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1. Assess both your company’s general social media activities and individual social media campaigns, weighing potential risks against benefits as accurately as possible.
2. Designate specific individuals and departments to develop, execute, and monitor a comprehensive and proactive social media strategy – and make a senior executive responsible for implementing it in a timely fashion.
3. Have the policy reviewed by the relevant departments (human resources, IT, communications, and legal) and by an outside law firm.
4. Because employees pose the biggest risk to a company, although often unwittingly,,provide educational programs about the danger of damage to the company by using social media on the job or at home.
5. Create a social media agreement for employees to review and sign as a condition of employment and part of their employment contract. Update the agreement annually, or as often as needed, to address changes in social media that might impact your risk in new ways.

• Pre-disruption planning. Assess the “risk and threat environment” of your business and take steps to reduce these hazards and weaknesses.
• Disruption response. The extent and nature of losses will depend on the effectiveness of the emergency plans that you implement during the incident to provide a methodical, rational, and coordinated approach to dealing with the disruptions.
• Post-disruption recovery. While the first two steps can reduce or mitigate risk, the recovery process focuses on rebuilding and restoration. Although many businesses depend heavily on central and distributed computer resources, a comprehensive BCP involves a wide variety of crucial activities that need to continue with minimal interruption.

• A history of the firm that’s positive and realistic. The more effectively you’ve adapted to the recession, the better your chances of getting a competitive rate.
• Résumés of key management— to show that you and your team know your business.
• Marketing materials and Web page(s).
• A D&B Report. Without one, you might get a lower grading. If you’ve had financial problems, some insurance companies might be willing to write your business, as long as you provide this information upfront.
• Audited financial statements, if applicable.
• Estimated values, including sales, workers compensation payroll, automobile fleet, property and equipment.
• Sales and payrolls for the past five years.
• Insurance loss runs and claim runs during the past five years for all policies, valued within 90 days of renewal.
• An outline of your workplace safety plan(s).
• Fleet maintenance schedules, if applicable.
• Your workers compensation experience modification factor.

1. Assessment: Brainstorm and list all potential losses. Then rate them on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the most disastrous and 1 having the least impact on the business.
2. Planning: Formulate a comprehensive, detailed action plan, using both in-house and outside sources. The plan should include both steps to prevent the loss and remedies to take if the loss occurs. Be as specific as possible.
3. Implementation: Act on the plan. Determine what steps you must take to now insure a positive outcome if disaster strikes; Who will be accountable for taking these steps when and to whom will they report?
4. Testing: For example, if you're planning to deal with a computer crash, data recovery is essential. Test back-up media regularly to ensure that they will be available when needed. All too many businesses lose data due to malware or mechanical breakdown only to find that their backup is either corrupted or unavailable when needed.
5. Documentation: Put the details of the plan (who, what, when, and where) in writing. Keep one copy in the office, another on the computer, a third off premises - and make sure that every manager knows these locations. Finally, review and update the plan every six months.

Although nothing is foolproof, implementing these five steps can go far to prevent a disastrous loss, or at least, mitigate its impact.

To learn more about developing a disaster plan for your business, feel free to give us a call at any time.

The key to making sure that you've covered all bases of your bases is to follow a Departure Checklist:

• When an employee leaves, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, notify all staff immediately to help reduce rumors, hurt feelings, and concerns. Keep the announcement positive.
• Remove the employee from your facility soon as possible. Offering to have the person stay is nice, but might not always be helpful. If you decide to let the employee stay for the customary two weeks, assign him or her specific tasks to complete. Collect keys immediately and assign someone to work with the departing employee for the duration of their stay.
• Once the decision has been made, restrict the employee's access to sensitive company information at once; be sure that this restriction includes any VPN or private access.
• Have the employee review all items on which he or she is working and write a synopsis of what's needed to complete each item. Then review these items to create a specific workload transition plan, and assign them to other employees. The sooner you do this, the better.

The more you think through this process before a problem arises, the more effectively you'll be able to deal with it. We stand ready at any time to help you develop and implement an effective plan that can go a long way to help you protect your business from this risk.

Employment-related accidents behind the wheel are the leading cause of death from traumatic injuries in the workplace, killing some 2,200 people a year and accounting for 22% of job-related fatalities. Deaths and injuries from these accidents increase costs and reduce productivity for employers - while bringing pain and suffering to family, friends, and coworkers.

Preventing work-related roadway crashes poses a significant risk management challenge. The roadway is a unique work environment. Compared with other work settings, employers have little ability to control conditions and exert direct supervision over their drivers. The volume of traffic and road construction continue to increase, while workers feel pressured to drive faster for longer periods, and often use mobile electronic devices that distract them behind the wheel.

