Group captives continue to be a viable alternative to traditional casualty insurance programs for construction firms across the country. Once reserved for firms with annual revenues more than $100 million, captives are now available to firms with annual revenues of $25 million – and in some circumstances less.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Charles Rogel, Senior Consultant & VP of Product Development at DecisionWise. We hope you enjoy Charles’ wisdom and perspective.

I work with many organizations to measure and improve employee engagement. The process typically begins with the collection of employee feedback through an engagement survey. The survey includes about 50 items measuring perceptions of the job, team, supervisor, and organization overall.

Most organizations score low on top-down communication, cross-department communication, and responding to employee ideas. Questions about teams or supervisors generally score high with some pockets of under-performing groups. While action planning, executive teams usually become pre-occupied with poor organization scores and begin brainstorming ways to improve the employee newsletter, conduct town halls, or plan the summer party.

But when we look at the drivers of employee engagement, a different story appears.

On March 5, 2018, the IRS made several adjustments based on inflation amounts due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017 tax reform) and Rev. Proc. 2018-18:

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Craig Sroda, author of YOU in the SWEET SPOT and Intentional Living. We hope you enjoy Craig’s wisdom and perspective.

Earlier this year I taught a class for a group of executives based on the book Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall is one of the leading executive coaches in the world and he has a few books out that are great if you want to improve yourself.

We started class with this quote:

“Fate is the hand of cards we’ve been dealt. Choice is how we play the hand.”

I know a few people dealing with the “cards” they were dealt not allowing them to move forward. Perfection often comes into play, because they weren’t trained effectively on how to deal with adversity. Depending on your personality type, striving for perfection can cripple you from making any progress because perfection is unrealistic.

Spring showers can include severe weather. This week is Severe Weather Preparedness Week. The focus is to better educate and prepare about the hazards of severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flash flooding. 

Lightning kills more people each year than tornadoes. It can strike as far as 10 miles away from any rainfall. If you can hear thunder, you are in danger from lightning. Below are tips for staying safe from lightening. When you see lightening:

National Poison Prevention Week is always the third week of March. It’s an opportunity to emphasize the dangers of poisoning for people of all ages and highlight prevention strategies.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Mark Lunardi, Department of the Air Force Civilian. We hope you enjoy Mark’s wisdom and perspective.

“No one is perfect.” “You’re only human.” “To err is human…” It’s hard to argue the wisdom of such time-honored sayings given that the human condition is rife with imperfection. Mistakes are inescapable, though blessedly most are relatively minor and of limited consequence. But what about the big ones, mistakes…either by intent or negligence…which have significant and lasting impact? Though human nature is no less to blame in these instances, their costs are often too great for rationalizations of our imperfections. I therefore offer the following quotes, courtesy of Hollywood, to assist in addressing, and avoiding, the most grievous of errors.

March is Workplace Eye Wellness Month. Work-related eye injuries are common and preventable.

According to OSHA and Prevent Blindness:

• Over 2,000 people injure their eyes at work each day.
• 1 in 10 of these injuries require one or more missed workdays.
• 10-20% of work-related eye injuries will cause temporary or permanent vision loss.
• Eye injuries cost over $300 million per year in lost production time, medical expenses, and workers’ compensation.

Children are becoming an easy target of identity theft not only due to their blank credit files, but because the theft can go unnoticed for years and not be discovered until well into a child’s teens.

Chronic conditions including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity account for the majority of America’s medical costs. A common link between these conditions is poor nutrition. Daily nutrition can directly affect day to day lives, including energy, activity, and stress.