Hello, Michael Stack here with Amaxx. Later today, millions of children are going to hit the streets of America, dressed in costumes, and filling their bags with way too much candy. Halloween has become a very fun and family-centric activity. My wife and I have Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, we’ve got a Cowboy, we’ve got a Chef, and we’ve got a Ballerina that we’ll be enjoying trick or treating with later today. It wasn’t always such a fun holiday. Over 2,000 years ago, it was a Celtic tradition called Samhain. According to Folklorist, John Santino, there was a belief that it was on this day that the spirits of the dead transferred to the other world. They would have big bonfires and they would dress in these costumes. They would leave food and wine out on their doorsteps in order to ward off these roaming spirits. Something of a very fearful time for that belief.
Suggesting Any Organizational Change Creates Fear
Now, while Halloween isn’t so fearful, certainly, as that belief was back in that time, there are things in our adult life today that do strike that same level of fear. Take, for example, suggesting an improvement in a process or system at your organization, and if it doesn’t go well, it’s your neck on the line. Now my company has been around for over twenty-five years, and we’ve worked with hundreds of organizations to improve their work comp costs. The system of how to control workers’ comp costs is not a mystery, but getting it off the ground is often the most difficult part.
Start Small For Work Comp Program Reform
I want to give you some tips for getting started. The first one is to start small. You are rarely going to get buy-in from your entire organization to do a complete overhaul of your work comp program, but what you can often get buy-in for is a pilot. Start in a small division, implement these systems and processes improvements, create better outcomes for the injured workers, and reduce the workers’ compensation costs significantly for that division. Then roll it out to the rest of your organization. If that’s too big of a bite to start off, try it out with, start even smaller. Start with one employee, get him back to work just one day sooner. Small steps in a series of small steps can lead to significant change. In the case of Halloween, what started as a somewhat interesting Celtic tradition, has now turned into a $6 billion industry, spent on costumes and candy.
Connect With Like Minded Professionals
My second tip for you now is to connect and learn from others who have come before you. If you’re watching this video, somewhere other than http://reduceyourworkerscomp.com, go ahead and go to that website, and sign-up for a lot more free information on how to control your workers’ compensation costs. If you want to take it a step further and really connect, and learn more in depth into these concepts, go ahead and go to http://workerscompclub.com/livestreamtraining, and join me as a guest on my next Live Streaming Workers’ Comp Training. Remember, your success in workers’ compensation is defined by your integrity. Happy Halloween. Be great.
For additional information on workers’ compensation cost containment best practices, register as a guest for our next live stream training.
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: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.
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