Finding that statistic a bit surprising, I dug up more on the original Zogby survey on workplace bullying, which was conducted among more than 7,000 working US adults in 2007. Of the 37% who reported being bullied at work, 72% identified the bullies as bosses. Bullying is about 4 times more prevalent than illegal forms of "harassment." And the number one way that the bullying was stopped? The victims lost their jobs: 40% left voluntarily, 24% were terminated or driven out, and 13% transferred out of the department. Only 23% reported that there were any consequences for the harasser. Wow!
While there are a number of sources citing huge costs associated with bullying, it's hard to know how those estimates were derived or how accurate they are. Nevertheless, it is clear the costs to businesses are high. Certainly, turnover is costly and employment practices litigation is a cost that we all dread. But there are also many associated costs that are more difficult to quantify, such as stress related disease, disability, workers compensation claims, and damage to the organization’s reputation.
We periodically have a supervisor or coworker referred to us for counseling after incidents of inappropriate behavior, such as anger or gender-based harassment. An informal survey of our counselors tells me that addressing bulling through such interventions can be a very effective way of changing that behavior. Our chances of success increase dramatically if the referral is handled well at the start, and the highest rehabilitation success rate occurs when management and the EAP work together.
Kathleen Jahnke, our Clinical Director, makes the following suggestion for making such a referral to an EAP:
Other states and municipalities have taken measures designed to offer employees some relief:
"Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) announced two weeks ago that her office was considering work-schedule alternatives to help commuters save fuel. And New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) has ordered each state agency to adopt a policy for telecommuting and alternate work schedules by Sept. 1.
High gasoline prices led Kentucky and South Carolina to offer compressed workweeks to a handful of its state employees this summer. A smattering of other states — Arkansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Vermont among them — are considering expanding existing programs to more state agencies."
Not all private businesses could afford to shut down for one day; for many, it would put them at a competitive disadvantage. But some companies are enacting staggered four-day work plans, allowing some workers to have Friday off and others to have Monday off. With such arrangements, the extended work days may actually increase the service time available for customers.
Still other companies are looking to expand telecommuting or work from home arrangements. Bank of America just announced the launch of a voluntary telecommuting program for eligible employees. And one of our readers recently brought to our attention the concept of Third Place Thursdays - identifying one day of the work week (in this example, Thursdays) when employees can work from a "third place" - which is not necessarily the office or a home. The idea being that technology affords connectivity and access from almost any location.
Study finds four day week enhances morale, increases productivity
At least one recent study suggests that a compressed schedule may lead to an increase in job satisfaction, morale, and productivity. Professors at Brigham Young University studied the experience of the city of Spanish Fork, which adopted a four-day work week for city services in 2003 to reduce costs and to make public services more accessible to citizens by extending weekday work hours. The researchers surveyed city employees and residents to assess satisfaction, and found that 60 percent of employees reported higher productivity and 60 percent of residents reported improved citizen access.
Pros and cons
There are many advantages to a compressed week. In addition to the most obvious one of reducing gas expenditures by 20%, employees also see a 20% reduction in commuting time. And by commuting earlier and later on the other four days, employees may find that traffic is less congested during those off-peak hours. With a consolidated schedule, workers gain an entire day off, allowing more quality time for family and non-work pursuits. Some workers say that they use Fridays for errands and housework, and preserve their weekends for family time and leisure.
However, not everyone is in favor of a four-day week. Extended hours may be disruptive to child care arrangements. A compressed schedule may also be disruptive to employees who are engaged in a variety of other activities, such as taking night classes, juggling a part-time job, coaching a Little League team, or acting in community theater. It can be much more difficult to juggle daily life tasks on days with a longer work schedule. Safety proponents also point to the potential for increased risk, particularly for those with dangerous, stressful, or tedious jobs.
Pro or con, there is no doubt but that more public and private organizations are rapidly moving to alternate work arrangements, at least as a short-term measure to address soaring fuel prices. This will provide a good opportunity for researchers to study the positive and negative effects of alternative work schedules.
Dictionary of Occupational Titles - alphabetical index to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles as supplied electronically by the US Department of Labor.
