With health and safety measures in place at the majority of local businesses around the country, EZlocal would like to share and promote steps being taken to deliver services in a safe and healthy manner on ezlocal.com. Businesses with policies in place related to COVID-19 measures can now claim and prominently display their Health & Safety badge on the EZlocal directory. [Read Full Article]

Tips from June 26, 2009 The Small Business tips today will be how to establish workplace safety. Keep a stocked first aid kit at your workplace in case of a medical emergency.  Keep emergency numbers for the police, fire department, hospital, and poison control center in an area where all employees can reach them, such as the break room. Educate employees about safety during a fire, tornado, or lock down emergency.  Have practice drills every few months and post evacuation and safety information in the workplace. Keep your business sanitary, including the supply and break rooms.  Restrooms need to be kept up to code and sanitized on an hourly basis. OSHA On-Site Consultation is offered to small and medium sized businesses for free, although priority is given to working environments which are likely for hazards.  OSHA consultants educate employers about the safety hazards that are present in their workplace. [Read Full Article]

The title of the study by University of Michigan researchers Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz says it all: If It's Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky--Fluency, Familiarity, and Risk Perception. They base their conclusion, that the harder it is to pronounce something, the less familiar it seems and, therefore, the greater the risk it presents, on three studies. In Studies 1 and 2, food additives were rated as more harmful when their names were difficult to pronounce than when their names were easy to pronounce. Analyses of the data indicated that this was due to the perceived novelty of the substance. In Study 3, amusement-park rides were rated as more likely to make one sick (an undesirable risk) and also as more exciting and adventurous (a desirable risk) when their names were difficult to pronounce than when their names were easy to pronounce. Here is how the research was done: Subjects were asked to rat... [Read Full Article]