Snow

Un-shoveled or icy pathways can lead to slips and falls by employees.  Make sure walkways, steps and entrances are properly cleared and maintained.   Keep adequate supplies of ice melt and sand on hand and spread frequently.

Before asking any employee to shovel snow, make sure that they are healthy and capable enough to do so. Too many people suffer heart attacks while shoveling snow.  Some at-risk work populations face even higher risks in the cold.  These include older workers, workers who have predisposing health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and hypertension, and workers who are taking certain types of medications.

Lifting snow can also cause serious back injuries. Have employees wear back braces for added support.  Always assign multiple employees to void having only one worker remove snow for a long period of time.   Provide employees with plows, snow blowers and ergonomic shovels.

Hire professional snow removal companies to perform the work and eliminate the risks of snow related injuries.

Cold Temperatures

Employees who are exposed to cold temperatures are especially susceptible to hypothermia, frostbite and other cold exposure injuries.  Train employees on OSHA’s Cold stress equation so they can take preventive actions or quickly recognize the symptoms and take corrective actions

If employees are exposed to outside winter conditions for long periods of time as a requirement of the job, think about issuing them or supplementing the cost of coats, gloves, boots, ear protection, and hats.

Allow employees to take frequent short breaks in warm dry shelters to allow the body to warm up.

The reduction in sodium will require a gradual approach to changing consumers’ dietary choices. Some suggestions to start decreasing your sodium intake are:

• Taste food before salting it. Lightly salt food only as needed, not as a habit.
• Use herbs, spice rubs and fruit juices in cooking in place of salt.
• Prepare food using little salt or fewer high-sodium ingredients. For example, skip using salt in cooking pasta, rice, cereals and vegetables.
• Check food labels comparing like items and choose lower sodium foods. Also watch for “low-sodium”, “sodium-free” and “no added salt”.
• Eat fresh lean meats, poultry, fish, dry and fresh beans and peas, unsalted-nuts and eggs, all of which contain less sodium.

Ursula Whitney, RD LDN, is a registered, licensed dietitian with a nutrition counseling office in Danvers, MA. Visit www.northshorenutrition.com to learn more.

• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Place

Today’s Marketers believe that there is much more than the traditional 4 “P’s” required for Killer Marketing, the kind of marketing that literally compels the prospect to buy.
The 4 “P’s” don’t leave much consideration for the environment and the community in which the marketing happens.

Meet the 7 Characters of Killer Marketing

With our increasing connected world, Killer Marketing requires a more social feel and that is where we meet the 7 Characters of Killer Marketing.

1. Cognizance
2. Clarity
3. Confidence
4. Consistency
5. Congruence
6. Coherence
7. Community

Meet Cognizance, the first of the 7 Characters of Killer Marketing. Every business person needs Cognizance, or awareness, in their marketing so that they can take advantage of the white-hot moment.

More at Strategies That Work

1) The ability to take care of oneself in life

Or in other words being a “self-feeder”. This means earning enough money to take care of basic (not extravagant) needs. You can put a roof over your head, feed yourself, get where you need to go, maintain some work. We tend to think money is the key to happiness but actually studies have found that once basic needs are meant extra money does not carry a great bang for the buck—pun intended.

2.) The ability to earn love

Lack of love, on some level, is why many people end up in my office.  A simple definition of love is the expectation of being given good things by those with whom we interact.  This can vary from the friendly greeting of your bank teller to the passionate embrace of your lover.  All are degrees of love, appreciation and human warmth. Here’s the catch: there is no such thing as unconditional love. It must be earned. Love is conditional on what we offer another person in order for them to feel lovingly toward us. Unfortunately, one’s ability to earn love can be impeded by personality issues, neurosis and anger that most people are unaware they are presenting to others.

3.) The ability to cope with life’s difficulties

The easy parts of life (which are few) are just that–easy. Where we gain happiness is how we handle the difficulties that land in our path.  This is learned as a child through our family experience and by our successes and especially our failures as we age.  Handling life’s difficulties with grace, open-mindedness and with our problem solving hats on is paramount to internal happiness.  Faulty teaching and imperfect role models cause many people to struggle with life’s difficulties.

