Tampa Bay Business Journal - September 7, 2012

TAMPA - In this week's Tampa Bay Business Journal report, editor Alexis Muellner talks about the implications of distracted driving on businesses, the Tampa panel addressing workplace bullying and new divorce methods Hillsborough County courts are using.

A close friend of USF College of Business Dean Moez Limayem died in a car accident while he was texting in Switzerland.

"It was really a wake up call for me to try to understand this and investigate it and research it," said Moez.

Dean Limayem learned 1.6 million car accidents are related to mobile usage while driving.

The ramifications of driving a vehicle and using a cell phone are large with an ever connected workforce. It has deep ramifications on HR policies surrounding employee responsiveness and communication.

The Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is hosting a panel discussion on "Let's get real on bullying" planned at the Tampa Theater on October 13.

The panel's main focus will be on bullying in the school system, but it also will explore bullying as it relates to the workplace.

Bullying is not illegal like harassment based on race, religion, sex or other protected categories that legally requires a response, but it can affect the workplace environment just as much.

Hillsborough County courts recently began allowing an alternative to stressful, expensive litigated divorces.

Collaborative divorce is a voluntary divorce alternative especially beneficial to people with high net worth. It can keep asset and other financial information in divorce settlements out of court records, preventing intrinsic, competitive business information from becoming public.

For more information on these stories, click on the video player on the left to watch this week's report.