Does Group Health Insurance Make Sense for My Business?

Like most Americans today, healthcare reform is at the forefront of the minds of virtually all business owners, managers, and employees. While planning ahead is always a good move, many of the components of President Obama’s proposed legislation will not take effect until at least 2013. In the meantime, we still face the age-old question: “Does group health insurance make sense for my business?”

Obvious factors such as cost of premiums, tax benefits, and overall health of staff are common to all businesses. Instead, let’s explore the question using conditions specific to the relocation industry: injury risk, high turnover rate, and low wages.

Injury Risk

Movers are obviously subject to rigorous physical activity which can put them at higher levels of risk for injury. It might make sense to help keep employees as healthy as possible by offering medical benefits, which may also keep workman’s compensation claims to a minimum. However, many hourly laborers continue to work with known injuries to avoid missing any wages for time off tending to them.

High Turnover Rate

Most group insurance plans require a 90-day employment period before new hires become eligible. This helps avoid unnecessary paperwork and administrative costs for the employer. Unfortunately, there tends to be a high turnover rate amongst relocation professionals, so a relatively high percentage of workers never become eligible for benefits in the first place.

Low Wages

Of course some employees will inevitably stay with you for longer terms, rendering them eligible to participate in a group insurance plan. In general, employees with healthcare benefits tend to be happier with their employment and of course in better shape to perform their jobs. Although according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, workers with lower wages may prefer to keep more of their paychecks over contributing to group insurance premiums. Tack on deductibles and co-pays, and suddenly healthcare coverage doesn’t look so attractive to a low-wage, hourly employee.

So, should you provide group health insurance benefits or not? We’re willing to bet that for most relocation firms, it just doesn’t make sense financially. However, we want to hear from you! Are you currently providing medical benefits? Why or why not? Share your thoughts and discuss in the comments below.

Dealing with personal technology

As a business owner who manages several departments and spends a good deal of his time traveling, I depend heavily on technology to keep me connected. In a world of rapidly advancing communication devices, one would think it would be fairly easy to stay on top of things. However, finding the perfect device has still proven to be quite challenging for me.

The gadget-lover that I am, I recently purchased an iPhone for testing as a possible replacement for my BlackBerry. The most important part of setting up my new iPhone was to make sure that I could send and receive email for all my email accounts (I have several different inboxes to check). Furthermore, I needed to figure out how to sync the phone with Outlook to make sure I’m always seeing the latest emails and appointments.

Long story short: I did not achieve the results I was hoping for--not even close. It turns out that the iPhone’s email handling is just not up to par with that of my trusty BlackBerry. On the other hand, the iPhone’s Internet browsing just can’t be beat. So what did I decide? Well, I think I’m keeping both of them. (Didn’t I mention I love gadgets?)

What experiences, good or bad, have you had? We would love to hear your trials, tribulations, and success stories with technology at work. Share them and discuss other’s stories in the comments below!

Thinking outside the Business Vertical

Recently I participated at a conference organized by a large national association operating in a market that was not immediately in our business vertical. We generated great leads which we hope will turn into a continuous flow of business.

The best outcome of this show was realizing the potential new markets outside our immediate ‘business vertical’ that need exploring. I call it ‘Thinking outside the Business Vertical’.

One could argue to concentrate on your core markets, and to some extent I agree. However, what if your core markets are over crowded by competitors? What if your core markets are saturated with similar products and you cannot generate any new sales from these markets? Can you explore new market verticals? Can you afford not to be searching for other verticals?

Is Co-opetition For Everyone?

Co-opetition – A relationship between two companies involving competition in some segments and cooperation in others

According to Wikipedia, “Coopetition or Co-opetition is a neologism coined to describe cooperative competition. Co-opetition occurs when companies work together for parts of their business where they do not believe they have competitive advantage, and where they believe they can share common costs. For instance, the cooperation between Peugeot and Toyota on shared components for a new city car for Europe in 2005. In this case, companies will save money on shared costs, while remaining fiercely competitive in other areas. For co-opetition to work, companies need to very clearly define where they are working together, and where they are competing.”

We see Co-opetition in almost every market business segment. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and others, compete fiercely in some areas, but cooperate very closely in others (see article).

In the van lines world we see co-opetition between agents of the same van line. But does it exsist between agents of competing van lines? Is co-opetition possible between independently owned moving companies? Self Storage companies? Mobile Storage companies?

One area we see potential co-opetition between companies is in the Mobile Storage and Packing/Loading/Unloading services, in which the mobile storage company may complete for business with the moving company, but use the movers to provide loading and unloading services to its customers.

The Gold You Find In Your Spam/Junk Folder

Our Spam and Junk folders save us from email messages that could harm our computers and servers and are also a waste of our time if we stop to read them. In most cases, messages caught by our spam filters are really unwanted and illegitimate messages.

However, no spam/junk filter is perfect and in some cases the rules also capture relevant and important messages we should be reading. Many times you will find in your junk folder a response from a prospect for whom you quoted a price, a request for a quote from a potential customer or a suggestion for a new deal from a colleague.

The only solution is to check your junk folder on a regular basis, daily or weekly, go through your messages and look for any legitimate ones and act accordingly. We know it takes valuable time and realize it is a tedious process altogether, but hey, we never said that finding gold would be a an easy task…