Kaplansky Insurance

You just received a 2%-3% pay increase. Now what? You could take an active role by putting this money to good use.  Here are some tips you can use to get that increase working for you.

1. Pay off your high interest debt- You are use to living off your current pay, so when you get an increase it would be wise to pay off debt. Having credit cards with high interest rates means your going to be paying for a while. If you paid off a few of these cards you can consider this another pay increase with the funds you free up.
2. Start building your emergency fund- Many people do not have an emergency fund in place. Experts recommend that you have three to six months of living expenses set aside in your emergency fund. Living on your previous pay and saving your new pay increase is a great start to building your emergency fund.
3. Increase your retirement savings- By using that pay increase to build up your retirement fund should be a priority. April 15th of each year is the final day you have to contribute to an IRA. Use that year-end bonus or pay raise towards your retirement so you can maximize your contributions by April 15th.
4. Double check your insurance protection- Your family and assets have grown so should your protection. Do you have umbrella coverage to protect against being sued. What about flood insurance according to FEMA 30% of flooded homes were not insured. If you live outside a flood zone coverage is inexpensive.
5. Splurge on yourself- You did earn the money and you should enjoy it. Take a small portion such as 10% and spend it on something for yourself or family. This is like a cheat day for diets. Do not be too strict with how you spend the money you will be more inclined to fall off the wagon.

Want a New Year’s resolution that’s easy to keep, costs next to nothing, yet could save lives? Simple: Do a safety makeover throughout your home. All it takes is a little time and a lot of common sense. Here are a dozen key ingredients.

1. Do a walk-around survey to identify and resolve risks – things like loose window catches and other fittings, slippery floors and rugs, unsecured cabling, floor obstacles, and sharp edges.
2. Do the same thing around the yard, checking for fall hazards, security of equipment and proper safeguarding around swimming pools and ornamental pools.
3. Check (and replace if necessary) smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. If you don’t have alarms, install at least one on each story of your home.
4. Ensure all gas appliance, fires and clothes drier venting is clear.
5. Check, restock or buy a good first aid kit. Better yet, have two. For what to include, see this Red Cross list: http://tinyurl.com/RC-fakit
6. Make sure all dangerous tools, from kitchen knives to garage equipment, are securely out of the reach of youngsters.
7. Have a fire escape plan and share it with everyone in the house. Need more info? See: http://tinyurl.com/esc-plan
8. Check electrical outlets and appliance cabling for wear and damage. See this guide from the Home Safety Council: http://tinyurl.com/HSC-elec. Install covers over unused outlets.
9. Clear out and clean your fridge, replace kitchen cutting boards and cracked pots – all potential sources of food-borne infection.
10. Dispose of expired and used medications and make sure that those you use are properly labeled and safety stored – that’s at the right temperature and out of reach of little hands.
11. Make sure ladders are properly secured before using, and follow the rule of always having three limbs in contact with the ladder.
12. And don’t forget, home safety these days also encompasses use of your personal computer. Install internet security software and keep it up to date. Plus, if you have kids, take steps to monitor their usage.

Every year, home-related accidents result in 20,000 deaths and more than 20 million medical visits. Resolve that, in 2012, you and your family won’t be among them. Take the time to discuss safety with them, especially children.

Let’s face it, eating is a Holiday hazard. There are just too many temptations, and by the time the Holiday’s are done, you don’t care if you never see another turkey again. But there’s probably no time of the year when more food goes to waste. Yet, just a little forethought can turn some of those leftovers into tasty dishes.

For a start, you can freeze some of that cooked turkey. Slice it when you’re serving and refrigerate as quickly as possible. Then use freezer paper of aluminum foil to wrap small portions – no more than an inch or two thick. They’ll keep for up to a month.

Next, the veggies. Give jaded palates a post-Holiday treat with a mixed vegetable curry. Dice the vegetables and prepare some fresh Basmati rice. While it’s cooking, pour a little oil in a skillet and stir fry your vegetables so they’re piping hot; add a couple of tablespoons of curry paste. When this has melted, add a cup of coconut milk (more if you have a lot of vegetables) and allow to simmer for a few minutes. Serve over the rice.

When re-heating leftover food, make sure the cooked temperature reaches 175 degrees. For more information on safe storage and use of leftovers, visit the USDA Food Safety & Inspection Service at http://tinyurl.com/usda-safe.

Did you know that your business is entitled to a free consultation to identify potential hazards at your worksite, and to improve your occupational safety and health management systems, using state government professionals?

These days, when it seems most of the cash flow between small businesses and governmens goes in only one direction – to them! – you might want to get at least a modest payback in terms of an on-site consultation through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This is quite separate from the regular OSHA inspection service and having the consultation may even earn a 12-month exemption from inspection.

