As the country and our businesses continue trudging along and hope that vaccines will pave the way out of the COVID-19 crisis, employers are increasingly seeing the effects of pandemic fatigue among their workers. The same issues people are grappling within their personal lives — exhaustion with social distancing and masking, a sense of loss…
Cyber insurance rates are going to increase dramatically in 2021, driven by more frequent and more severe insured losses, according to a recent industry study. The report by global insurance firm Aon plc predicted that rates would jump by 20% to 50% this year due to two main factors: 1. Cyber attacks are becoming more…
New research warns that so many people working remotely could result in an increase in musculoskeletal health issues, with four in five workers who began working remotely in lockdown developing some form of musculoskeletal pain. Remote work was quickly forced on millions of workers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Most of them were unprepared to…
OSHA recently updated its COVID-19 safety guidance to recommend that employees who have been vaccinated should continue wearing face masks, practice social distancing and comply with any other COVID-19 safety protocols while on the job. That means that the same workplace protocols that apply to unvaccinated employees will apply to those who have received their…
It’s always an unwelcome surprise when an employer finds out that a workplace incident aggravated a pre-existing injury that one of your workers sustained at a prior job. Fortunately, there are steps you can take if you don’t want to inherit a claim that someone incurred at another employer, or an injury that they may…
The new legislation would, if passed, bar employers in California from testing for cannabis use to deny or terminate employment. The measure, AB 1256, would bar employers from using hair or urine tests to check if their employees use marijuana because such checks do not test actual impairment but rather that a person has used…
Restaurants and retail businesses have been among the hardest hit in the COVID-19 pandemic. Join InterWest’ s Sports & Leisure team by helping to fund, The Aaron Rodgers Small-Business COVID-19 Fund through the North Valley Community Foundation. This fund will benefit locally owned and operated retail and restaurant businesses in Butte County and the North…
Thousands of Americans are blinded each year from work-related eye injuries that could have been prevented with the proper selection and use of eye and face protection. Eye injuries alone cost more than $300 million per year in lost production time, medical expenses, and workers’ compensation. OSHA requires employers to ensure the safety of all…
While companies scramble to protect themselves against cyber criminals and malicious attacks on their servers, there is a growing amount of business compromise crime that uses both technology and a human touch to extract funds from businesses. Businesses have lost millions of dollars to social engineering scams, where attackers impersonate a company president or executive…
COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims have not been as widespread as insurers and ratings agencies around the country had predicted when the pandemic first started in early 2020. Also, a large chunk of COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims filed by workers nationwide have been rejected, with insurers often citing lack of proof that the illness was contracted…