Make Your Work Comp Message Stick Like Gorilla Glue

This Is Part 2 in a 3 Part Mini Series.

The Tipping Point in Workers Compensation

I’m Michael Stack with Amaxx and welcome back to The Tipping Point mini series where we’re reviewing the elements discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in the book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. When you’re trying to implement change, when you’re starting to try to implement an epidemic of proper work comp management to reduce your work comp costs and really create a better outcome for your injured workers.

In the first series, I talked about the law of the few and really that’s very relevant when you’re trying to get buy in to your program. The CEO and senior management are onboard, but don’t forget about those employees that have an influence over others. They have those innate skills that connectors, the mavens, and the sales people.

Stickiness Is Message Into Memory

In this session, I want to talk about the stickiness factor and how memorable your message is. Maybe you’ve created a brochure, maybe you’ve done some training, maybe you’ve had safety meetings in regards to your work comp management, but you’re not getting your claims reported timely, which is really where this is very, very important in how memorable your message is, particularly at the time of injury to get that claim reported immediately. You have a very low cooperation or a very low implementation rate in getting those claims reported. Here’s the study, Yale University 1960s, what they were trying to do is get the students to get their tetanus shot.

It was a free tetanus shot at the health clinic. They did two different types of brochures, a high fear and a low fear, and they wanted to see if it made a difference and really gory photos of what happens if you get tetanus and why you should get the shot. Then, a very less intrusive or less fearful brochure. Here’s what was interesting that a month later, only 3% of students ended up getting the shot, very, very low cooperation with what they were trying to do and it didn’t matter whether they were in the high fear or the low fear group to get those outcomes.

Not The Message, But The Package

Often times, it’s not the quality of the message and you’re beating your head against the wall with why aren’t my employees reporting their claims when I’ve told them 100 times maybe it’s the way that you’re telling them that’s going to make a difference. In this study, all they did is they put a map of the campus of where the health center is as well as the times that it was open and they saw those rates increase to 28% of their students cooperating and going to get the shot. It didn’t matter what the message was from these groups. It was both relatively equal. When you’re trying to get by them, when you’re trying to get cooperation, particularly with your claims reporting for your program, don’t forget or discount the stickiness factor of how you’re packaging the message.

Maybe you have an injury triage hotline and you need to give them a wallet card, you need to put it on your lanyard, you need to create a new sign. You need to make some changes and do some testing in how you’re displaying or packaging that message. Remember the stickiness factor in getting your claims reported.

I’m Michael Stack with Amaxx. This is the Tipping Point In Worker’s Compensation mini series. Remember, your success in worker’s compensation is defined by your integrity, so be great!

Author Michael Stack, Principal, COMPClub, Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their work comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder of COMPClub, an exclusive member training program on workers compensation cost containment best practices. Through these platforms he is in the trenches on a working together with clients to implement and define best practices, which allows him to continuously be at the forefront of innovation and thought leadership in workers’ compensation cost containment. Contact: [email protected].

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