In this episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Bob Wilson President & CEO of WorkCompCollege.com. Bob shares his thoughts on the changes happening within the workers compensation industry.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Mike Gilmartin, Area Vice President, Sales & Distribution, for Key Risk.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
In this episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Bob Wilson President & CEO of WorkCompCollege.com. Bob shares his thoughts on the changes happening within the workers compensation industry.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Mike Gilmartin, Area Vice President, Sales & Distribution, for Key Risk.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello, everybody and welcome to ADUSTED. I'm your host Greg Hamlin coming at you from Berkley Industrial Comp and Sweet Home Alabama. And with me as my co host for the day, Mike Gilmartin. Mike, you want to introduce yourself to everybody?
Michael Gilmartin:Yeah. Hello, everybody, Mike Gilmartin B key risk. I am in sunny Greensboro, North Carolina. It's gonna be like 80 degrees today, Greg. So I'm really excited to be second time. It's awesome.
Greg Hamlin:I know, well, hey, having grown up in the Midwest, I'll take this warmer weather every day. So we've got our special guest today, Bob Wilson, who actually did an episode with us a while back, he is the president of work comp college.com. And has been in the industry a long time. Bob, you want to say hi to everybody.
Bob Wilson:Oh, hello, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Greg. Appreciate it.
Greg Hamlin:I'm glad to have you, Bob. So if you haven't followed Bob, Bob has been very involved in worker's compensation for a number of years, and has spoken on many different comp conferences. And we wanted to talk today about continuing education. And I think we joke about this a lot that none of us when we were in kindergarten, thought we were going to become workers compensation experts. And there aren't really degrees for that. There are some risk and safety degrees, I think a few, a few colleges. But for the most part, everybody got into the industry one way or another. And so I felt like covering a topic of continuing education will be good. So Bob, I know for you, it's been a while since we did this previous episode, I thought we just start by talking about how did you end up in the industry?
Bob Wilson:Well, and we may have even talked about that in the last time we did this. And the answer is probably the same as everybody else we got, I got here by accident completely by accident. I had a background in business management and human resources. I ended up starting a web development firm in the 90s, which was fairly successful. And through that was introduced to a gentleman who owned the domain worker's compensation.com, and had never done anything with it. And we had a common vision for what could happen. And we decided in 1999, to set that up. And that's what I actually did for almost 23 years, I ran worker's compensation.com. And, you know, just you get into this industry, I tell people, it's like Hotel California, you can check out but you can never ever leave once you're here, you're here. And it's a great industry. And I left that previous position last year to start something new. But obviously wanted to stay stay around. There's still things to do here. Absolutely. Wanted to ask the same question to Mike because I you know, I posted I don't know how many episodes with you might but I don't think I've ever asked you this question. So how did you? How did you end up in workers comp? You know, Greg, I don't really know. No, I'm
Michael Gilmartin:appreciate you calling us all experts on this. Because I'm not sure I'm an expert. I'm not sure you can ever be an expert. No. So I went to University of Maryland. And I studied criminal justice. And I had high hopes of being you know, like the next Jason Bourne or like, an FBI agent. And for one reason or another, that process didn't really work out. And so my dad was actually an insurance for 50 years, started in claims and said, Hey, man, like, why don't you look at insurance. And so a job opening came available to a larger insurance carrier. I went into it and said, You know what, we'll give it six months, like, well, we'll do this for six months, and I'll find someone else to do. And it's been almost 15 years. So it's, uh, you know, I didn't mean to, to get into it. But I've learned a ton along the way. I think it's an unbelievable career. And I think, in general, no, there's some risk management programs in college, but it's an under, mostly under unknown field, but it's under utilized how good of a career path that can be for folks coming out of college. And I think the vast majority of us fall into it, and then end up staying like Bob said, for forever. So I've thoroughly enjoyed it. You tell everybody your story. Greg, what about you so similar? You just kind of like decided you were going to have to work on claims one day? Yeah,
Greg Hamlin:no. So for me, I was also criminal justice major. And at the time, though, I was doing nonprofit fundraising for Indiana University, and loved it, love giving back, like helping people passionate about it. I felt like if I could help people get an education, then they could fix a lot of their own problems, hopefully. So I really love doing that. But at the time, I was young and crazy. We got my wife and I've been we'll be married 20 years coming up. But we got married while I was in college. And so we already had a baby while I was going to school. And as I was trying to figure out how to graduate. I met with the people at the foundation to further my career there and they said you've You got a kid? Do you want more? And my I said, Well, my wife jokes that she wants 10. And he said, then you need to get out of non for profit. You need to figure something else out. And I said, Well, I don't, I don't have a business degree. I'm a criminal justice major. And I don't think I want to go into law school. And so they said, well go to a career fair, go talk to the business people, you've been doing the same thing and not for profit, just switch over and then give back with your extra time in the nonprofit sector. So that's kind of the way I've took things. And again, similar story met a large carrier at a career fair and knew absolutely nothing about workers comp. But I knew I needed a paycheck and a way in, and here I am, almost 20 years later. So very similar, very similar.
