suffering from the heat until help arrives.
- Encourage supervisors and workers to download OSHA’s Heat Safety Tool on their iPhone or Android device. [https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/heatillness/heat_index/heat_app.html] This app calculates the heat index, a measurement of how hot it is when taking humidity into account. The app also has recommendations for preventing heat illness based on the estimated risk level where one is working.
Dana Wilkie is an online editor/manager for SHRM.
Read original article here.
Wilkie, D. (2016, June 6). New workers are at highest risk for heat-related death [Web log post]. Retrived from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/New-Workers-Are-at-Highest-Risk-for-Heat-Related-Death.aspx
Rethinking the Modern Accumulation of Technology
In an article from SHRM.org, Natalie Kroc addresses how technology is impacting security measures.
Original post from SHRM.org on June 16, 2016.
It wasn’t the latest gadget or platform or program that the speakers discussed at a recent conference session on how to keep teleworkers and remote workers connected. Instead, it was the most basic of modern technologies that kept being stressed:
E-mail. An Internet connection. Maybe a webcam (though this proved controversial).
“I am a Millennial, and I … primarily communicate through e-mail,” said Greg Caplan, founder and CEO of Remote Year, a year-old startup that has brought together a group of 75 people to travel the world while holding down various remote jobs. Caplan believes that, for work purposes, e-mail is still king.
The other panelists at the Telecommuting, Remote and Distributed (TRaD) Works Forum, held June 9-10 in Washington, D.C., agreed that the simplest of technologies can successfully keep offsite employees connected. TRaD refers to the different kinds of offsite employees: Telecommuters are those who work from home sometimes, remote workers do their entire jobs from home and a distributed workforce is when an organization doesn’t have a physical location so its employees all work remotely.
Employees who work offsite only need “an Internet connection. Anything else we can work around,” said Carol Cochran, director of people and culture for Boulder, Colo.-based FlexJobs, a job search site that focuses on telecommuting, part-time and other flexible work opportunities. FlexJobs was a co-host of the forum.
Organizations may want to consider providing their remote workers a cellphone with Internet capabilities as a backup. This all but guarantees that employees will be able to work—even if they are having difficulties with their home Internet connection.
A chat function can be useful as well, if the work that employees are doing would benefit from the ability to reach out and have real-time conversations.
Many organizations that employ remote workers have the routine of a “daily huddle” or something similar, wherein employees are expected to check in at the start of the day, whether in a brief meeting or by writing their day’s plans in a shared document.
When an organization’s workforce is made up of remote or teleworking employees, or a mix of offsite and onsite workers, it’s especially important to use the time when everyone gets together effectively. Meetings should be “30 minutes, if not 15 minutes, instead of an hour,” Cochran said. If certain employees are inclined to speak for long periods of time, establish a time limit—and then stick to it.
Video: Love It or Hate It
“I hate video,” Cochran said. “I’m really reluctant to put it on, it’s so awkward.” FlexJobs uses it only rarely, and even then it’s often for social occasions. Cochran said she has found that workers become preoccupied knowing they are being viewed on screen, and worry about their hair and clothes and background surroundings.
This was a point of fierce contention among the panelists and forum attendees alike, though. Some organizations believe that video is essential, and that any initial awkwardness that employees may feel will disappear with habitual use.
Alex Konanykhin, CEO of Transparent Business, a platform that aims to help companies that employ teleworkers and freelancers, offered a solution: Get the organization’s leaders to work from home—and to exercise right before the meeting. When they dial in, they should be in full post-workout gear, including messy hair or a baseball cap. “All it takes is one time” of seeing that, he said, to have a workforce that can be comfortable with being on screen.
Video is a way of giving voice to remote workers and “making them feel part of the organization,” he added.
For those organizations that decide to incorporate webcams into the remote-worker experience, the panelists had some advice:
- Don’t keep the webcams on all day—turn them on at specific times, such as for meetings or training sessions.
- Suggest to employees who express reluctance that they may want to purchase a simple screen or backdrop to place behind them so that their home surroundings will not be visible on screen. This also may help to convey a more-businesslike feel.
- Consider making video an option, not a requirement, for meetings.
- Finally, if the organization’s video capabilities prove to be less than ideal—and repeatedly involve technical snafus such as the video shutting off or freezing, then stop trying to make video happen.
Adopt New Tools Cautiously
The speakers had their individual favorites among newer technologies, such as messaging app Slack, electronic signature platform DocuSign, Google Drawings for collaborating on charts and diagrams, and Zoom for streamlining remote communications. However, the panelists also derided many new offerings as being unnecessarily confusing and others for seeming to be more about entertainment than practical application.
Tools that are adopted by an organization need to be fully embraced by both remote and onsite workers, the speakers agreed. “When you take on a tool, you have to have a very clear expectation of how it is to be used,” Caplan said. “And that’s just culture.”
That said, it’s important for organizations to pick their tools wisely. Each new tool should represent an improvement from whatever employees were using before to accomplish a particular task. And while entertainment shouldn’t be a priority, each new tool should make employees’ jobs easier, the panelists said.
“Why do people love Facebook?” asked Konanykhin. “It’s instant gratification.” Employees expect the same ease of use and sense of satisfaction with the tools they use for work.
Natalie Kroc is a staff writer for SHRM.
See the original article here.
Source:
Kroc, N. (2016, June 16). Rethinking the modern accumulation of techonology [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/technology/Pages/Rethinking-the-Modern-Accumulation-of-Technology.aspx