It’s voluntary and can cover either your entire operation or one specific issue. Most consultations focus on workplace safety only, though a sizeable minority covers health only. Only a small fraction do both. It’s also confidential. Any unsafe or unhealthful working conditions found by the consultant are not routinely reported to inspectors, though you will be asked to commit to putting them right.

There’s an all-round benefit from setting up a consultation, enabling you, according to OSHA, to:

• Recognize and remove hazards from your workplace.
• Protect your workers from injury and illness.
• Prevent loss of life at your worksite.
• Cultivate informed and alert employees who take responsibility for their own and their coworkers’ safety and for worksite safety as a whole.
• Improve employee morale.
• Comply with federal and state safety and health requirements.
• Have managers who are more effective at their jobs. Management experts believe that the company with a well-managed safety and health system enjoys better overall management.
• Increase productivity rates and assure product quality.
• Decrease workers’ compensation costs.
• Reduce lost workdays.

Since it’s voluntary, you have to request a consultation from OSHA. Contact the state OSHA office or call the organization’s national inquiry line at 1-800-321-OSHA (6742). A consultant will then discuss your specific needs by phone and arrange a visit.

The actual consultation includes a discussion with you to clarify your needs, a walk through that may involve employee participation (that’s up to you but is encouraged by OSHA), a conference on findings, a written report with recommendations and, if appropriate, training and assistance with implementation of recommendations.

Apparently, OSHA consultants carried out more than 30,000 initial visits during 2010. That suggests to me that it’s a worthwhile service.

In my experience, most questions invite a simple “yes” or “no” reply. A few times, you might say “it depends”. But every now and then, there’s a question to which the answer actually changes over time. Take, for instance, the issue of whether a business person should buy or lease their workplace premises.

I’ve been through this myself in the past and I’m sure the issue has cropped up for you or someone you know once or twice. The reason it’s so difficult is not just down to economics either – that is, would the loan repayments be more or less than the equivalent rent? That equation definitely changes from year to year. But the nature of your business, the current state of the commercial property market and the outlook, and your own ideas about business expansion all have to be weighed into the mix.

It’s definitely not a decision to be rushed if you can avoid that and I would always encourage you to take professional advice on the pros and cons. But if this is something on your mind, or likely to be in the near future, here are some of the issues you might want to think about:

• Your initial outlay is lower when you rent than when you buy. You likely won’t need to raise capital.
• However, right now, mortgage repayments are probably lower than rentals for the same property.
• To a variable extent, the owner of a leased building will be responsible for maintenance and repairs.
• You can more easily move as you grow (or consolidate) with rental premises that precisely meet your immediate size needs.
• In a positive market a purchase will be an investment, the building an asset.
• You know how much it will cost you to service a loan – whereas a landlord may increase rent.
• You may be tied in for a specific lease period that you’ll need to buy your way out of it if circumstances change.
• You have more flexibility to adapt your own building/workplace to your needs.
• If you own the building and have spare space, you might be able to earn income through renting out space.

Some things, of course, cut both ways. For instance rent is tax deductible but only the interest element of your loan repayments qualifies. On the other hand, you can write off a proportion of the purchase price through depreciation.

Your insurance needs may also differ. Obviously, if you own the place, coverage is pretty much all down to you, but if you’re renting, though your insurance costs may be lower, responsibilities have to be very carefully defined so that risks don’t fall between two stools (please talk to me about this if it’s likely to be an issue),

As I said earlier, you should discuss your needs with professionals – at least an attorney and a tax specialist. This is a decision that could significantly influence your success, especially your cash flow and growth plans.

I know what it feels like to have vacation plans disrupted by unforeseen circumstances. Every time I see those TV reports of people camped out at airport gates and passenger lounges, I cringe with sympathy. Been there, done that, as they say. You too? And even though travel insurance reduces the sting of such misfortunes, it’s still a painful experience to miss out on part of a vacation.

But of course, travel insurance is about muc more than simple delay or cancelation of your transport. It can cover a whole range of risks including medical treatment (generally not covered in health insurance policies), repatriation, evacuation, and cancelation for a whole other range of reasons.

When it comes to business travel, these risks and needs are magnified, so the value of adequate insurance, especially for medical coverage, can be even more significant. The natural hazards of travel, particularly overseas, can be potentially far more disruptive to your business than the loss of a recuperative week in the sun.

This is certainly the case when you or one of your senior team is threatened with the possibility of being away from the workplace for an extenedd period. You may already have key person insurance in place for this coverage, but travel insurance provides another layer of coverage, including high-level accidental death (beyond what might be contained in your existing policies), missed connection insurance and special coverage for valuable commercial baggage and business equipment.