Michael Gilmartin:What I'm hearing is criminal justice majors don't do what they go to school for. That's
Bob Wilson:kind of picking that up. I have a nephew who just graduated from the Carey School law University of Maryland. And he's now a he's a new assistant state's attorney in Frederick, Maryland, actually, but he didn't go the criminal justice route. But he did have to go pursue on beyond into law school to do something. So apparently criminal justice, you end up in workers comp. Now. Let's see. Yeah, that's right. A whole blog in there somewhere, I would think that's exactly
Greg Hamlin:right. When I, when I was going to school, 911 happened. So I was a business major to begin with. And when 911 happened, I thought, well, if I switch to criminal justice in this in this new world, there'll be jobs. And so that that really why I switched, but I didn't know I would end up in this space. But it's worked out really well. Because again, we get to help people
Michael Gilmartin:that are sidebar too quickly. And I think what that proves is we're talking about education and continuing education, unless you're going into something very specific, right. So like a science or law or things for the degree truly like what degree you get truly matters, what you major in in college is just a stepping stone to get into the working world. It is not a dictation of where you have to go. And I think people that like any college students are like, Man, if I don't do this, I don't do this, I don't do this, and it's not going to work out. And I think what we've all realized was what I realized is when I studied in college has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. I mean, there were things I learned in college that I can apply. But I think people put so much weight on their major and what they're they're majoring in and unless you're going into a specialized field, really, it's just a proof that you can do the work to an employer.
Bob Wilson:I agree with that. I have a bachelor's degree in business administration. And really in college, what you learned was the discipline to learn, and how to then learn your job once you got out of college. I mean, there were some things in a business world and business school that certainly apply. But a lot of it is is you know, you have to get out of the Get out of the school and fall on your face a few times in the trenches. And that's your education.
Greg Hamlin:I exactly agree with both of you. And I think that's, especially in this industry, and probably all industries. I think that's where continuing education so important. Once you get into the career that you're moving into. It's recognizing the skill sets you need, and then finding the resources to help you improve and really sharpen your saw. You know, from your perspective, Bob, why do you feel like constantly learning so important?
Bob Wilson:Well, I think because things constantly change. You know, we're not the same industry. We weren't 20 years ago, or 30 years ago or 50 years ago. We you know it and to some degree, the this industry, particularly, it's so heavily regulated and process driven, that there are a lot of things that we do, because we've always done it this way. And I think there are better ways out there. I am curious, and I think it's been a trend in the industry. You said you you were in school at 911. You just joined the industry after that one level and not naming it with your with a different company than the one you're with today. Correct? Correct. Yeah. Oh, good. So we don't have to name but we can talk about? Yes. What was the quality of training that you went through? 20 years ago? What was the training program? Like you're a newbie, you don't know anything about comp? Like the rest of us when you step in? What was your training?
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, that's a great question. So I think initially, I probably worked a month or so where I was, you know, had a manager that would sit with me sometimes or there was a senior adjuster that would help. And then sometime in that period, within the first maybe two months, maybe six weeks, they sent me to home office for two weeks. And it was two weeks of generic kind of worker's comp claims training. They couldn't get into jurisdictional specifics, because they were bringing people in this national care from all over the country. So you know, but you at least learn where the system was and how to basically investigate a claim, right? I think we might have even done a mock negotiation, but then after that, it's like you're back at your desk trying to figure this stuff out. And what's hard about workers comp and I don't know if you notice this, Mike, when you started out as every claim is different. And just a couple of different facts means you gotta go a totally different route and trying to understand So the medical component, the legal component, the jurisdictional component, the investigative component, how to work with others how to listen. Like a lot of those things. You know, it's all it was a lot. It felt like I was drinking from the firehose, especially the first three years, I would say, well,
Bob Wilson:curious about that. Because one of the trends I noticed and I started 99, and I went a different route, I didn't have a claims background, I was an Information Services background serving the industry. But one of the things I noticed in my discussions with people around the country is after the.com, bubble burst, which was early 2000. I know, because I launched a.com operation about three weeks before it busted, it was like, showing up at a big rave three seconds ahead of the cops. But it was, you know, Where's everybody going. But prior to that time, training was probably more prevalent than it has become in the last 15 years across the industry. A lot of after the investment income for the insurance industry went away, there were some good programs that got cut, training seemed to get cut, and we concentrated more on stealing each other's people. And now of course, we're running out of people to steal. And I think and that's really been that's kind of what drove us to where we're where I'm at now is that we think it's really becoming an urgent focus to get back and refocus on the core elements and train people. So that we can actually keep the people we bring in because this year, a different generation than what's coming in today. And then, you know, no one ever agrees with the generations behind them. But they have different focus, they do have different needs. They want to make a difference. I'm a boomer, okay, I'm a boomer, I was taught to do my job and suck it up and feed your family. If you don't like your job, too bad, your job. That's not the way people feel coming out of school. They want to make a difference. But if you look at how we market ourselves as an industry, you know, the people coming out of college, they think we're a heavily regulated, stodgy, paper driven industry that manages files, when in reality, we need to market ourselves as and I've said this before, we need to market ourselves as an industry that actually repairs broken and shattered lives. That's a very noble effort if we do it properly. And that's the element that we need to train people in. And I think that's kind of been lost. That's why I asked that question early on about the type of training you went through. And I don't know if you've seen the same type of degradation overall, and training as in from an industry perspective. And I'm not talking about the programs are available. We'll talk you know, I know today about several that are good programs, but internal corporate training is the focus.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, I would agree. I do think you call the old there, though, Bob, because you said I'm from a different generation than the current
Bob Wilson:one. Well, I think I did I call you old?
