EANJ’s Membership Meeting

May 19, 2010 (Wednesday)
9:00am - 12:00noon
Register (at least 24 hours in advance)

A New Era for Employers

Strategies for Affordable, Better Quality Health Care, Employee Wellness and Engagement

As national Health Care Reform continues to rile the economy, sky-rocketing health care costs, recession-weary employees and stressed out managers threaten business survival as the economy slowly picks up steam.  EANJ has convened a Blue Ribbon panel of national experts to give practical advice to employers.  The Agenda includes:

Uncovering employers’ power to purchase higher quality health care and lower cost: Strategies that the health care insurance industry wishes would remain secret.

    David L. Knowlton
    President and CEO
    New Jersey Health care Quality Institute
    Chair, Governor’s Health Care Transition Team

PANEL
With or without Health Care Reform, employers must learn to drive a better health care bargain, lower health care costs with wellness programs, increase employee engagement and productivity, and comply with HIPAA privacy.

    Sharon Seitzman
    Executive Vice President and COO
    Qualcare, Inc.

    Frank J. Palmieri, Esq.
    Palmieri & Eisenberg

    Phillip J. Cohen
    President & CEO
    Broad Reach Benefits

    Fikry W. Isaac, M.D. (Invited)
    Chief Medical Officer, Global Wellness & Prevention
    Johnson & Johnson Company

    John J. Sarno, Esq. (Moderator)
    President
    Employers Association of New Jersey

View a brief special video from John Sarno

Exceptional Employer Award

EANJ Members invited:

    Treasurer’s Report
    Election of Officers/New Board Members

Location:
The Imperia
Somerset, NJ

Time:
9:00am — 12 noon
Registration begins at 8:30

Registration Information:
$35 EANJ Members
$55 Non-Members

The most common cause of workplace litigation is the perception of unfair discipline and discharge.   Many employers misunderstand this, and that’s why supervisory training makes no difference.

So, before considering supervisory training, consider this: Most employers are interested in production, efficiency, uncovering mistakes, and the elimination of waste. This requires the compulsory cooperation of employees by getting them to follow uniform procedures over and over again, and to make sure there are no deviations.   Since the whole system is based on repetition and finding and correcting mistakes, most feedback given by supervisors, even if  intended to be helpful, is viewed by employees as punitive.

Further, in a workplace where there is an absence of praise, discipline will almost always be perceived as punishment. 

But fair and ethical discipline requires thinking and acting from both sides of the brain.  It requires more than the use of punishment.  The best supervisors combine job expertise with people skills. To have a truly productive and litigation free environment, supervisors must motivate employees by tapping into their values– as opposed to merely threatening them, which is mistakenly seen as easier to do.  In short, the best supervisors are leaders, not dictators.

But the dirty little secret is that many employers are simply not interested in the leadership abilities of their supervisors because they believe that leadership skills– such as listening, articulating core values, coaching, mentoring, conflict resolution, cultural sensitivity– are incompatible with meeting production quotas, finding mistakes and eliminating waste.

Since many employers are not really interested in supervisory leadership, supervisors have no incentive to improve their people skills. Supervisory training is a waste of time without incentives encouraging supervisors to take leadership skills seriously. Training without incentives and role models from the top, leave supervisors feeling more disillusioned and cynical than ever. 

Its clear that discipline without leadership results in conflict; and conflict perpetuates litigation. But most employers have no insight into the problem and no genuine desire to break this vicious cycle.