How to Save Big: A Book Review

Monday, July 11, 2011 | 0

By David J. DePaolo
WorkCompCentral

"How to Save Big on Workers' Compensation" by Adam Friedlander is a quick read at 143 pages inclusive of supplemental material.

And while the book is primarily about the New York workers' compensation market, the overall theme of establishing a "Culture of Caring" is applicable to any employer in any state.

The "Culture of Caring" is a conscious top management decision to communicate both through words and, more importantly, actions that employees are valued and cared about because healthy employees are productive employees.

Rather than proscribing what a "Culture of Caring" should entail, Friedlander first goes through the steps that build the concept, and then lets others do the talking by interviews with an investigator, a claims director, a claimant attorney, and safety specialists.

The basic message is not complicated: treat workers as you wish to be treated and claims, and costs, go down.

How a company implements that message is more important than the message itself, the interviewees say, and is an important step in risk management.

The book ends with a chapter that is more advertisement than substantive advice, but otherwise the book offers some practical insight regardless of its focus on New York - the principles are the same.

The book is available at Amazon.com.

David J. DePaolo is chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of WorkCompCentral.