Greg Hamlin:I don't know. But
Bob Wilson:I'll tell you, there's a shocking reality. And you're just I can tell from the date you gave. You're in school 20 years after I was in school. Okay. So you're still in for shocking realities, when people who don't see much younger than you start calling you, sir, you know, you're in trouble that's happening to me?
Greg Hamlin:Well, I have my like I said earlier, my daughter is graduating from high school this year. So I'm gonna officially have a college, a college aged child. So I think I'm thinking I'm earning it. But I think you hit on some things there that were really important. And I think the problem that I'm seeing now in the industry and be interested in Mike's take on this is, I think that we lost a lot of people through great resignation during COVID, a lot of people went into retirement. And that caused, like you had mentioned earlier companies stealing each other's people, and then allowing people to work remotely. But what that's the new challenges that's created is a lot of people had to enter the industry who had to immediately start handling claims. And they may have even in entered the industry in a remote location, without the ability to sit in an office or to learn from people. And they weren't able to travel for a while there when they were being on boarded. So I think we've got some unique challenges that have come out of what we've just come out of as a industry. Thoughts on that, Mike?
Michael Gilmartin:No, I completely agree. I think, Greg, you and I started the same place out of college. So I had a similar experience. Trading was fairly robust. I will say, trading made me think that every claim was be held the exact same way and be kind of easy. And you quickly realize like, that is not the case. You're like, wait, what, what do you mean? Like, this is what's supposed to happen next. And then the injured worker is like, no, but we're going to do this. So anyways, I think the biggest difference that I've seen I agree with you completely. Greg, I actually think last time the three of us were talking we talked about in office out of office stuff. Funny enough. Bob, I agree with you. The training when I started was very robust. We had groups that were dedicated to training. That's all they did and that they were focused on. They're really, really good at it. And I think now, we're good at training people and I think we have bet the best intentions, but we're we're asking folks who already have a full time job to then train people. And that gets very difficult. And it's through no fault of your own. Greg, on our last podcast, you talked about the fact that you sit with folks. And it's a lot of time, right. And you also have your whole job that you're doing, but you do it. Because you know, long term, you get good benefit from everything else. But it's really hard to do. And so when we're bringing new people in, a lot of the times, it's on the manager, or the supervisor or a senior, to really get that person up to speed. And that senior, that supervisor has 1200 Other things to do. So it gets really tough to be a full time trainer and a full time supervisor, and a full time claims adjuster. And that's really hard. There's a lot of great resources out there. But I think that's made it tough. And then, from a claims perspective, working from home and not hearing people around you is really hard. One of the biggest ways that I learned was on the job listening to all the adjusters sitting around me just having conversations of oh, that's how you handled that situation, or oh, that's how you talk to that attorney, or, Oh, those are the questions that you asked, or I could just stand up and say, Did I sound like an idiot? What should I ask next time like it, that stuff is real. And if you don't have that, it's really hard to get up to speed and to learn, because talking about continuing education, I'm still learning things about work comp every single day. Like things I did not know, or things statutes I didn't know or different states, I didn't know. And so I think that's what I've seen, the biggest change in is that we're asking more of people with less resources. These days, I think companies like to run lean. But that gets really hard when it comes to something like training.
Bob Wilson:That's what I would say, well, and I think your point is excellent, because one of the challenges we have is we look to recruit and replace these people we've lost, they're working in a remote environment, but they don't want to work in an office, they want now the flexibility to work at Starbucks or wherever they want to work, you know, and when they want to work. And that's a challenge. I agree with you, there's so much to me through the pandemic, I was very fortunate the virtual work well for us. I mean, it just worked. But you still lose if you're an I would not want to be a 20 something coming out of college today and not have that office environment where you can learn so much just by osmosis. Because you're around the people as it happens. You know, I was talking to someone the other day, he said, I used to be able to spot where I could stand up in my cubicle and say, Hey, anybody ever dealt with this particular issue, and someone would stand up and have it. So you know, there might be some tools today, you know, I think they've got Yammer and some other internal communication devices, where people can use that, but it's still not necessarily the same. And that's one of the challenges, I think we're going to face going forward. Because we're not going to be able, even though it's important for that young, inexperienced person to get into an office, they may not know that, and they may not want to go and you may not be able to hire them based on the fact that you're insisting they come to an office and they won't do it. So I think that's one of the big challenges we have as an industry.