4.) The ability to have fun

A friend of mine defined life as getting up every day and solving a series of problems.  I think this is a fair perspective. We feel happier in life when we make a conscious effort to have fun in between and while solving life’s endless procession of problems.  Life is hard work (see #3). That does not mean fun should be set aside until the work is done.  The work of life is never done. Therefore, a person’s ability to have fun along the way is the final component to feeling happier.

For more information visit www.MaureeMichaels.com

Joe Sorge and Rob Hatch were both in town visiting with Chris earlier in the day and to our luck decided to step in and share their experiences. Joe Sorge is a partner at Kitchen Table Companies and the proprietor of AJ Bombers in Milwaukee, a burger joint known for its’ peanut butter and bacon burger. Rob Hatch is the COO at Human Business Works.

So after an extended networking hour of imbibing, still hoping for Mr. Brogan to walk through the doors, we sat down to hear Joe and Rob’s stories and learn firsthand how social media, more specifically Twitter, helps small business.

I’ll skip the details here since you can follow along with the playbook at KTC, but the night’s key takeaways were simply, 1) listen 2) learn and 3) engage. Listening to what others are chatting about on twitter or Facebook can open up an opportunity for engagement and peak the curiosity to learn more about you and your business. It’s about leveraging serendipitous discoveries through online conversations and the sharing of information, 140 characters at a time. For some, the thought of cramming a cogent point into 140 characters is a daunting task. The fact is lurking by simply listening what others are tweeting about and how they’re doing it is a valuable first step in shortening the learning curve.  In the long-term, listening and quickly responding to other tweets can pay dividends and help grow your following organically.

What brought it all together for Innovative Business Networking members and guests were their first hand experiences. Joe talked about how AJ Bombers got its start and how the business took off when Joe’s tweets became its’ online persona. When comparing Facebook versus twitter, the analogy of Facebook being like a bulletin board while Twitter was more like a water cooler made sense when you thought about the lingering lifespan of FB posts versus the real-time relevancy and half-life of a tweet. Rob further emphasized these points with similar comparisons.  After their brief talks, they spent most of the remaining time answering questions. The Q & A time was very informative and well spent. Overall, the evening provided the inspiration to join the online conversation and help clear a path to leveraging social media, not as an end-all, but as another tool in the SMB marketing kit.

A special shout-out to the Events and Education Committee for their planning and selection of Teresa’s Italian Eatery and a very special thank you goes to Cary Roles for her emceeing skills and making it all happen.

Many small businesses are content with just having an online presence and don’t give much thought or attention to their websites once they are launched believing that if it’s up-n-running and looks good, they will come.

Well it really doesn’t work that way. With millions of websites going online every month, standing out from the crowd and your competitors takes some insight, planning and market intelligence.

The first thing you should do is check if you are on anyone’s radar. Is your site attracting any traffic whatsoever? If not, do you know why? If it is, how can you improve its rank? If you’re a brick and mortar business, are your site visitors local?

In order to answer any one of these questions, you need to look no further than your monthly statistics report. Most hosting services provide basic reporting tools capable of answering some of those questions. If you’re paying a webmaster, at a minimum, a monthly summary report should be provided. Without these statistics, insight into how effective a website is at attracting visitors is virtually impossible.

Awstats Summary Traffic Report

A quick way to check if your website is drawing significant web traffic is to use any one of several traffic measuring services available online for free. The three most popular are Alexa.com, Compete.com, and Quantcast.com. Each provides estimates of traffic either as a percentage of all Internet users who have visited your site or as an estimate of all the hits and unique visitors for all US traffic. While these services may not be 100% accurate in measuring visitor traffic, they can provide a baseline marker for how well a website performs over time.

Alexa.com

Today’s consumers begin and end their search for products and services online. If your website is known only to people you already do business with and unknown to anyone else, it is to your advantage and livelihood to know why. Without regular site checkups, making informative decisions on what is helping or hurting your online presence is not possible. Web analytics allows businesses to gain insight into how effectively a website draws traffic by providing actionable data on content appeal and visitor demographics to better target your market and grow your business.