To help reduce this risk, for both long-distance truck drivers and employees who occasionally use personal vehicles for company business, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that employers follow these precautions:

• Require drivers and passengers to use seat belts.
• Ensure that employees who drive on the job have valid licenses.
• Incorporate road fatigue management in safety programs.
• Provide fleet vehicles with top quality crash protection.
• Make sure employees receive training to operate specialized vehicles.
• Offer periodic vision screening and physicals for employees whose primary job is driving.
• Avoid requiring workers to drive irregular or extended hours.
• Prohibit cell phone use and other distracting activities such as eating, drinking, or adjusting non-critical vehicle controls while driving.
• Set schedules that allow drivers to obey speed limits.
• Follow state laws on graduated driver's licensing and child labor.

For more information about how to prevent work-related driving deaths and injuries, just give one of our Risk Management experts a call at any time.

If you have teenagers, you're well aware that they're all too prone to take risks. Four in five U.S. teen (80%) have part-time jobs. Of these, more than half (52%) are in the retail sector, which includes restaurants and fast food establishments.

To help keep themselves safe on the job - and thus reduce their employers' risk-management exposure - teenagers who work in restaurants and agriculture can use interactive web-based training tools provided by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

According to OSHA, educating and training young people about safety in the workplace can help prevent injuries today and lead to a healthy workforce in the future. These resources provide practical information to protect young workers from hazards in industries where many of them are likely to work during high school and college.

The Teen Worker Safety in Restaurants eTool highlights the most common hazards in these workplaces and offers safety and health suggestions, safety posters, and electronic links to educate young workers about job safety. Areas of focus include serving, clean-up, drive-thru, cooking, food preparation, delivery, and worker rights and child labor laws.

The Youth in Agriculture eTool presents case studies that describe common hazards and offers safety solutions for teenage workers in such areas as farm equipment operations, confined spaces, and prevention of c injuries g from falls, electrocutions, and chemical exposures.

The OSHA Teen Workers page offers educational resources such as fact sheets on workplace rights and responsibilities, hazards on the job, ways to prevent injuries, work hours, job restrictions, etc.

Letting teenage workers know about these resources can benefit them - and their employers. What's not to like?

Metal car keys are going the way of the land line, as most drivers have graduated to a key fob or remote with a transponder that needs programming before use. If you own a high-tech luxury vehicle you might have a "smart key" - a remote control to plug into your dashboard or leave in your pocket.

"Contingent workers" {part-time, temporary, or contract employees) face a high risk of occupational injuries and illness. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health, reasons include the tendency to outsource more hazardous jobs, worker lack of experience and familiarity with operations in a new workplace, inadequate protective equipment, and limited access to such preventive measures as medical screening programs.

Even though the safety of contract workers is the legal responsibility of the contractor, the OSHA General Duty Clause makes you responsible for protecting everyone in your workplace. To meet this obligation, and bolster workplace safety compliance, we'd recommend these guidelines:

1. Make sure that the contractor agrees to comply with OSHA requirements. If the contractor doesn't follow safety rules, force compliance or stop work for breach of contract.
2. Set safety compliance ground rules up front.
3. Share accountability for safety compliance with the contractor. Although you might not be legally responsible for an accident caused by a contract employee, it's still your problem.
4. Offer assistance. Explain hazardous conditions or processes during project orientation and stress any rules and restrictions, such as hot-work permit requirements, lockout/tagout, and confined spaces situations and needs.
5. Document communications with contractors. Have them sign an agreement for resolving specific safety problems or for conducting inspections.
6. Read the OSHA Multi-Employer Citation Policy compliance directive (CPL 02-00-124), which applies to contractors on your work site.

Finally, the fact that most contingent workers will only be in your workplace for a short time adds to the urgency of getting them up to speed on company safety policies ASAP.

For more information on keeping contingent workers safe in your workplace, please feel free to get in touch with us.

If a catastrophe struck your business, who would provide such critical services as site clean-up, emergency power supplies, off-site redundant data storage, and alternative communication systems until you can get up and running again?

In this situation, having agreements in advance with restoration companies and other service providers can save you time, money, and headaches.

Although most companies recognize that such prearrangements can play a critical role in emergency crisis management planning, few take steps to develop specific relationships with their disaster service providers.

That can be an expensive mistake, says Michelle Cross, Boston-based National Practice Leader for Business Continuity at Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA. She points out that, "for any service provider to really provide quality, top-level, appropriate service, they have to know about your company, what you need, and what hazards you have on site."

Pre-planning can also reduce Business Interruption deduction and claims significantly by shortening downtime to services and operations after a disaster, notes Dave Boyle, head of Property Claims for Zurich North America (Schaumburg, IL).

A case in point: Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide uses pre-arranged recovery agreements because many of its properties are in locations at risk for natural disaster. When Hurricane Katrina struck, the Starwood Sheraton was the only hotel in New Orleans that remained open during and after the megastorm. Says Stephen Truono, the company's Vice President of Global Risk Management and Insurance: "It's about having a plan, practicing that plan, and engaging the necessary critical vendors, such as providers of power, plywood, diesel oil and potable water."

Prearranged provider agreements are inexpensive and usually do not involve a fee until the time of service.

What's not to like?