Greg Hamlin:I think you're spot on. And, you know, for a lot of organizations that may not have the resources for a robust training program that Mike and I went through, then figuring out how do you get people to that next that next spot? And how do you help develop them? I know Bob, one of the things that you've been working on this last year is a program called Work Comp college.com. And so I wanted you to fill me in a little bit on that, because I do think that's pretty new. If I'm right,
Bob Wilson:yes, thanks. We just we officially launched in November in our first certification program called the workers recovery professional certification went fully live on January 14, or 15th. We really wanted to and there are good training programs in the in the industry available for people but we one of the things that I think is not been given its full service was an emphasis on the bio psychosocial elements. That you know, as Mike said earlier, and you said earlier, claims are not always the same. And one reason they're not the same is because the injured worker we're dealing with can handle it in a completely different manner than the previous injured worker with the identical injury. It's the differences of what's going on in their head that really matters. And as an industry, I don't think we've been as strong as we need to be in communion in training that communication and that understanding the ability to listen and to really understand the broader picture of what's happening and that injured workers life and that's what torpedoes a lot of the claims that we see go off the rails. So we really set up a course that's based on the bio psychosocial well we call it whole person recovery management. We set up nine schools of discipline we have a school of claims School of medical management school of legal School of regulatory legislative, we have a school of stakeholders we have a I'm going to return to work I'm probably going to remit forget them as I go through because we wanted to give a whole picture not not just to understand what's going on in that injured workers life and that you need to know the technical aspects of doing your job, but to understand why your job in comp is important, what's the big picture? That's the second thing is we we've came to realize that a lot of people don't really understand what happens outside their little sphere of influence, and how if they don't do their job one particular way, or somebody along the line doesn't do their job properly, the entire thing can go off the rails. So we call it work comp 360 was kind of the phrase we picked up just to get it so that people coming out have a better understanding of the Comp industry in general. So that's really was one of our focuses to do that. And we've been very fortunate, we've got a couple 100 students in the system already. We've got people starting to graduate with certifications, which is really good. It's a it's a difficult thing. 64 courses, 50 some hours of content in that program. But I think we're getting a tremendous feedback. And hopefully, you know, we'll be able to make a difference in some of this.
Greg Hamlin:That's awesome. So in that program, is it all done online? Are you meeting like virtually? Or is it self driven, where you're, you know, you're doing the reading yourself. And then and taking a test? Or how does the coursework setup,
Bob Wilson:it's all done online, and it's self guided or self driven on your own at your own pace. Every course includes a lecture video, and these we have, I will say one thing that's really neat is we've had people, dozens of people step up, they came to us, we didn't have to seek people out, they wanted to help build a better industry. And they want to leave a better industry than they found. And we've got some incredible and incredibly talented people working, we've got some trustees, we've got a board of trustees, we've got Dean's reach school, and a lot of really skilled faculty, they have recorded video lectures, there are transcripts of the lectures, there are other resources and links available in each individual class. And there is a graded test for every course. And you have to have a 70% or better on each test to pass the individual course test. And there is a final exam that you need to maintain an average of 80% Or better, we put in certain protections, you cannot fast forward the videos we restrict up, I have a business partner who discovered that when he tried to zip through a couple of classes, and he wasn't able to fast forward, he had to actually watch the lecture, we have, you know, in addition to the testing, you can't fast forward through the videos. Even our certification forum, when it's issued has a QR code that anybody can scan to verify the validity of the certification. So it can't be fake. So we've tried to put in protections to a calendar, the fact that it's an all virtual system, we eventually would like to have some live events. But right now off the ground, we it's all online, all virtual. Awesome.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, I think these kinds of resources are definitely needed in the industry and just getting different ways for people to expand their depth. I've seen some of the folks on your website that are involved in know several of them, and they they're fantastic. So definitely worth checking into. Now I know there are lots of ways to further your education in the insurance industry. And Mike, you took the route of the institute's as one of those paths by getting your cpcu. So I thought knowing how hard that is to get having done several of the sections myself, I just wanted you to talk a little bit about one, what motivated you to do that. And what what did you think of the process?
Michael Gilmartin:Yeah, that's a that's a great question, Greg. So I started it, probably four or five years into my career. And at that time, I think I quickly realized I wasn't going to be insurance, six months, I was probably going to be here for a lot longer. And so I was going back and forth on I knew I wanted to do more education, whether it was an MBA, or something more industry specific. And what I landed on was, I'm learning a lot of the same things I would getting an MBA, but it's all tailored to insurance, which is really what I was looking for. So I like to call it the DBQ the masters of insurance, just because I have one now, so I could say that. But it was tough. I mean, it's in full transparency. It's my dad kind of pushed me to do it. He was the Maryland shadow president the cpcu. For a long time, he taught a lot of the courses. So I had a really good advocate in my corner that when I had questions on stuff, I could call and say what this or what that. But it's pretty intense. I mean, it's eight sections or eight basically courses with a test of the end. Everything from insurance operations, to finance to commercial property to a you really run the gambit of of insurance. And I just felt like it would make me a more well rounded insurance professional, regardless of what industry or what area of the industry I wanted to go into. The tests are not easy. I think a lot of them have fairly high fail rates. I was fortunate enough that when you go through it, and you do it, and you go to a testing center to do all the tests, and there's a screen at the end that tells you whether you passed or you failed. And like there's like a three second delay doesn't come up. And so you sit there and just like the most intense anticipation of like to cast it out past that I passed. And I fortunately passed all the tests the first time.
