Posts Tagged ‘telecommuting’

Is your organization on the telework train?

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

With ice encrusting a huge segment of the nation today, it’s a good day to think about your organization’s stance on telework. Are your employees among the 20-30 million people who work at home one day of the week or more? That’s the most recent estimate from the Telework Research Network. They report that “Regular telecommuting grew by 73% between 2005 and 2011 compared to only 4.3% growth of the overall workforce (not including the self-employed).”
Telecommuting has a lot of benefits for employer and employee alike. A few of the benefits include:

  • Reduced traffic congestion, commuting time and costs – it’s an environment-friendly option
  • Risk management in addressing disruptive nuisances such as weather and seasonal flus that pose threats to employee health and safety
  • Enhanced business continuity in emergency situations resulting from more extreme and catastrophic events
  • Improved job satisfaction and morale for employees, and a tool to strengthen work/life balance and reduce stress
  • Expanded pool of available workers, offering more flexibility for workers with disabilities, older workers,and workers with dependent care or caregiver responsibilities

Carol Harnett wrote more about the benefits of flexibility in the wake of superstorm Sandy in her article Telework is Good for Business, which appeared in Human Resource Executive. She credits telework policies as being “the keys to keeping many organizations – and even the federal government – open for business before and after Sandy’s arrival.”
The government as an early adopter
More than 20% of eligible federal employees now telework, with telework defined as work that occurs as part of a regular schedule. There’s been a marked increase since President Obama signed the Telework Expansion Act of 2010. Roughly 21% of federal workers teleworked in 2011 compared to 10% teleworked in calendar year 2009. See the full report to Congress: Status of Telework in the Federal Government
Telework.gov is the official website of the federal government’s telework program. While the site pertains specifically to the federal work force, it provides an interesting case study and reference point for employers on issues of policy, practice, training and more.
Workers Comp & Telecommuting Resources
Telecommuting and -based work opens a lot of compensability issues should an injury occur so policies and procedures need to be thought out carefully in advance.One of the best articles on the topic that we’ve seen is John Stahl’s Mobile Workforce Issues: Home-based Employees and Traditional Workers Subject to Same Standards, which covered a session on the mobile Workforce at last November’s Workers’ Compensation & Disability Conference. Mark Noonan also has a good overview of some of the issues related to telecommuting and workers’ comp, including tips to avoid claims.
Additional resources
Safety Checklist for Telecommuters
Telecommuting: Are Employers Liable for Home Office Injuries?
Promoting safety among lone workers
Telework / Telecommuting – resources from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety
Five tips for successful telework
Technology tools for effective telework

