There is a compelling piece in today’s WSJ by Dana Mattioli about the frequency with which small businesses are finding it necessary to cancel employer-sponsored health care coverage for their employees.

Citing data from the National Small Business Association, the article mentions that:

1. “About 10% of small businesses are considering eliminating coverage over the next year, up from 3% in 2005, and

2. “Just 38% of small businesses provided health insurance last year compared to 61% in 1993.”

The obvious cause – the continued run-up in health care coverage premiums in the face of a declining economy. Contrary to the way these decisions are often portrayed in the media, Ms. Mattioli takes pains to establish that in reality, these are extremely painful moves for a business owner or CEO to make.

Aside from trading more job cuts for health insurance, or raising employee premiums and co-pays, there are things that employers can do to hold the lid on health care costs. Here’s but one example, based on simple human greed, and the notion that each and every one of us needs to become a better health care consumer:

On the premise that many (most?) medical bills, particularly hospital bills contain billing errors, not necessarily in the payor’s favor, organizations would be well advised to adopt incentives that cause patients to audit their bills, and reward them for catching/reporting errors.

More specifically, adopt a program that encourages employees to obtain and carefully review all of their health care bills, and rebates to them fully 50% of any recovered over-billing. As a case in point, when our daughter was born, while looking over the bill, I noticed that we (my company) had been charged for use of a delivery room and for anesthesia. The only problem was that my wife never went to a delivery room, and didn’t take so much as an aspirin in the birthing process (one strong lady!) As the company’s HR director, I dutifully made sure the billing error was corrected, saving the organization several hundred dollars.

By providing a reasonable, self-funded incentive, you are able to achieve goal congruence with your insured employees, and save a lot of money in the process. Try it, I think you’ll like the results.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Today’s post is courtesy of Brett Stevens and Gina O’Leary, President and General Manager respectively of the SearchLogix Group, a Georgia-based executive search firm.

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“Traditional observance of Memorial Day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored and neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.”

Read more at:

Memorial Day History
Help Restore the Traditional Day of Observance for Memorial Day
What to Do on Memorial Day

P.S. The SearchLogix Group is a Veteran Owned Business.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Upon returning from a trip to the Florida Keys Saturday, I saw a bright, shiny, freshly painted Delta Air Lines 747-400 jet parked at the adjacent gate as we pulled into Terminal E at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. In all likelihood, the plane recently bore the markings of Northwest Airlines, now in the process of integrating with Delta.

To their credit, the folks at Delta and the 25 or so “integration teams” responsible for planning and managing the execution of the merger (‘er acquisition) are moving with purpose and pace, and for the most part seem to be getting it right. Our flights this week were all unremarkable, on-time, and checked luggage showed up as expected.

Airlines are big, complex organizations with lots of critical moving parts and though many have tried, you  can’t simply slap a new coat of paint on a few airplanes, hang up some fresh signs, and call it quits. Just ask a few folks who regularly fly US Airways. Though Delta and Northwest are still operating as separate carriers, it is clear that there will be a day sometime in the next year or so when there is only one entity.

One aspect of the Delta-Northwest integration, and for that matter most business mergers that lags, however, is the integration of different (vastly different in this case) organizational cultures. While Atlanta-based Delta is known for hospitality and manners, Northwest excelled at other things, to put it charitably.

Though they may be wearing new uniforms, too many of the new Delta folks are still wearing Northwest attitudes. Just as there continues to be a struggle within the combined group about whether or not various employees will be represented by a labor union (I hope not), employees are figuring out what the new standards are for performance and behavior. It all pretty much reverts to the old “barrel of apples” axiom, and management must take pains to quickly assert its will before the wrong group of apples reaches critical mass. I don’t know where it is on the transition checklist, but this is one of the things that can’t wait. If management convincingly establishes smiling faces and polite, professional exchanges with customers (and others) as the norm for the new organization and models that behavior, it will come to pass. If they don’t, well, you know what they say about the barrel of apples.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

Of all the things Vice President Joe Biden wishes he could “unsay” (there would be lots of these things), his comments to Matt Lauer on the April 30 Today Show would probably be near the top of the list.

I doubt that Biden intended to cause the economy, specifically the travel industry, any harm by his words. But he almost certainly did just that.

When Biden told Lauer that, because of flu fears, he would urge members of his family not to fly, or take the subway, or any other means of public transportation, he stirred up a public, already on edge over the spread of swine flu, or H1N1, as we’re now being asked to call it.

I was on the phone with my travel agent, to book a flight, later that day. Yes, I still use a travel agent. Leave me a comment, and I’ll tell you why. She told me that 3 corporate clients had already called her that day, to cancel air travel plans, based on what they perceived to be Biden’s “warning”, and she was afraid I was calling for the same reason.

The lesson here is that what leaders say makes a difference. Biden has every right to urge his family to stay off public transportation and away from places where people gather. But, when a leader makes a statement like that, to the whole organization (the country), or to the press, that leader has a responsibility to consider the consequences.

People are already scared, about the economy, their jobs, their homes, and now the flu. We look to leaders for the truth, but also for realistic reassurances and optimism, for statements considered with wisdom. Workers look at their leaders’ faces, for signs…of hope…or of despair. And they listen to their words for the same. What they see, and hear, has much to do with whether or not they put themselves into their work, and how they serve customers.

Bosses, managers, executives, business owners – speak the truth, but be mindful of the weight of your words. What comes out of leaders’ mouths DOES matter.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.