Bob Wilson:We know they build that in just to tease you, they could just produce the results like that, oh, great, just want you to suffer for a few seconds,
Michael Gilmartin:every other screen somehow pops up right away. But that one, it waits just long enough for you to be sweating. But no, great. I think it just, you know, I had always only been in work comp, I, for the most part have only done work comp. And it really opened my eyes to policy structure and the different lines of business and kind of how insurance companies are run and what the finances and the balance sheets look like. And it just, it gave me a better understanding so that when I'm in conversations, or I'm talking to different groups of people, I have a better understanding of what they do when it comes to our industry. And back to what Bob said before, it helps you get a broader picture of where what you do fit in with the entirety of, of the product that we're offering and what we're doing. So it's a long winded answer, but I just I knew I wanted to do more education. And I decided to go in with something that was industry specific worked for me, because I plan on completing my entire career in insurance,
Greg Hamlin:I think you definitely hit on some things, you know, I've taken three of the courses and completed them first time, but they're hard. And as you mentioned before, it's very much the 5000 foot view over all of insurance. And so I think that's probably the difference, if we're look talking about like a work comp college.com experience versus the cpcu is, you might spend five, and I might be giving too much credit here. But 5% focused on workers comp, because there's a lot of liability, there's a lot of property, there's a lot of financial, so it is risk management ideas. So understanding how everything connects, I think you get a really good picture through the cpcu from the 5000 foot view of all lines, but it is not the zeroed in work comp only. So there's value in both I think I actually did my claim to fame, I did some video clips for the associate and claims that they have, which is probably the step. I would encourage folks who haven't done anything to start with if they're going to go down that path. And some of those at least at least one of the courses, I believe transfers over for your cpcu. So it's not a wasted effort if you decide to go down that road. Bob, have you had any interactions with the institute's before?
Bob Wilson:I really have not. And I was it was interesting to listen to Mike's description, because he he relates to my understanding of what they do in the broad, broad scope of broad spectrum. A good program very broad across multiple lines, you know, and a lot of ways, you know, I talked about the rims event sometimes and worker's comp is always like the redheaded stepchild and rims, you know, it's five or 10% of any content that rims is national is sometimes dedicated to calm. And that's kind of the way the industry I think, I think we have a feeling sometimes that we don't get the full attention that we may want from other ag avenues. But the insurance industry is huge. And it's understandable from the lines in the business in these other in the other lines, the volume of the other lines of business. Why that may be the case. But yeah, he gave me my my understanding, you did not stop me and my place to ask you questions, because you're the host. But you know, my second questions, but
Greg Hamlin:this is
Bob Wilson:like my second time here. So I'm going to ask you a question, because I know you said earlier, you do teaching for CLM as well, the CLM college claims college, you want to tell people what that is? Are you can you add a story for that?
Greg Hamlin:Absolutely. So CLM stands for claims litigation management. It's a group of a lot of attorneys, there is a carrier involvement as well. And they do a three year designation. And so this is actually an in person event where you go to I think right now it's in Baltimore, for about four days of in class work in person. And then after year one, you complete a test, and then you go back for your two. And the next year, take the next round. And then year three is your final year. And then that one, instead of taking a test, you do a group presentation where they actually give you a case study of workers comp. And so what's kind of nice about that is you are getting the in person piece. The challenge with that is you're going to have to work for an employer that's going to allow for you to travel and it is at a hotel there's it's for three or four days out of the office where you're fully going to be engaged in different lectures from different professionals throughout the industry who are teaching so I think it has its own benefits and of course its own challenges. I believe you can do your one online now and I don't know if they're bringing that back in person but during the pandemic they they switched that one. So that would be a good way for people to see if that's something that they like and it is directly related to workers comp but they also do designations for or other lines. So if you are listening to this and you're a property person, they've got something going on that same week for that. The Work Comp group, so usually about 20 or so students, I would say each year that go through the program, 20, or 30. And there's several 100, when you start looking at all the different lines, so definitely interesting. We've had several of our people go through it. And I think you get a good flavor of workers comp. Again, it has to be somewhat generic, because you've got people coming from all over the country. So you can't talk about Virginia workers comp.
Bob Wilson:And that's a problem because we have to face up to we've got, you know, this high level best practices, national focus overview, one of the things we're developing, and we'll be launching this summer are 50 different states specific modules being produced with state partners that will cover legal claims, ethics, the specifics of doing business in a given state, you need that, I mean, you you do come out of this training. And you still need to know, what's the filing requirement? What's the waiting period? What's, you know, what, what's the fine if I don't get this form checked off in the proper amount of time? You know, all those nuances? It's difficult, because comp, you know, as we'd like to say, is exactly the same. Yep. Totally different in every state. Yeah, that's right.