News Roundup: Holiday Health Wonkery, Claims Webinar, Firefighter Hazards & more

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Holiday Health Wonkery – Just a spoonful of latkes makes the medicine go down? Hank Stern hosts a Chanukah-themed Festival of Lights edition of Health Wonk Review at InsureBlog – it’s fun, interesting, and contains substantial wonkery.
Claims Webinar – Mark Walls, who many of you may know from his LinkedIn Work Comp Analysis Group fame, is hosting a complimentary 90-minute webinar on Tuesday, December 11: Take your Workers’ Compensation Claims Handling from Good to Great. Mark’s been plying his profession for 22 years, so you can’t get a better claims guide. Click through to see topics or to register.
Firefighter hazardsStop, drop, and roll: workplace hazards of local government firefighters, 2009 (PDF) – “When compared with all workers, firefighters are injured in similar ways but at a much higher rate, with work-related injuries caused by “stress, exertion, and other medical-related issues” accounting for the largest number of deaths and with risks of fatal injuries 25.7 percent higher and nonfatal injuries and illnesses over two times greater.” – BLS report by Gary M. Kurlick, economist in the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions, Division of Safety and Health Statistics, at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Chimp attack – Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance brings us the most recent development in the sad saga of the CT woman who was attacked by her employer’s pet chimp: Woman disfigured in chimp attack settles with owner’s estate for $4M. We’ve written about aspects of this horrific case in the past – see: the crazed chimp case, Exclusive Remedy” for Losing Your Face?, and (Uncompensable) Nightmare at Work.
Depression and Work Comp – Does your organization offer depression screening for injured workers? Risk Scenarios: Down for the Last Time offers case in which missed cues and poorly handled communication made a difficult workers’ compensation case much more painful than it should have been.
Mind over Matter – Osteoarthritisis is “the most common joint disorder” and occurs “due to aging and wear and tear on a joint.” Will arthroscopic surgery relieve related pain? Read about prior studies in Kneedless Surgery. For more debunking, see Gary Schwitzer’s HealthNewsReview, which has a mission of “helping consumers critically analyze claims about health care interventions and by promoting the principles of shared decision-making reinforced by accurate, balanced and complete information about the tradeoffs involved in health care decisions.” The site offers commentary, evaluations, and grading on health care journalism, advertising, marketing, public relations and other messages – a great consumer resource.
Fraud – Two pretty large cases of fraud hit our radar this week, proving that work comp fraud perpetrators can come in many flavors, even among those you pay to trust. On WorkCompWire, we learned about $2.7 million Florida fraud case involving a former correctional officer and at Managed Care Matters, Joe Paduda blogs that Pennsylvania County was defrauded by its risk manager to the tune of $490,000.
Telecommuting – In a recent Human Resource Executive, Carol Harnett makes the case that Telework is Good for Business, and she uses the experiences that many businesses had with Hurricane Sandy as examples. At LexisNexis, attorney John Stahl looks at work comp issues related to the mobile workforce and home-based employees.
Workplace Violence – The current issue of Risk Management Magazine has a Time Line of Workplace Homicides and at Risk Management Monitor, Ralph Metzner posts about preventing workplace violence.
News Briefs

Cavalcade of Risk and assorted noteworthy news items from the blogosphere

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Check out this week’s Cavalcade of Risk, which is hosted by Nina Kallen, a Massachusetts attorney who runs the blog Insurance Coverage Law in Massachusetts. These carnivals are a good way to discover new blogs and we are happy to discover this one, right in our own backyard.
Flammable Ice Cream – an interesting Loss Prevention case study from Liberty Mutual that addresses the issue of flammable liquid hazards in unexpected place.
America’s Best Hospitals RankedComplex Care Blog offers links to the recent rankings, as well as an interesting video on thinking differently about health care from the Mayo Clinic.
Beneath the Bell Jar: Companies Confront a Rise in Workplace Suicides – Emily Holbrook looks at this tough issue in the November issue of Risk Management.
Employee whistleblower protections in food new safety law – at Today’s Workplace, attorney Jason Zuckerman discusses the robust whistleblower protections included in the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which are included to ensure that workers can disclose food safety concerns without fear of reprisal. He offers a detailed overview of the provisions.
Update on OSHA’s worker safety in construction efforts – OSHA Deputy Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab’s keynote speech, which was delivered at the Building Trades Employers’ Association of New York 2010 Safety Conference.
TSA Brings Problems on Itself – we discussed TSA employee stress earlier in the week. Workplace human behavior consultant and author Aubrey Daniels suggests that better attention to service and training might go a long way to reducing traveler tension – and would also, no doubt, make things easier for the screeners themselves.
Fatal occupational injuries at road construction sites, 2003-07 (PDF) – a report recently issued by the Monthly Labor Review, which analyzes trends and circumstances around the fatalities.
Remote Workers Need More Than Cookie-Cutter Safety Strategies – from Risk and Insurance, a discussion on telecommuting workers and an approach to keep them safe.

Work force issues for the next decade

Tuesday, May 4th, 2004

Will the offshore outsourcing trend continue? How will the work force of the future differ from the work force of today? In Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Business, Misc. | Comments Off on Work force issues for the next decade