Everybody's Legal Glossary - plain-English definitions for hundreds of legal terms, from the common to the bizarre, brought to you by NOLO, a legal publishing firm.
Seat Guru - if your job requires business travel, you will appreciate this site that offers actual layouts of planes so you can preview your seat and flight amenities. You can also access the airline's info and policies about check-in, baggage, and traveling with infants and pets.
Video tutorial on how to use RSS readers - if you read several blogs a week, a more efficient way to do it is to subscribe to an RSS reader. This brief video tutorial will teach you what you need to know. Also see Frank Roche's great post from KnowHR on What Everybody in HR Ought to Know About Blogs and How to Read them Fast.
7 Funny Newspaper Job Wanted Ads - or how NOT to write a job ad.
]]>With Web access, people can find research and information about health matters and medical conditions. Information about medication and its side effects is readily available. Support groups and message boards allow people with rare or life-threatening conditions to interact with others. Is there a downside to having so much information readily available to all? Some doctors might say yes. As the old saying goes, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." People who are not trained experts may misinterpret complicated medical data. Plus, not all online sources are accurate or reputable, and consumers can be careless about separating the wheat from the chaff.
Disease mongering
There's also the phenomena of disease mongering, or " ... the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness and grows the markets for those who sell and deliver treatments." As direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising became more prevalent, consumers were hit with any number of frightening conditions they had never previously heard of, from restless legs to toenail fungus. The power of suggestion can be strong, as any marketer will attest. While disease mongering is not exactly a new phenomena - witness the traveling medicine shows of the last century - television and the Web have given messages a broader reach. Years ago, we worried about our breath and whether we had dandruff. That seems almost quaint now as we are encouraged to tend to the state of our esophagus and determine whether or not our bowels are irritable.
The real thing
But what of the real cyberchodndriacs? There's quite a continuum between the average person who Googles for some medical information and the person for whom it is an obsession, and at the far end of the spectrum there are some very troubled people. The word "cyber" can be distracting, it's really just the 21st century wired version of the hypochondriac that has been an archetype for most of recorded history. The information-at-your-fingertips access that the Web affords simply allows the hypochondriac to obsess a little more.
Ongoing, chronic complaints about health may indeed be a signal of an undiagnosed medical condition. But, often, preoccupation with health and illness is a red flag for depression, anxiety, or phobia. Hypochondria is not actually about the physical but the mental and can be a very debilitating problem, which has been described as not feeling safe in your own body. In the face of all evidence to the contrary, hypochondriacs may be convinced that they have a serious illness. The good news is that it is a condition that can be successfully treated with therapy.
The Mayo Clinic has some great resources on hypochondria. The list the common symptoms of hypochondria as:
HR managers and line supervisors really don't have to be concerned about discerning who in the work force is a bit of a fanatic Googler and who is a hypochondriac. The real barometer is performance and any performance changes or inhibitors. When an employee's life problems begin affecting performance, that's when an EAP can be most effective.
Underwear alert - Now that warm summer weather is here, managers everywhere face one of their most daunting challenges: underwear in the workplace. Some employees push the boundaries of business casual when the temperature soars and this can make for a distracting, unprofessional environment - see 10 Crimes of Work Fashion for a listing of a few common violations. Susan Heathfield of Human Resources at about.com offers guidance on wording for summer dress codes, and suggests that managers may need to hold a difficult conversations on the topic. See her write up on tackling annoying employee habits and issues.
EEOC on Caregivers - In response to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's May 23 issuance of guidance on on unlawful disparate treatment of workers with caregiving responsibilities, Human Resource Executive offers a variety of online caregiver resources. HRE also provides copies of the EEOC's Enforcement Guidance (PDF) and Q&A (PDF) on this topic.
WARN refresher - Is there a staff reduction in your organization's future? Diane Pfadenhauer of Strategic HR Lawyer suggests a refresher of employer obligations under the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act (WARN) might be in order, and links to a good resource. She also suggests an overview of things an employer needs to address after notice is given.
Five results killers - Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership Blog says that one advantage of experience is that you start to notice common ways to succeed and common ways that people snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He offers concrete examples in his post Managers Behaving Stupidly: Five Results Killers.