Greg Hamlin:That's right. And you could be thinking you're doing it right. And if you don't know the jurisdiction you're in, you could be doing it completely wrong and find yourself in some trouble. So
Bob Wilson:is CLM CCP designation? Is that the one dedicated to comp? Is that the
Greg Hamlin:Yes, yes, yes. And we've had a few of our like, so we've had a few of our folks go through it. And I think you know, that third year, when you do your presentation, they get them a pretty difficult worker's compensation claim, and then have them present as a group, what they would do, in retrospect, because it's kind of at the endpoints and kind of see where maybe some of the challenges how did it get to that spot? And what were things that could be done to either get it back on the rails or could have been done earlier to, to keep it from going down that path? Yeah, I
Bob Wilson:know, somebody who went through that, and, and was very complimentary of that particular portion of the program. Thought it was very useful to have that team effort and collaboration. Yeah. Which is, which is pretty valuable. I think you can learn a lot just in that process.
Greg Hamlin:Absolutely. Absolutely.
Michael Gilmartin:I was gonna say, I think, you know, one of the one of the themes is that it sounds like we're all folks that want to learn, right? Like, I just want to know more. And if I don't know the answer to something, it's instead of asking someone, I want to go figure out why or, but I think I had this conversation yesterday, funny enough, when I was sitting with a group of agents having lunch. And I was talking to a woman who was a teacher for like, 13 years. And for one reason or another, he needed to get into a different industry. And so she, she kind of came into insurance, not knowing anything, and she came in with one role. And then a couple of folks moved on fairly quickly. And so they had different things they were doing. And she said, Well, I'll learn that, I want to learn that I'll learn that I can do that. Let me let me see if I can figure that out. And what quickly dawned on me is continuing education isn't just signing up for a course or or going to a conference, it's as simple as saying, Okay, I want to know where my data comes from. So let me get more versed in how we do our data, or I want to learn what underwriting is doing. So let me go sit with somebody for a little bit and really understand what they do. And I think what people need to understand coming out of college is it's great to have your job and do your job and be really good at your job. But if that's all you're interested in doing, not going to take you the farthest, right? So the people that are curious, the people that say, Hey, I want to learn this, or hey, I want to do this project, or hey, I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone and do this. It lets people become invaluable to an organization. And so I think that that's overlooked, we're continuing education, all of these resources are awesome, and there's something that should be utilized. But it can be as simple as saying, I just want to learn how to do this at your current job. And that's something that I think I don't know if you guys agree, but that gets overlooked is I do my job. And my job is my job. And that's it. But the people that I find most successful are those that get outside their comfort zone and say, hey, I want to do this project, or I want to learn this, or I want to go do that. I mean, look at me, I switched from claims and sales and distribution two years ago, and completely changed the trajectory of my career. Because I wanted to try something different and wanted to understand the totality of our industry and what we do from a different perspective. So I you know, that's just not a snap question. Just kind of a thoughts on that from you guys. I don't know.
Bob Wilson:I think you're absolutely right. I think there's a difference in there's the type of employee that wants to, you know, there's a type of employee who's counting the days to retirement, okay. And then there's the type of employee who continually wants to find a better way to do something, expand their horizons, maybe want to step into another, another area for different challenges. They like the challenges, and those are the people that are generally looking for the education to improve themselves and to take on those those challenges. Those are the more successful people. I mean, I think in our mind there are stereotypes of the jaded professional that just been sitting in a desk for 20 years, and just can't wait until the day they're done. And then there are those who just can't wait for the next step and the next challenge and something they haven't dealt with before. And you said something that really struck me because in my previous life, previous company, we dealt with a lot of very, very large insurance carriers, and wonderful people, really great people in this industry. I love this industry. But Dilbert is alive and well, in corporate America. When you start negotiating with some of these companies, you realize how little how heavily siloed some companies are. So you mentioned something about underwriting, there are people in claims who have absolutely no clue what goes on and underwriting and business development and vice versa. And I've actually listened to calls where people have to negotiate amongst departments in their own company to get something done, you know, when they're trying to bring in an external service. And people who who routinely work reach out to understand what's going on in those other areas, and what's happening in the bigger picture, have much more flexibility and much more ability to advance. And I think that's important, but I don't even think they do it because they want to advance, they want to do it, because it's just a chance to do something different and a different challenge. I really do think that that matters to a lot of people.
Michael Gilmartin:Yeah, and I think you hit on something there that read the goal of a company is to hire very talented people that are well rounded. And if you are only in one area, and that's all you know, and that's all you learn, it's very hard to become well rounded. And I know key risk. And same for Berkeley industrial, like we want people to learn what everybody else does. And we want people to collaborate and talk and everything else. And all that does is benefit the employer, it makes your employees more well rounded, it makes them more talented. I've always said I want to hire the most talented people, I can teach you the technical. But if you have to want to learn and want to absorb information, and then want to be curious and and learn more about how what you do impacts the bigger picture, those by far the most successful people, I can teach you the rates in Virginia and the statutory rules in Maryland like that stuff that can be taught. But people that want to learn, and I agree with you, Bob, those people are generally also the people that are going to reach out to you and come to work on couches and people that are going to get their cpcu they're the people that are going to CLM. And I think it's no secret that those folks generally are the ones that just want to know more and be more well rounded.
