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Get tips on how to prepare for wildfire. Wildfires can pose particular dangers because they often begin unnoticed and can spread quickly, threatening both lives and property in their paths. If you live in an area prone to wildfires, you can help keep yourself, your family and your property safe by taking steps to reduce your risks. Well before a wildfire threatens Keep your home well maintained by regularly cleaning your gutters and trimming tree limbs that may be too close to your home. Be sure your smoke alarms are working, fire extinguishers are operational and a home escape ladder is accessible if you need to evacuate quickly from an upper floor. Landscape your home with wildfire safety in mind, using fire-resistant shrubs and trees. Maintain a defensible space zone between structures and natural growth that is free of brush, trees and grasses to help keep a wildfire from getting too close to your property. If you live on a hill, extend that zone on the downhill side, since fire can race uphill quickly. Prepare a survival kit, map out an evacuation plan and create a home inventory of all your belongings. Visit our preparedness timeline to learn more about disaster planning. If you are remodeling your home, think about including fire-resistant materials such as non-combustible roofing and siding and fire-rated glass or fire shutters for windows. When a wildfire approaches Stay tuned to local news about wildfires in the area, and follow evacuation instructions given by local officials. Review emergency plans with your family. Be sure to designate a meeting place and a check-in telephone number if you are separated during evacuation. Also make certain that everyone has emergency numbers stored in their phones. If you have time, close windows, doors and blinds and shut off utilities. Open the fireplace damper and close fireplace screens. Have your car ready to leave at a moment’s notice and keep the keys handy. Roll up the windows to keep smoke out. What to do during a wildfire If advised to evacuate, do so immediately. Wear protective clothing, such as a long- sleeved cotton or wool shirt and pants, and take a wet cotton towel or handkerchief to protect your face. Take your survival kit and choose a route away from fire and smoke. Follow your evacuation plan and be sure everyone knows where to go and what to do. How to respond after a wildfire Check with fire officials before attempting to re-enter your home. Use caution when entering since fires can re-ignite quickly, even after dying down. Discard any food or medication that came in contact with smoke or fire. At Travelers, we understand that a wildfire can be a frightening and dangerous event. We hope our expertise and insight will help you protect your family and property no matter what comes your way. For more wildfire safety tips, visit the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety® website.

Companies usually use some type of employee performance evaluation to assess successes and gaps in performance and convey these assessments to employees. Although this might be helpful, it's not enough. If you want your employees to be more engaged and productive, you need to understand their intrinsic motivations. To do this, consider adding these questions to the employee performance review conversation. (Notice that we use the word "feel" a lot because it's the employee's emotions that should concern you.): How do you feel about your job? How do you feel about the direction of the company? Do you feel that you have improved your skills over the last year? To what extent do you feel that you have grown as a person while working for us during the past year? What do you feel is the most valuable thing you do at work? Where do feel you can add more value to the company? Out of curiosity, have you looked at other job opportunities or are you completely satisfied here? If not, what would it take to satisfy you? Do you feel you're being paid fairly? If not, what do you feel you should get paid and what do you base that on? Do you feel we have exhibited a management style that's caring and supportive? If not, how can we do a better job of this? Is there anything that we haven't spoken about that feels unfair to you and might get in the way of our working relationship or your success at this company? Is there anything else you would like to share that we haven't talked about? These are brave questions to ask because most managers really don't want to dive into the emotional landscape – which is a big mistake. As Daniel Goldman reminds us in Emotional Intelligence, it's your E.Q., not your I.Q., that's most important to becoming a great leader or manager. Consider having this conversation outside of your office where it might feel safer for the employee. For example, "Now that we've discussed your performance I like to have a little deeper conversation about your work here and I don't want to do it in the office. Where would you like to go talk about this? " You don't have to buy this idea wholesale. Test it out. Play social scientist and begin with just one employee. Let him or her know that you're opening up to a more meaningful conversation; and that because you've never tried this before it will be a learning experience for both of you!

People are losing jobs to robots and technology at an accelerating rate. Have you used one of those self-serve checkout stands lately? One was installed at my local CVS only 3 months ago. Awkward at first but seems like old hat now. The manager there told me the new system allowed him to let two full time clerks go. Two jobs lost to robots and their technology that will never reappear. Here's just some of the other jobs that are suffering the same fate as retail clerks: Pharmacists Soldiers Reporters Drivers Fast food workers Assembly workers Bank tellers Secretaries Stock traders Warehouse workers …and there is more Technology alone changes the employment landscape. Objects like the iPhone have the consequence of laying off Kodak workers, as well as workers in the mapping, printing, alarm clock and record industry. I recently listened to an interesting podcast (all Radiolab podcasts are interesting!) about work in a shipping warehouse for online mega-providers, such as Amazon. If you thought stop watches were banned in the workplace at the beginning of the last century, guess what – they're back! Technology, along with its gamification, is reducing worker output to a competitive logarithm using the most minute of performance indicators. Years ago Buckminster Fuller (otherwise known as "Bucky") surmised that the rise of computers and technology would bring use to a place where it is inefficient to have full scale employment. It would actually be cheaper to pay people to stay at home.  And we are getting there. Even in a "good" economy we have 7% unemployment. And we are being asked to pay for those folks who have to stay at home…because there are no jobs. This has more to do with the macro-economics of production than it does anything a politician can influence. While Bucky believed that less is more, most folks don't think that way. In their idleness they will want to be serviced, entertained and otherwise cared for, by a growing service class economy. So the fantasy of growing the middle class back to where it was before all these technology changes is a pipe dream. A political football divorced from reality. There will be a continued division between highly paid knowledge workers and low paid service workers. Sooner or later we will end up paying service workers to stay home or do some form of public service. As we march forward you will either be a highly paid knowledge worker who cannot yet be replaced by a machine or a low paid service worker who cannot yet be replaced by a machine. That's true for your kids' future too! FYI – Looks like John Henry would be out of a job today. Now trains lay their own tracks http://www.wimp.com/traintrack/

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