Workplace Disability

Workplace Disability
The escalating rate of workplace disabilities is causing
businesses and consumers alike to revisit how they handle
stress and health issues. High stress, lack of exercise and
other factors exacerbated by an aging U.S. workforce are
contributing to an increase in the numbers of individuals
receiving long-term disability payments each year,
according to a new study from the Council for Disability
Awareness.

It's not just an issue that should worry aging workers,
either. The U.S. Social Security Administration projects
that nearly a third of workers under 21 will become
disabled before they reach their late 60s. Women,
especially, are at risk at a time when disability claims
filed by women is reaching levels almost twice the rate of
men.

Particularly daunting is the council's finding that only
about 36 percent of workers presently are covered by
long-term disability insurance. Clearly, preventive steps
are in order to protect workers, the self-employed and
businesses alike.

Today's high stress workplace, in which the traditional
40-hour work week is giving way to 50- and 60-hour weeks,
has been linked by more than a dozen studies in recent
years to increasing rates of depression, high blood
pressure and obesity from lack of exercise ' all mental and
physical health issues that can lead to long-term disease
and disability.

4 Smart Ways Businesses Can Stave Off Climbing Disability
Rates

1. Revisit long-term disability insurance coverage to stave
off the later, higher costs of employee replacement.

2. Promote stress-reducing policies such as implementing
mandated breaks every two hours and regularly scheduled
wellness campaigns that focus on stress-reducing help from
outside professionals.

3. Pay closer attention to workplace ergonomic issues such
as lighting, and desk and seating structures.

4. Allow employees to participate in stress-reducing
campaigns. Feeling powerless on the job is a rising factor
in the high price tag of lost productivity and rising
employee turnover rates blamed on workplace stress.

4 Smart Ways Professionals & Employees Can Avoid Becoming
Another Statistic

1. Elevate your good health to a career priority. How
healthy you are will prove of greater importance to your
earnings and how long you can work. Exercise and eat
healthy to avoid the long-term damage to your career from
obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression,
diabetes and other disabling diseases.

2. Combat stress at work and at home. What stressful
situations can you avoid, change or better accommodate? Try
turning off your cell phone and your computer several times
a day. Take frequent exercise and mental breaks.

3. Take back control of your days. Plan ahead and
incorporate your plans on paper to exercise, eat healthy
and combat stress every day. Lack of control is a major
contributor to stress. Take charge of tracking and
responding to daily stresses.

4. Consider purchasing long-term disability insurance on
your own. The advantage of this is that, in an era where
changing jobs often has become the norm, you can take your
protection against long-term disability from job to job.
The insurance council has established a new Web site at
www.disabilitycanhappen.org with good information on this
subject.

With more aging workers, and more workers expected to work
well into their 60s and 70s in today's economy, long-term
disability rates will continue to climb. Self-employed
professionals, business owners and employees can take smart
steps now to avoid stress and adding to these rising
statistics.

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Ruth Klein is an award-winning business owner, best-selling
author and marketing and time management consultant whose
clients range from solo entrepreneurs to the Fortune 500.
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