Dictator & Bully In Office

A friend recently described the unconscionable treatment he endured by new management at his organization. He described how, after over 20 years at this organization, his annual rating went from a high of 4 (exceeds) to a low of 2 (underperforming).

He described that daily he was told he was not fit to do the job, that he was replaceable and that he should resign. He was in the unique situation to have a contract, so the organization appeared to be tormenting him to resign because it knew it couldn’t fire him.

He asked me if he had any rights to sue the organization.

First, the incidents occurred about two years ago. Under federal law, and in Virginia, he has only had 300 days to file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, if he felt the behaviors towards him were due to discrimination or harassment based on race, age, gender, or other protected categories.

If he failed to meet that timeframe, he has a limited window to seek redress under federal law. Unfortunately for him, and so many others in the workplace, this scenario is too common. Even more difficult is the reality that he has limited rights of redress in the workplace, even if he met the limited statute of limitations.

My 54-year-old friend was subjected to workplace bullying. The new leadership made a decision it wanted to eliminate him. Instead of engaging in appropriate performance feedback, coaching and proper communication, management chose instead to be hostile and abusive by creating chaos and unrealistic expectations.

Organizations typically support the bullying behavior because the bully is getting results, and the bully leads management to believe that the target is the problem. There are no laws protecting against workplace bullying, so organizations don’t see the need to stop the bullying behaviors.

I often see human resources departments  conducting an investigation and concluding only that no Equal Employment Opportunity laws were violated, thereby enabling the behaviors to continue, since bullying is usually committed due to discrimination against a protected category.

What organizations fail to consider is their codes of conduct, which typically address this type of divisive, abusive and unprofessional conduct, to include yelling, public humiliation and verbal abuse, can and should be enforced in these situations.

It is also true, however, that employees sometimes confuse proper performance management as bullying.

A manager should be providing employees with expectations and holding them accountable for their performance and behaviors. Performance management converts to bullying when the expectations are unclear or unrealistic, and the performance management is designed to be abusive, not constructive.

Employers should not turn a blind eye to employees complaining about this type of behavior, even if it is against a high performing leader. Bullies are masters at managing up, and typically get the benefit of the doubt from leadership.

Bullies will have a target or multiple targets at all times, and usually forecast to management that the “target” is having issues or is not performing, while at the same time setting unrealistic expectations and holding the target to standards not expected of others, while micromanaging them. This might play out until the target quits or is terminated.

One employee told me during a recent investigation who was subjected to bullying that his manager set him up to fail - and he did fail. When an employee complains of misconduct against her or his supervisor, employers should immediately conduct a fair an impartial investigation into any allegations, including bullying.

While bullying is not legally actionable, it can lead to high turnover, lower productivity and even workplace violence. The entire organization, including those not the target, are impacted by a workplace bully.

In such an investigation, the investigator will determine if an employee is bullying by interviewing other employees who have witnessed the behaviors but have not been the subject of the behaviors.

Employees are typically aware of the identity of current, and prior, targets. These are the most credible and reliable witnesses who can validate employee concerns.

Most importantly, employers cannot ignore these complaints, or attribute them to management holding employees to a high standard. Bullying exists in many workplaces, and the workplace is well served eliminating these individuals from the work environment.

Indonesian Smokers

Indonesia has the highest smoking rates in the world: while 56% of men smoked in 2000, 76% of men did in 2015. Far fewer women smoke (4% and falling). This trend has occurred both among adult men and very young boys, sparking such sensational coverage as the “smoking 2-year-old” in 2010. How has this happened?

In the Western world, the rise and fall of cigarette smoking seems a uniquely twentieth century phenomenon. The development of medical epidemiology proving that smoking causes cancer and the class action lawsuit allowing smokers to fight the power of big tobacco has helped dismantle our smoking culture.

The number of active adult smokers in the United States has fallen from a peak of 45% in the 1950s to around 15% today. E-cigarettes and vaping seemed like a popular trend earlier in the decade, but new surveys show teen use is dropping in this category of smoking, too. Cigarette smoking in public is relatively rare today in big cities. It was almost surprising when the news broke recently that the U.S. Department of Justice finally settled a twenty-year legal battle on the wording of court-ordered anti-smoking ads cigarette companies must run for the coming year. It’s an important part of the effort to further reduce the illness and death they still wreak on hundreds of thousands of Americans.

However, the tobacco industry has been able to stay afloat and even to sharply increase profits in recent years. An important part of its new strategy has been focusing on markets with far weaker anti-smoking regulations and with cultures that valorize smoking. As a result, even though the overall propotion of active adult smokers in the world has fallen between 2000 and 2015 from 27% to 20% and from 44% to 35% among men, male smoking has increased sharply in certain countries. Indonesia is the most extreme case.

This phenomenon is the direct result of the decision to open the Indonesian cigarette industry to foreign investors in the late 1990s economic liberalization following the Suharto regime. A unique aspect of smoking culture in Indonesia is the near-absolute popularity of “kreteks” or cigarettes that are about one-third minced cloves by weight. Among other chemicals, burning cloves produce eugenol, a local anesthetic that makes tobacco smoke less harsh and easier to consume in quantity—and is toxic in its own right.

Having marketed plain “white” cigarettes in Indonesia with middling success, multinational tobacco companies Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) both purchased established kretek manufacturers Sampoerna and Bentoel in 2009. The authors demonstrate that BAT has been aware of the harmful effects of eugenol since at least the 1960s, in studies designed to set tolerable maximums for particular markets.