Closing: Under what conditions would you consider closing your business all together, delay the start of business or permit early release of employees.   Be as specific as possible.  For example, “when snow accumulation reaches 6 inches and total accumulations is predicted to be more than 12 inches,  employees may leave for the day at their discretion“ or “Start of business will be delayed by two hours if total accumulations is 6 or more inches during the preceding 6 hours”.

Safety: It can be costly not to have employees report to work, but the safety of your employees is important and should always come first.  Every employee should be allowed to make a choice if they feel the conditions are unsafe.   Have a policy that states that, such as “Each employee ultimately must decide if road conditions make travel unsafe or unwise; that is, employees are not asked to travel if they feel they are taking undue risk in doing so.”

Notification: Employees must ultimately be told what to do.  Include in your policy how communication will occur.  For example, “During emergency weather conditions, contact the Office regarding closing, delays and work hours.”

Emergency Coverage: Not all businesses can close; they may have certain obligations to customers.   In that case, as an employer, you have to decide who your essential employees are and how you will provide food, transportation or overnight accommodation.

Other options: As an employer, you may chose to provide flexible options to your employees such as telecommuting, bringing work home or allowing employees to bring children to work.

Pay: Salaried exempt employees must always be paid if the employer closes the office if it is less than on week.   Non-exempt employees only have to be paid for the hours actually worked.   If you as a business owner, decides to close your business, consider the financial impact on your employees.  Make sure you also have a policy that clearly state how pay will be handled.  Such as, “For non-exempt employees, time loss due to weather related closures will be treated as unpaid time.” or  “An employee who is unable to get to work because of weather related conditions, even though the Company is open will be charged time off without pay. “  You as the employer may also allow or require the employee to use vacation or sick time as available.

All companies will have different considerations when developing a severe weather policy. Ultimately as a business owner you want one that is safe, cost effective and keeps your customers happy.

Here are some tips to help create a fun celebration and control the risk associated with holiday parties.

1. Check with your general liability carrier to understand your coverage for such functions.  You should also know that in some cases an injury sustained at a holiday party might be covered under Worker’s Compensation.

2. Some recent court cases have held that companies and/or persons can be held liable for injury or death to guests or third parties as a result of accidents caused by intoxication.  Alcohol consumption must be limited and controlled.  A professional must do the serving.  Whoever serves the alcohol must be over 21 and must card anyone who looks under 30 years of age to be certain there is no underage drinking.  A sign should indicate that no one under 21 can consume alcohol.  A responsible person (such as you) must make certain that anyone who gives even the slightest appearance of intoxication must “cut off” not be permitted to drive.  The Company should offer cab service if the person is alone. Under no circumstances should an employee drive a company vehicle after consuming alcohol.

3. Some ways to reduce your risk of liability:

a)      Do not conduct any Company business at the party, including handing out bonus checks, prizes, or any other Company incentives.

b)      Do not allow any member of Management to make a speech.

c)       Never make attendance mandatory or even hint at it.

d)      Serve food, and plenty of it. Emphasize eating over drinking.

e)      Provide or pay for transportation for any employees who even appear to be under the influence.

f)       Forbid picture taking and or the use of camera phones.  If you want, designate one person to take pictures of the event and but make it clear that they are not allowed to take any suggestive pictures and must turn in all copies of all pictures to the Company.

4. Remind employees that, while you encourage them to have a good time, your company’s normal workplace standards of conduct will be in force at the party.   These include alcohol and drug abuse, sexual harassment and professional-conduct policies.  Word the reminder positively, noting that responsible behavior will ensure that all employees can fully enjoy the party, but also state that violations at or after the party will result in discipline, just as they do during working hours.

5. If this is organized by the employees, we would recommend NO MEMBER of Management attend.

For more information please visit www.HumanResourceRX.com

1. The individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of a service; and
2. The service is performed outside the usual course of business of the employer; and
3. The individual is customarily engaged in, and independently providing this service.

Employee or Independent Contractor?

