Tag Archives: Safety

How Do You Change Culture Without Losing Key People? Five Points

Situation: A mid-sized Company is more than three decades old. The challenges are modernizing operations and updating company culture to keep pace with both competitors and customer expectations. The company also needs to diversify into new growth markets. Can they change the culture of the company without losing key people? How do you change culture without losing key people?

Advice:

  • Let people know that you value them. Consistently express your appreciation for what they do for the company, and don’t blame them for not being perfect. For them to be willing to grow as company culture changes, they need to feel safe – to understand that a change in culture does not mean the loss of their job.
  • Give employees consistent face time. Ask questions and seek their solutions instead of proposing your own. Involve them through collaboration. Tolerate the fact that their solutions won’t be exactly like yours.
  • Pick your battles. Select what you want to change and conserve your emotional capital. Think about what’s important and what’s not before you intervene. Let minor issues slide as long as they don’t impair schedules or performance.
  • Maintain an open door to all levels of the company. However, when an employee comes in with an issue or complaint, defer judgment to their manager. Never undercut your managers.
  • Your most important strengths will be patience and understanding. Stay mindful that change can be threatening, particularly if employees find it hard to see the big picture. Keep your themes and messages simple and repeat them as often as necessary to keep everyone focused.

Thanks to Cameron Tuck of ImperfectCEO for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Control Insurance Expense? Four Options

Situation: A CEO has seen the expense of employee benefits, particularly the cost of health insurance, grow higher than the inflation rate in recent years. There are no indications that this will be reduced. Employees appreciate their benefits, and in the current environment the CEO is hesitant to reduce them. What alternatives are available? How do you control insurance expense?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • To control rises in healthcare benefit costs, consider offering high deductible health insurance combined with company contributions to HSA Accounts. This combination can be less than current health coverage and may reduce the cost inflation of these benefits.
  • Another alternative is to raise the deductible on medical insurance provided but cover the deductible differential for employees.
  • Consider a benefits administrator to assist in putting together a benefits package to reduce costs. There are many alternatives available.
  • Another big expense is Workers’ Comp (WC). The group shared strategies to control WC expense. Investigate those that apply to the company’s business model.
    • Make sure that the company is coded in the proper category – if not the company may be paying a higher rate than required;
    • Develop a proactive company safety policy, with documentation – this can gain discounts from some insurers;
    • Industry or trade associations have developed ADR components for association members to help control costs;
    • Investigate eliminating the medical coverage component on auto insurance for company cars that employees use to drive home. This may already be covered by WC;
    • Shop insurance providers for WC coverage – some will quote more competitive rates to get the company’s business;
    • Challenge the amount of WC reserves that are required for outstanding WC cases – the insurers may be assuming an excessive reserve to cover contingencies and charging the company for this excess;
    • If the company’s insurer is maintaining an employee on the WC list pending resolution of the claim for an excessive period, push them to resolve the case quickly;
    • Eliminate optional employees (e.g., officers) from WC coverage.

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How Do You Boost Employee Ownership of Job Safety? Four Ideas

Situation: A company is concerned because recent accidents on the job have boosted their Modification or MOD rate and increased company expenses. They have held workshops with employees and talked about increasing safety, but employees have been lax in complying with safety measures because these are time-consuming. How do you boost employee ownership of job safety?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Safety is key to the bottom line and future of the company. Enlist employees to monitor each other and point out when others are acting unsafely.
    • Allow / encourage employees to “harass” (in a playful sense) each other if they see someone not working safely.
    • Anyone caught in inappropriate unsafe behavior is penalized and required to pay $1 into a kitty which is spent on a company-wide benefit such as a pizza lunch.
    • Create a presentation, graphically showing the negative impact that a high MOD rate has on the company, and on employees’ incomes. Hold a company meeting, give this presentation and discuss with them how costly hazardous behavior is, and how jobs can ultimately be lost as a result.
    • If nothing else works, explore creating a shell corporation to employ the employees who are subject to potential injury and effectively “outsource” them like high tech does.  This may lower the MOD rate to 100 as a new business.
  • Look for other insurers who will lower the company’s MOD rate.
  • Create consequences for flagrant violations of safety guidelines.
  • Do thorough background checks before hiring new workers. Avoid new hires with a history of disability claims.

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