With a foothold on the kretek mainstream, the companies have invested heavily in governmental lobbying, touting the cigarette industry as an important part of the Indonesian economy, and have updated and streamlined local marketing techniques. This includes launching kretek brands like Marlboro Mix 9 targeting youth, and promoting existing brands like A Mild, which makes spurious health claims. 

Effective lobbying has permitted PMI and BAT to use a full range of marketing media appealing to the tastes of the middle and upper classes, including the sponsorship of cultural and entertainment events. Despite the common knowledge of the health risks of smoking, a message tying masculinity to smoking has led to a massive increase in smoking among these classes. Where smoking was once identified more with the working class, it has now become a universally accepted habit for Indonesian men.

Life Insurance And Your Business

How Much Life Insurance Should I Apply for? 

Many people want life insurance, but they worry about how much it will cost them. As such, they want to see some rates and “back into” a purchase by balancing the amount of life insurance they would like to have with the amount of money they are willing to spend.

To help you make your decision, a life insurance carrier should either give you a reliable quote or estimate as soon as possible. This number should represent an educated opinion as to what the lowest possible premium would be. If it works for you, then the pre-qualification process continues until the price is solidified. If you don't like the number, you can reassess your purchase, possibly identifying an additional source of premium or reducing the guarantee period for the coverage you want. 

Can the Policy Cover a Business Loan? - 

The typical way to make sure this happens is to collaterally assign the benefits. Once your policy has been delivered and all delivery requirements have been submitted to the carrier, such as premium payment and signed receipt, coverage will go into effect. At that point, the carrier will assign the benefit to your bank.

Should you pass away before the loan is paid off, the claims department will notify the bank and require proof of the balance due. The bank will be paid the balance to clear your debt, and your beneficiary will receive the rest of the death benefit, if any exists. In these circumstances, both the client and their banker are usually anxious to close the deal. 

The underwriting of your application can be fast-tracked, and your banker should be updated on the status of the policy. Reassurance that the process is moving along is usually sufficient for them.

Can My Life Insurance Be Owned by A Trust?

Yes. The number one concern in this situation is to make sure the trust has been completed by the time your life insurance application has been approved. This way, the policy can be issued to the appropriate owner with the correct beneficiary designations. The application cannot be submitted without the trust.

It’s important to avoid a scenario in which you get a good offer from the insurance carrier, but can't accept the policy due to delays in finalizing the trust. You would then run the risk of something happening to your health, or otherwise affecting your eligibility for coverage, and losing the good offer. 

Does Having My Partnership Be the Policyholder Make Things More Complicated?

The underwriting will be more complex in this case. You will need to provide basic financial data about your business, then an underwriting team will coordinate with your controller or accountant. The underwriters will also need information regarding coverage on your partners to make sure there is parity. 

Does Pre-Qualification Obligate Me to Do Business With That Carrier?

The simple answer is no. You do not sign a contract, nor do you pay for the pre-qualification service. However, the quote you receive should be competitive and reliable, and will require a significant investment of time by the carrier. The service of pre-qualification is reserved for “ready buyers,” those who know they have a need for life insurance, have the means to pay for it and want to obtain a policy now. 

Life Policies Unclaimed RM327 Million

More than RM327mil due to the beneficiaries of life insurance policies has not been claimed in the past five years.

The money is from policies that had matured but remain unclaimed, according to the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM).

Last year alone, about RM64mil was submitted by its member companies to the Registrar of Unclaimed Money which is under the Accountant-General’s Department, it said.

In a statement to The Star recently, LIAM said this was the total value of “516,728 matured life insurance policies (that) have been forgotten by the policyholders and their beneficiaries”.

LIAM has 16 member companies.

As per the Unclaimed Monies Act 1965, companies must submit a record to the Registrar by the end of March every year, detailing unclaimed amounts from the year before.

LIAM also said that almost all the policyholders affected by this issue were unreach­able, mostly because of outdated contact information.

“Continuous attempts would be taken to contact policyholders or beneficiaries before the mandatory submission to the Registrar is due,” it said.

“Mandatory submission as per the law is usually one year after the cheques issued in their names are returned and all efforts to contact the claimants have failed.”

One member company, Etiqa Insurance Bhd, noted in a separate statement that there were RM13mil worth of lost and forgotten policies within Etiqa itself.

Maybank Ageas Holdings Bhd, the parent company of Etiqa Insurance, noted that many people are unaware that their policies or certificates have matured.

“We have a team dedicated to identifying policy and certificate holders who have died and then undertake a systematic search for their beneficiaries,” said Maybank Ageas chief executive officer Kamaludin Ahmad.

He said that while relatives of the deceased have to go through a lot of trouble gathering the proof and documentation needed to recover the money, “this provides a good learning opportunity to spare the next gene­ration from having to hunt down unclaimed life insurance or family takaful benefits”.

After insurance companies submit unclaimed monies to the Registrar, no further attempts are made to contact the policyhol­ders or beneficiaries.

As such, LIAM urges policyholders to sign up for an e-payment system by providing an active bank account number to their life insurance companies.

“Once an e-payment account has been set up, insurance companies will transfer their maturity proceeds, claims payments and di­­vidends into their bank accounts.

“Policyholders are also encouraged to update their personal details like addresses and contact numbers, and sign up for an online account to access their policy details,” it added.