It’s also possible to obtain insurance that covers other specific needs – like war risks in certain parts of the world, or extended medical policies for when an employee has to spend some time overseas. Policies might cover individuals or an entire team, depending on your needs and, as with regular travel insurance, deductibles can be used to reduce premiums and both one-off and annual policies are available.

Other add-ons top a business travel policy might include bereavement counseling for victims and rehabilitation expenses, plus travel assistance services if passports, money or other personal items are stolen, along with legal support in the event that an employee is detailed while traveling on your behalf. In other words, a policy can be precisely tailored to meet your business needs.

Do you have troublemakers at your workplace? I’ve come across my fair share of them in my time, both in my own business and through clients. And even if things are peaceful right now, you never know when they’ll show up because troublemakers are masters of disguise.

In my experience, they fall into two categories:

• The bullies – people who victimize one or more of their colleagues or subordinates. Sometimes this takes form of sexual or racial harassment and may include humiliation, isolation or ridicule.
• The difficult-to-manage – employees who seem incapable or obstinately unwilling to do what you want them to do; those characters drive me nuts.

One good thing though – the more experience you have of these difficult types, the better you should become at dealing with them effectively in the future.

Workplace bullying is a huge issue and, as in the schoolyard, often goes unnoticed or at least unreported. According to a survey by the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health, about a quarter of all firms report instances of bullying in a single year.

The end result, of course, is stress, loss of productivity, low morale – all bad news for your business, to say nothing of the poor victim. You might also add in the costs both of replacing them when they quit and dealing with investigations or even legal action.

What can you do? First, you need to keep your eyes and ears open. You can usually detect bullying when there’s low morale within a group and one or more people seem to be afraid to speak their minds.

A couple years back the Washington State Department of Labor published a great guide that suggests, first, that you institute a well-publicized zero tolerance anti-bullying policy, and that you should encourage reporting of incidents, dealing with them immediately.

You may need to reassign those involved, while you investigate. When your investigation is complete, if you have a bully on your hands give them a warning, invoke whatever disciplinary procedures you have in place and be prepared to issue a pink slip.

More broadly, you can conduct attitude surveys that help to identify the possible flashpoints.

The Washington document includes a model Workplace Bullying Policy. Download it from: www.lni.wa.gov/safety/research/files/bullying.pdf. Another useful source of information is the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) at http://www.workplacebullying.org/.

You need to take equally decisive action against those difficult-to-manage people who can hold your business to ransom by not only lowering morale but also damaging perceptions of you as an effective owner/manager.

You could fill a whole library shelf with the books on this subject but the problem usually boils down to some ornery character who just doesn’t like being told what to do and often thinks he or she knows better than you.

These people delight in undermining your authority and, of course, protest their innocence if you tackle them. When cornered, they’re particularly adept at blaming others – or even you! Here are some of the techniques I and some of my clients have found effective in putting them in their place:

• Keep records of their behavior so you can be specific when tackling them. Don’t just tell them they’re “difficult” or they’ll claim they don’t know what you’re talking about.
• Fix a meeting as soon as possible to discuss these specifics. Allocate a reasonable amount of time and arrange not to be interrupted.
• Present your case, and then listen to what they have to say. Leave empty pauses that they will feel obliged to fill.
• Remain calm. Lose your cool and you’ll lose the issue. Breathe slowly and deeply.
• Keep your opinions out of any discussions – don’t tell them how you feel, which is subjective; just stick to the facts. Present them with the unacceptable outcome of an action they took.
• Keep your mind open – they may actually have a valid point or two to make; try to see things from their perspective.
• At the end of any discussion, set clear rules and objectives for performance and agree a review date.

The only certainty about workplace troublemakers is that if you don’t confront the issue, it won’t go away – and nor will they. There’s plenty of advice and support available online but if assertiveness is an issue for you – and it does take guts sometimes to face up to these people – get training. You won’t regret it.

Ever had to face the challenge of replacing one of your key people who suddenly quit or took sickness leave right at a critical time?

I went to see a well-reviewed play in another city once, only to discover that the star performer, one of my favorite actresses, had lost her voice. The theater called in an understudy for the role and, to be honest, I would have taken a refund and rebooked if I hadn’t been just passing through town. I’m glad I didn’t though because the understudy turned out to be brilliant and won a standing ovation. She was a smash hit!

Isn’t that how you’d like things to be if you had to call on someone to fill a gap after losing a good employee or even to keep tabs on everything and make the right decisions for you when you’re not around.

In management speak, they call it succession planning, but I prefer that theatrical term. So, have you got your understudies lined up?