Greg Hamlin:I agree. And I think you know, every every company allocates different resources to training. So one of the things I thought maybe just to talk a step further is, you know, it may be that somebody's listening to this podcast, and where they're working, unfortunately, doesn't invest in training, but they want to know more. And so what does that person do? And, you know, as thinking about some of the ways in my own career, where I've learned, you know, some, some companies may even be, you know, state funds or situations where the budgets are very limited, and trying to go to a conference would need to be approved two years in advance or three years in advance, because of how tight things are run. So in those scenarios, what are some other ways that people can learn? Either or, Michael, I'll throw that to either of you?
Bob Wilson:Well, I think there's a, an explosion in our industry of podcasts and webinars such as this, where people can go and learn about specific topics, some are extremely technical, you know, and in nature, those are those are great resources. They don't require travel, you know, there are good, you said they, they have trouble getting to conferences. I think, you know, it's interesting, after the pandemic, some conferences attempted a hybrid of in person, and you know, you could do attend remotely, and discovered immediately that all company said, oh, there's a remote option. You're not traveling, you know. And so you'll notice now, those conferences aren't remote anymore. They're not offering a hybrid. Right, right. But there are some great conferences, some great educational events, I think, for people looking for information. Those are some of the areas. I mean, WC Ri was just WC Ri and Phoenix, which is a really interesting, if you're a data head especially they really interesting stuff that they come out that they report on every year. WCI in Orlando is a big conference with lots and lots of educational information. And it's not an expensive conference. I mean, they haven't Orlando in August, and no one wants to be in Orlando in August. So it's a little cheaper from Hotel perspectives. And the conference itself is a few 100 bucks. It's not a lot of money. So those are some of the I think some of the resources people can look at. Yeah, I was I was at actually WCI this last year as a speaker and at that conference, they even had a live work comp hearing of Florida work comp hearing that you could go to and sit in you had to go through like security and everything but you could go and see what a hearing looks like. They do a lot of hearing. They do not live surgery. They do live surgery every year they do a live surgery, I guess you know, your number gets drawn when you check in at the register.
Michael Gilmartin:gets that? Yeah, right. But I mean what had a great opportunity to learn. I'm not I'm not doing it, my couple, my coworkers actually went to the live surgery. And they were psyched that as far as for me, um,
Bob Wilson:I, I am the type of guy that just doesn't want to think about the concept of blood flowing through my veins, I just don't,
Michael Gilmartin:I don't have the same you and I are the same person, Bob, I'm gonna say,
Bob Wilson:I've been doing WCI. For years, I've never gone to the live surgery, and I don't think I ever will.
Greg Hamlin:Well, and you mentioned WC ri, and they do some fantastic. I mean, if you want research, heavy research within very specific states, they're fantastic. You know, I have read quite a few of their articles. And they actually provide some of the best state specific guides that you can get each year if you if you just need you know the basics. So now, we want to go deep
Michael Gilmartin:on Greg, I'm gonna I'm gonna quote, I'm gonna quote your boss who used to be a key risk. Google is your friend. I don't know how many times I've heard like marketing. But it's 100%. True. And so look, I'll go back to what I said earlier. And I think you guys make great points. But it costs you nothing to ask a question. It cost you nothing to network and get to know good people, right now I know Bob, I can go to Bob and say, Hey, man, talk to me more about what you do. And what's what how you got where you are. And it's the same thing with going to an underwriter or going to the president of key risks. Right. One of the things I love about brewing companies is they're very flat organization, I could walk into Scott Holbrooks office tomorrow and say, Hey, man, talk to me about how you got where you are, or, Hey, I want to know more specifically about our CFO calls and how we work with Berkeley as a whole. And it just, it costs you nothing to ask questions and be inquisitive, and reach out to folks and really network within your own company or just in the industry in general. That that's something that gets overlooked. Like, it's great to go to a conference. But one of the biggest things I get out of the conference is the networking, and getting to know folks that do things differently than I do, and aligning myself with those people to figure out what they do like that. That's a, that is a big thing to me. And that costs me nothing.