California mobile phone law - If you are a California employer with workers who have driving responsibilities as part of their jobs, you will need to update your policy and procedure manuals. Beginning on July 1, California's new hands-free law will prohibit the use of any hand-held mobile phones while driving and offenders will be subject to fines. Speaker phones are allowed for drivers over the age of 18 as long as the driver is not holding the phone. As an employer, you would not be subject to a fine if one of your employees with driving responsibilities violates the law; however, some legal advisors suggest that you update your policies to explicitly prohibit the use of phones while driving to ensure that you are not held liable for costs in the event of an accident in which a phone was involved. (More info on the new law at California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Mean employer of the month - at least one employer in Florida isn't kidding when he says he wants his employees to get serious about their jobs. Workplace Prof Blog reports on the strange case of an employee who was fired for laughing.
By the numbers
8 things that employees want
8 foods you should eat every day
10 things that will get you in big trouble at work
52 proven stress reducers
"I can't remember who told me this, but I certainly didn't grow up knowing it, so I must have gotten this advice at Salomon Brothers in the 1970s. The advice was, first, always ask for the order, and second, when the customer says yes, stop talking."
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, founder of Bloomberg LP
My boss at the time, then-Maj. Gen. Jack Galvin, said "I think you ought to look for an out-of-your intellectual comfort zone experience." So that's what I did.
Gen. David Petraeus, Commanding general, multinational force - Iraq
"My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different."
Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico
"Don't panic. It's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. You have to be wary of emotion clouding your decision-making process - and of making a decision that you'll later regret."
Elon Musk, Founder and CEO, SPACEX
"The best advice I ever got came from my mother, Estée Lauder: She believed that if you had something good to say, you should put it in writing. But if you had something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face."
Leonard Lauder, Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies
More than many other public health issues, mental illness is fraught with fear, guilt, and shame - often because there is a great deal of ignorance surrounding the topic. Family members who are caring for a loved one suffering from a mental health condition can feel particularly isolated and have difficulty knowing where to turn.
Employers are often in a position to be an 'early warning system' for mental health issues. Behavior changes can be more evident in a routine situation like a job. In one article in The Globe and Mail series, Bill Wilkerson, co-founder and CEO of the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, answers reader questions about mental illness in the workplace. He makes an excellent case for why this should concern employers - one that we would like to share here:
Employers must care about the mental health of their employees for three reasons: one, health and productivity go hand-in hand - for employers, this is a matter of legitimate self-interest and huge costs to rein-in;
two, employers - through the climates they create in the workplace - can cause some of the risk factors which affect the well-being of people - chronic job stress, for example, can lead to burn-out and depression. Employers are increasingly being held accountable by courts and tribunals for their role in producing hazardous work climates so they need to protect themselves against these kinds of liabilities;
and three, a good employer is led by good people - by definition this is true - and most employers strive to be good employers. Which, in turn means, they can and must do the right thing by ensuring that human decency is part of their management credo. Without this, they will be hard-pressed to recruit and retain the best people and that goes to their competitive instincts as well.
I like to remind employers that when we hire someone we hire the whole person - vulnerabilities included. And if we didn't do that, we would have to recruit people from another universe because all of us vulnerable to one kind of illness or health problem.He continues on to offer suggestions for how employers should deal with employees who are out on leave for mental health issues and how such employees should be integrated back to the workplace in return to work programs - much in the same way that any other disability might be managed. Yet despite the cost implications for employers and the prospects of a positive outcome when treatment is provided, frequently, mental health problems in the workplace are often quietly ignored.
The new wellness frontier?
In recent years, corporate wellness programs have firmly taken root as employers recognize the cost and productivity benefits of helping employees to stay well. Nutrition and exercise programs are now fairly common, as are programs to help people control risky behaviors like smoking and overeating. But physical well being is only one part of the equation - as many as one in five American workers suffer some form of mental illness. Because of this, incorporating good mental health programs into an overall wellness program can be highly beneficial. This might take the form of training supervisors to have a greater awareness and understanding of common mental health problems such as stress, PTSD, and depression, as well as conducting educational and awareness outreach programs for employees. As with many health issues, awareness and identification of a potential problem is the first step in getting help. Many effective, cost-efficient and scientifically valid treatments exist. Contrary to many myths, most mental health issues respond favorably to the right treatment. Your EAP is a good resource for addressing any ongoing behavior or performance issues that may signify an underlying mental health problem.