I know, I know. You’re too busy thinking about today to worry about tomorrow but if they’d done that in the theater I visited there’d have been no show. In business, that doesn’t bear thinking about does it?

Well, the good news is that finding and preparing your understudies doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming. After all, if they’re any good, like a pro actor, they’ll take on the responsibility for learning the lines themselves.

So how do you go about the process? Here are a few simple tips to set the scene:

• First, you need to identify the key jobs. This is a pencil and paper task. Just work out whose absence would hit the business hardest. (Don’t forget you can get Key Person insurance for these individuals, but I’m thinking a little longer term here).
• Second, make a list of what you might call the core skills and competencies required for the job.
• Next, identify your up and coming bright sparks. You can spot them a mile off by their attitude towards work, their willingness to take “ownership” of problems, their energy and their ideas.
• Assess their potential suitability for your key roles plus their strengths and weaknesses, and arrange to address the latter through training and mentoring.
• Move them around the business a little so they get a broader insight of the operation.
• If they’re not already there, move them into the understudy position – but only after reassuring the current “star” their role is not threatened (unless it is!)

Follow these rules, and they’ll be ready to earn a standing ovation!

Taking the idea a little further, I wonder if you’ve come across a great, recently-published book by Tony Hsieh, the co-founder of the billion-dollar online shoes retailer Zappos.com.

Called Delivering Happiness, it’s worth a read on many fronts, especially in dealing with customer service. But what’s particularly relevant for this note is a succession planning program Hsieh (pronounced “Shea” by the way) calls The Pipeline.

The basic rule is that every person is trained to do the job of the individual above him or her in the pecking order. When someone leaves, both the individual above and below can fill-in temporarily before, under most circumstances, the “understudy” takes over.

Worth thinking about isn’t it?

There’s a more vital succession planning issue to consider in a small or family-owned business – who’s going to run it when you decide it’s time to move on?

This isn’t just about who’s waiting in the wings to take over. There are also important financial/tax issues you need to take advice on. A good starting point for info on this is the US Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov) and, of course, your financial professional.

That apart though, the mechanics of preparing your “understudy” are pretty much the same as I’ve outlined above. You’ll find some useful advice on the website of the independent entrepreneurial advisory group Score, at http://www.score.org/article_succession_plan.html.

The key is to give your understudy the widest possible experience within the business, plus the opportunity to do a few “live rehearsals” – like getting them to run the business while you’re away.

Sure, once you decide to move on, you want to hear that applause as you exit stage-left … but you also want the assurance of knowing the show will go on to enjoy continuing rave reviews!

Have you ever told a lie? Of course you have! Even the most pious of us has done that – maybe to get out of a corner we’ve been backed into, or even just to tell someone, who asks your opinion, that they look great even when they don’t.

But what about telling a lie to get a job? I’m sure you haven’t. But plenty of people do. A friend of mine in the retailing business was lamenting recently about having to fire a relatively new employee when he turned out not to have the skills or qualifications he needed – which he’d claimed he did have. Even worse, my pal had the sneaking suspicion this con-merchant had helped himself to some merchandise.

It underlines the importance of seeking and following through on references for recruits. After all, if you unknowingly hire a crook who then commits a crime or screws up the job, you could end up with a liability suit if one of your customers suffers as a result.

I know, when you have a thousand other things on your plate, it’s easy to skip the references and other checks, especially if your potential new hire seems such a plausible, nice guy. No matter, you should always ask him/her to list some references, making it clear t hat you will not only follow them up but also that, as a matter of policy, that you check the authenticity of the individuals supplying them.

You may already do this, but I’ve found that one way to simplify the task and save time is to have a standard form that’s quickly mailed off. This should have a brief but polite introduction naming the individual and the job they’re being considered for. If you have one, include a written job description, and then seek the following information:

• Period of employment, job title and final salary
• Brief interview of the job, responsibilities and number of direct reports
• The individual’s career path within the company
• Timekeeping and absence record
• Commentary on their performance to job requirements; would the company rehire them?
• Examples of any initiatives or improvements the individual introduced
• Was interaction with management, peers and subordinates satisfactory? Any altercations?
• An opinion on the suitability of the candidate for the job

Depending on the job, you may also want to consider character references from someone reliable who knows them well. This could be a club president or a professional, like a bank manager, who is also a friend. Other background checks might include a credit report or a formal Consumer Report. This process is governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and you need the candidate’s permission to get one. See this FTC reference for more info: http://tinyurl.com/FTC-FCRA.

You’ll probably know this from hard experience already but if you make a mistake by employing the wrong person for a job, it can be so costly in terms of money, time and lost productivity. On those counts alone, it makes sense to check things out as thoroughly as possible at the outset. And that’s the truth!