Donna is a salesperson employed on a full-time basis by Bob Blue, an auto dealer. She works 6 days a week, and is on duty in Bob’s showroom on certain assigned days and times. Because of her experience, she requires only minimal assistance in closing and financing sales and in other phases of her work. Employee

Harriet, an electrician, submitted a job estimate to a housing complex for electrical work at $16 per hour for 400 hours. She is to receive $1,280 every 2 weeks for the next 10 weeks, regardless of how many hours she puts in. She also performs additional electrical installations under contracts with other companies that she obtained through advertisements. Contractor

A plumber agrees to install plumbing in a new warehouse being built. Upon arriving at the warehouse, the plumber is given the building plans showing where the plumbing is to be installed, and advised that the plumbing must be completed within five days. Contractor

A general contractor who has more plumbing jobs than plumbers, subs out the job to ABC Plumbing. The general contractor tells the plumber what plumbing has to be done, gives specific instructions on installation, the tools to use, the type of pipe to use, and the order and sequence in which the plumbing is to be installed. Employee -  even though the sub owns his own company!

Joe is a graphic designer. He is working 20 hrs per week at a sign company doing graphic design work. Joe also works 20 hours a week at a web design company. Joe gets paid $20 per hour and receives no benefits from either business.  Employee

True or False?

• I do not need to withhold payroll taxes from my employees until they make over $600/yr.  False
• I do not need to file a 1099 for an independent contractor until they make over $600/yr.  True
• I must get proof that my independent contractors have their own Worker’s Comp coverage, or I will pay the Worker’s Comp premium myself, as if they were my employee.  True
• My employee works December 29^th 2009, and gets paid for those hours on January 5^th 2010. Those wages are considered 2010 wages on his W-2.  True
• Non-Profit organizations are exempt from withholding and paying payroll taxes.  False
• Non-Profit organizations are exempt from filing 1099’s for independent contractors.  False

Effective 2012 the IRS changed the requirements – all vendors regardless of the type of business or what you purchased, require a 1099 for purchases totaling $600 in a calendar year. True

For more information please visit www.HamiltonBookkeeping.com

Obtain a list of providers from your insurance company.

Ask for a referral if you know someone in therapy.

Talk to your physician.

Look in the yellow pages.

Search the internet.

When you have a list together, check each provider’s website.  Do you like what you read?  Why?

Some basic guidelines:

1.)    Insist on interviewing the therapist.

This can be difficult if you are in a crises but very critical.  Most good therapists will offer “get to know you” interviews at no charge. Avoid those who don’t.

2.)    Labels, degrees and licenses give you very limited information about the quality of the therapist.

The range of training in this  field is vast. Empathy, understanding and compassion are important qualities in a therapist who will work with you on a very personal level.  These qualities are not guaranteed by a license or title.

3.)    Look for quality first.

Location, cost, sex, age etc are less important.  A poor therapist is worse than none at all.

4.)    Other qualities to look for:

Warmth, open-mindedness, intelligence, non-authoritarian, kind, collaborative, skeptical and straight talking are all qualities of a good therapist.

5.)    Using your insurance has pros and cons.

Having your mental health work noted in your personal health record can have negative ramifications for life insurance, disability insurance etc.  Check whether  your company is  self insured… most large companies are.  Ask  your claims administrator  what information they receive.

6.)    Use your own judgment as you have in other areas of your life.

Recommendations will hold up over time if your experience and judgment agree.

Areas of questions for the interview:

Social, curiosity, break the ice questions:

How long have you been in this building?  Do you have children?  Did you grow up around here? Observe whether  the therapist is open and friendly when you do this.

Professional questions:

Affiliations, training, theorectial positions. Where did they train? What was the major emphasis of their training?  Have they done their own mental health work? What makes them a good therapist?

Personal questions:

You want to size up their life experience…do they have children?  Are they married divorce?  How do they work on their own problems?

Position questions:

Ask about values that are important to you.  A therapist’s position and attitude directly affects the kind of work they do with you.  What is his or hers stand on the environment? P Politics?   Abortion? The economy? Religion?

For more information please visit www.MaureenMIchaels.com