Resources
Mental health in the workplace - from Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association)
Mental Illness and the workplace - from the Center for Reintegration
If you want to keep your ear to the ground for new jargon, you might try MBA Jargon Watch. Most of the phrases in the list sound painfully familiar, but there are a few new fingernails-on-the-blackboard contenders, such as "eat your own dogfood" and "boil the ocean." Ouch, my ears! When it comes to office speak, I think we need to leapfrog into a paradigm shift - can I get any buy-in on that?
HR media - An online publication that's become a daily read for many of us here at ESI is Hr Blunders, a combination blog and news aggregator covering a variety of HR-related matters from benefits and recruiting to legal matters and tech news. And of course, as the headline promises - lots of blunders, HR pitfalls, and tricky questions ... don't miss the HR Blunder of the Week, which includes items like new reference check scams even HR pros are falling for. We also like the dubious decisions category.
Wellness - Joanne Wojcik of Business Insurance informs us that National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is developing a wellness accreditation and certification program for wellness service providers. Through June 30, NCQA is seeking public comment on proposed standards, which can be accessed at at the NCQA site.
Fatigue follow up - Last week, we featured an item on the high price of fatigue in the workplace. Over the weekend, we noticed an article in Time on the matter of how much sleep you really need. If you aren't logging your full 8 hours of sleep a night, don't stay awake fretting over it. While conventional wisdom has always said that 8 hours or more of sleep is a recipe for health, new research says that people who sleep in a range of 6.5 to 7.5 hours a night live the longest. Research is also showing that too much sleep (8.5+ hours) isn't much better for your health than sleeping too little.
]]>NTSB will now be looking at making changes to regulations about how long pilots can fly and they will employ fatigue studies to assist in revising the regulations. Currently, the law allows pilots to work 16 hours a day, including 8 hours flying the plane.
While the issue of fatigue is of prime concern in any professions that entail responsibility for public health and safety - transportation workers, doctors and nurses, police, to name but a few - it should be of concern to all employers in terms of worker safety, product quality, and organizational productivity. A study by Caremark that appeared in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine last year put the cost of worker fatigue at $136.4 billion annually in health-related lost productivity. Lack of sleep has been tied to increases in diabetes and heart problems. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that fatigue is responsible for 100,000 highway crashes and 1,500 deaths each year.
Being alert for worker fatigue
Sometimes, fatigue can be the result of organizational policies, such as work schedules and overtime hours, or a byproduct of the nature of the work itself, such as long hours spent on detailed or repetitive work. In such cases, fatigue must be addressed through organizational measures, such as changing schedules and implementing a program of breaks or job rotations.
Often, fatigue is more subtle and occurs on a worker by worker basis. Worker fatigue could be due to an illness or condition, a new baby at home, poor nutrition, too many demands on the worker's schedule, or simply the result of a late night out on the town.
The health benefits of good sleep habits should be addressed as part of an overall wellness program, including information that discusses the potential negative health effects of too little sleep. Supervisors should be trained in and alert for fatigue symptoms and should address repeated evidence of fatigue just as any other behavior that inhibits productivity would be addressed. While it's not appropriate for a supervisor to 'diagnose' the root cause of the fatigue, he or she may be in a good position to refer the employee on to an EAP or a physician so that the problem can be addressed appropriately.
The authors of the Caremark study believe that, " ...targeting workers with fatigue, particularly women, could have a marked positive effect on the quality of life and productivity of affected workers." They suggest increasing worker access to work/life programs and making health assessments available to see if fatigue is a symptom of an underlying health condition.
]]>But experts suggest that creativity is a process that is teachable and trackable, and that there are techniques and tools that can foster a more creative approach to life. And being creative doesn't need to take a lot of time. But creativity does need to be continually nurtured and the creative impulse needs to be exercised regularly.