Bob Wilson:I will tell you and I agree with that completely. But along those lines and tying into conferences, we work real heavily with the Southern Association of Workers Compensation administrators, Sokka 20 states belong to soccer. That is an outstanding group for casual conversations about how to address issues and challenges in comp and how people process things there. And you get and you're talking to regulators from the various states are very open, they're very approachable. I've always enjoyed those meetings, and a lot of our I've, I've gotten great ideas. In fact, when we're building work comp college, they were very supportive of what we were doing and got, we got great feedback from state regulators on what needed to be done. So it's helpful talking to people is and you're right, you could do it in the lunchroom, you could you know, when you go to a conference, it's important to go to the sessions, but you should also go to the networking events and talk to people. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Greg Hamlin:Well, the last thing I wanted to hit on as we kind of wrap up this topic is, is just how I felt like learning if you want to improve yourself, a lot of that has to be self driven. Of course, you know, company can offer your resources. And of course, you know, you can wait for things to happen. But one of the things I've learned throughout my career is just that when I recognize an area that I could do better, and like Mike said, go look for the answers to that and take a self driven approach. We're going to have a episode coming up in the next month or two that's on listening. And you know, I had a 360 review 10 years ago. And in that 360 review, I got some feedback that I could improve on listening. And I thought, Well, boy, I thought I was pretty good at this. And I asked my wife, she was like, Yeah, you're, you're great. But then I when I started realizing that other people, some of the people that I was working with, because I was so busy, and I was moving so fast, I sometimes didn't take the time to pause and listen and really hear them. You know, I went I got a book on listening, hated it, threw it away, got another book on listening, loved it, and started doing some exercises. So you know, you might go down that path and what you're pursuing doesn't work for you. But then further down the road, you find that answer if you keep looking. And so we're gonna hear from the author of that book, in the next month or two. And that should be a fun discussion as well. But any other favorite books or avenues that that you guys have taken to learn? Well, from a
Bob Wilson:book perspective, there's a couple that popped to mind that I really enjoyed. There's a book it's been out now a number of years from good to great, which is a review of certain case studies, businesses, business studies of companies, what they've done to make the difference between just a standard good procedure to becoming a great organization and I thought there were some interesting thoughts in that book. There's another book that I haven't seen out in print in years. I read it back in the 80s called Dinosaur brains couldn't even tell you who wrote it, but it talked about the instinctual reaction in some people fight fight or flight and how they how certain people act as dinosaur brains to build little fiefdoms and empires in the corporate structure, and try and maintain control through irrational methods. Unfortunately, they say the dinosaur brains at that time were could most often be found in accounting and human resources. My apologies, anybody who's listening who's in accounting or human resources, but it talks about the instinctual reactions that some people have and how to deal with it, they build little walls around them. They don't have direct control over a lot of things, but they, they try and control as much as they can. And I found it to be a really insightful book and and it's to this day, I will sometimes come across some people, and I'll be able to flag them when I think of dinosaur brains from their reaction or the way they behave. It was it was a really a great book, if you can find an old copy. I don't even know if it's still in print.
Greg Hamlin:All right, you're gonna make me look, that's definitely interesting. Mike, how about you?
Michael Gilmartin:Yeah, one book that comes to mind. And Greg, I don't know if you guys read it at Ben, we honestly as a leadership group read it a key risk was Extreme Ownership. By jakka, willing can it's a human, another guy that are Navy SEALs, or were Navy SEALs are still our Navy SEALs. And it's all about as leaders kind of owning everything in your world, right? So you you own the decisions that are made both at your level and your folks level, but just owning the results and owning kind of the direction that you're taking your team. And it's what it's good for any level, right? It's not just about leadership, from a managing people perspective, it's just a different way to look at your desk in your life. And, you know, you own your results, and you own the work that's being put out. And it taught me one of my worst, one of the phrases I do dislike the most is why didn't have the file then or Well, I didn't I wasn't involved in so I can't blah, blah, blah, we all own the results, right? We're all one company, we're all one place. And we should all have ownership of and pride of the work that we do and what we're doing. So that that was a pretty influential book. And then honestly, I'm just involved in a lot of online newsletters and updates in different industries and niches. So like PEOs, or staffing, they have organizations that what they do is they send out daily updates on legislation on different things they're going in the industry, how capital, and the rates and interest rate increases are affecting the different companies and what's going on there. And I'm heavily involved in those. So if you're involved in niches, or you have a lot of a certain type of business, on your desk, go learn about that industry. And there's I will guarantee you that there are plenty of newsletters and organizations that are that's all they do is that industry. And it's a really good way to kind of just stay current on what's going on in the environment and what's going on, that can affect what you're doing. So those are two avenues that I you know, that helped me.
Greg Hamlin:I think those are great. I've read Extreme Ownership very, very good book, and good reminder. Very intense.
Michael Gilmartin:He also podcasts, and it looks like it's, it's a little like over the top intense, but some of the points he makes are fantastic.
Greg Hamlin:Well, in his in his industry, two lives are at stake actual lives. So when mistakes are made, there are people who, whose lives depend on it. So it was very good. So definitely good recommendations. Well, I wanted to wrap things up this year, the thing that we're doing this season is asking each of our guests to share something they're grateful for. I felt like one of the things that I've been on a mission for the next or for the last several years just to put good vibes in the universe universities. So I wanted to throw this one to Bob and set and ask you something that you're grateful for.
Bob Wilson:Well, obviously, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be on your blog, or your podcast. That's that's what I'm grateful for. Right now. I I am actually grateful that for the last 20 some years, my experience in this industry, that I've had the opportunity to meet some tremendous people and just thoroughly enjoy everything that I've been able to do when you look forward to going to the office in the morning or to get up and going to work every single day, with very rare exception that that's a real blessing. And I've been really blessed with that. And even though my job has changed in the last year, I've had that opportunity to really expand our horizon and try something new and create again, and I'm just really, really grateful for that opportunity.
Greg Hamlin:I really love that Bob, I know, you know, it's really about people in the end. The industry is what we do in our jobs. And I think that's one of the things as I reflect on the time that I've spent in workers comp that I'm grateful for as well. So thanks for sharing that. Thanks again, Mike for joining me on this episode. We remind all of our listeners to do right, think differently. Don't forget to care and hope that you join us in two weeks for our next episode. Thanks everybody.