In a recent article in Scientific American, three experts - a psychologist, a poet/playwright, and a scholar - discuss the importance of creativity and the role that it has played in their lives and the lives of others, and offer ways that you can unleash your own creativity. They suggest that there is more to creativity than what some call "Big Creativity" or "Big C creativity" - big ideas and concepts with far-reaching impact. There is also "Small C creativity" that manifests itself in everyday problem solving.
The discussion suggests that there are four basic competencies or skill sets that are essential for creative expression:
"The first and most important competency is “capturing”—preserving new ideas as they occur to you and doing so without judging them ... There are many ways to capture new ideas. Otto Loewi won a Nobel Prize for work based on an idea about cell biology that he almost failed to capture. He had the idea in his sleep, woke up and scribbled the idea on a pad but found the next morning that he couldn’t read his notes or remember the idea. When the idea turned up in his dreams the following night, he used a better capturing technique: he put on his pants and went straight to his lab!
The second competency is called “challenging”—giving ourselves tough problems to solve. In tough situations, multiple behaviors compete with one another, and their interconnections create new behaviors and ideas. The third area is “broadening.” The more diverse your knowledge, the more interesting the interconnections—so you can boost your creativity simply by learning interesting new things. And the last competency is “surrounding,” which has to do with how you manage your physical and social environments. The more interesting and diverse the things and the people around you, the more interesting your own ideas become."The article continues to suggest other ideas and techniques for fostering creativity. An important part of the creative process is simply unleashing or giving permission to the creative impulse. An all-too-frequent and unfortunate byproduct of the education process can be a stifling of our inner creativity. Children are naturally creative, but as part of the socialization process, that creativity is often suppressed. Experts in this article suggest that creativity demands a thick skin because rejection often goes hand in hand with creativity and the creative thinker often has to overcome obstacles to nurture a concept on to fruition. ]]>
Supervisor mistakes - HR Daily Advisor brings us more in the way of supervisor mistakes - this time, related to documentation. Part one deals with 6 Common Mistakes That Weaken Documentation and part two deals with mistakes that are easy to make but hard to defend.
Firefighter wellness program saves dollars - Orange County Fire Authority has seen a 90% participation level after instituting a comprehensive voluntary wellness program that includes disease screening, fitness testing, blood work, and other components. Since instituting the program, its workers' comp reserve has dropped by approximately $1 million.
Gas costs - We recently posted about the price of gas and its effect on worker productivity, along with some suggestions for employers to help mitigate commuter pain. Lydell Bridgeford of Employee Benefit News reports on SHRM research on enhanced commuter benefits that employers are putting into place. For example, 42% of companies increased their mileage reimbursement to the Internal Revenue Service maximum of 50.5 cents per mile, which is a marked increase over the 13% of employers who met the IRS mileage reimbursement cap last year. The research polled employers on other measures they are taking to help lessen the economic burden on commuting employees.
Global benefits - Employee Benefit News takes a look at employee benefits around the world - useful if you have global offices, but also interesting in examining benefit trends. For example, it is interesting to see that in Japan, the government is now requiring started requiring that companies scree employees aged between 40 and 74 years old for metabolic syndrome, a combination of medical disorders, including obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels and high blood fat levels.
]]>The Aon survey, which polled more than 1100 employers of various sizes, found a dramatic threefold jump in employer initiatives. The Watson Wyatt survey, which focused on large employers, showed a 28% jump in the use of health appraisals since 2006. The increases were attributed to escalating medical costs and a global labor shortage that is forcing more reliance on an older population. Employers are seeking to reduce costs and to find ways to keep their workers healthy and active.
Despite these promising reports, other recent research indicates that small and mid-sized employers are significantly lagging behind larger companies in offering wellness initiatives. Joanne Wojcik reports on a survey conducted by Principal Financial Group in Workforce which showed that, when offered, wellness programs are very popular and have a high participation rate. But while 26% of employers with 501 to 1,000 employees offered wellness educational tools and discounts, only 12% of employers with fewer than 500 employees offered wellness programs.
If you are in a small organization that is not yet offering wellness benefits for your employees, what are you waiting for? Wellness programs can help to reduce the high cost of health care for you and your employees and can enhance your worker health, well-being and productivity. There are many inexpensive initiatives you can undertake to enhance worker health. Start with investigating the free or low cost alternatives available to you. Some top-shelf EAP programs offer wellness benefits as part of their package. Your health insurer may also have free or low cost options such as health screenings that could be incorporated in an annual health fair. Large national health organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society offer free literature, programs, and resources. Other alternatives include implementing programs that will help employees change behaviors, such as launching walking or biking clubs, replacing junk food with healthier alternatives in the cafeteria vending machines, and offering employee incentives or discounts for participating in exercise or weight loss programs.
]]>26 reasons why most brainstorming sessions fail - and what you can do about it.
Marker board walls - need lots of space to jot down ideas in those brainstorming meetings? Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools gives you a rundown on available options from cheap tile board to upscale ceramic-coated metal.
Six tips for more effective meetings
Get Human allows you to bypass automated telephonic self-help filtering systems at hundreds of companies to speak directly to a human customer service representative. If you've ever been shuffled back and forth at a giant telco, retailer, or bank, this list might cut your waiting time and frustration.
Google tips and tricks
If you are simply using Google for basic searches, you are missing a lot of utilities. The following tips list just a few of the handy ways you can use Google.
Check local weather
To see weather conditions and a four-day forecast for a particular U.S. or worldwide location, type "weather," followed by the location or the zip code.
Examples: weather 01778 or weather Paris
Check the time at a remote location
Enter the word time and the location in the search box.
Example: time London
Track flight status and weather conditions
Enter the airline and flight number in the search box.
Example: United 535
To check airport weather conditions and delays, type the airport's three letter code followed by the word "airport"
Example: Bos airport
Convert currency
Enter the amount of US dollars and the desired currency in the search box.
Example: 50 US dollars to euros
Specific site search
To restrict your search to one particular site, first enter the term you want to search for, then the word site followed by a colon followed by the site you want to search.
Example: wellness site:www.hrwebcafe.com
Links back
Find out what other sites link to a web page. Enter link:websiteURL into the search box.
Example: link:www.hrwebcafe.com
Dictionary
Type 'define' followed by the term you need a definition for in the search box
Example: define:harassment
Calculator
Type your math problem in the search box
Example: 647+268=
More instructions on Google's calculator.
For more Google tips, visit Google Guide for interactive online tutorials.
]]>Sharing the pain - what employers can do
As the survey shows, if your employees are hurting, you are hurting too. Find ways to help your employees lessen the pain at the pump. Be creative - your employees will appreciate your help. Even for small companies, there are may low- to no-cost options that you can pursue.
Encourage pedal-power - Offer bike-to-work incentives, such as subsidizing bike purchases for employees who bike to work; install expanded bike parking options; sponsor bike-to-work days with free breakfasts for participants.Biking will not only save your employees money, it will keep them healthy.
Walk the walk - Nothing becomes a leader more than leadership. Managers - including the CEO - could bike to work, take mass transit, or rideshare to set an example. Subsidize or sponsor bus, van, or other group transit options. Organize car pools - encourage your management team to participate.
Expand your telecommuting options - Even allowing employees to work from home one or two days a week would reduce employee fuel expenditures by 20-40%. If you have employees who need to be on premise, consider reorganizing schedules, such as four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days.
Meet wisely - Use more online meetings so that people don't have to drive to the office. Consolidate regular in-house meetings to one or two days of the week to allow for more telecommuting options.
Find resources - Investigate and publicize any regional or state sponsored rideshare resources. Websites like eRideShare.com are cropping up to provide bulletin boards so that commuters can find ridesharing partners.
Exchange tips - Publicize gas saving tips in your company newsletter or Intranet. David Bauerlein of the Florida Times Union has a great list of suggestions to lessen the sting of rising gas costs. There are also online resources, such as GasBuddy to help employees find the lowest local gas prices. Research gas conservation and buying tips and add them to your company's newsletter or website.
Consider "conservation contests" - Invite your employees to suggest the best gas and energy conservation tips and cost saving ideas. Offer "green" prizes and publicize the best ideas and tips both internally and in your local paper.
Offer debt counseling services - As gas prices go up, so too do food and other necessities. This is causing serious hardship for many who try to solve the problem with additional credit card debt. Some EAPs offer debt counseling services. It's a good time to publicize and remind your employees when such resources are available.
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