ReAudio: ReAssess Your Workers Comp Toolbox
ReInvent your Workers' Comp Perspective!
Things change. In fact, that’s one of the most sure things in life. Haven’t we learned that these past few years? ReAudio has changed too. Starting as a way to provide tools and value to our partners in the Workers' Compensation Industry, we have changed into a human interest podcast, primarily interviewing people who have overcome adversity to achieve success, however, that’s defined by them. Because change is a permanent reality, ReAudio is hoping to help you see our industry a little differently. Through storytelling and exploring different perspectives, Season 4 will guide you to ReImagine your Workers' Comp ReAlity.
Winner of the BLOOM Excellence Awards 2023 Podcast of the Year
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ReAudio: ReAssess Your Workers Comp Toolbox
Empowering Your Career through Continuous Education
What if you could revolutionize your professional development with just a few strategic learning techniques? In our latest episode, we promise to unlock the transformative power of lifelong learning and continuing education. Join us as we delve into the insights of Bob Wilson and Mark Pew, co-founders of WorkCompCollege.com, who share their unique paths and the invaluable lessons they've learned. Discover why breaking down complex topics and employing effective note-taking can make a world of difference in your learning journey.
Looking ahead, Bob and Mark outline their ambitious plans for WorkCompCollege.com, from innovative training solutions to an exciting new certification in the medical field. We discuss the challenges in reaching injured workers and the potential of an educational portal to guide them through the compensation process. Tune in to discover how never-ending learning can transform your career and personal growth.
perspective. Perspective is spelled p e r s p e c t I v e. Perspective the 30 000 foot view perspective put on someone else's shoes. Perspective can also refer to the state of existing in space or one's view of the world perspective rea audio space or one's view of the world Perspective REA Audio.
Speaker 2:Reemployability. The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. A pretty poignant quote attributed to Elvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock. For this, our REA audio episode on never-ending learning. So who is Alvin Toffler, you might ask? Well, according to Wikipedia, he was an American writer, futurist and businessman known for his works discussing modern technology, the digital and communication revolutions.
Speaker 2:But when I did some research on this quote, I found that actually Mr Toffler was quoting psychologist Herbert Gerjouroy of the Human Resource Research Organization in his book. So the quote belongs to Mr Gerjouroy. And who is he? Well, I'll let you do your research on that one if you're interested. Funny thing was that my 10 minutes of research, just on a way to open this podcast, led me down a number of different rabbit holes not dissimilar to the story. If you give a mouse a cookie, everything you learn leads to other opportunities to learn, and so on and so on. In this episode we're fortunate to speak with Bob Wilson and Mark Pugh, co-founders of WorkCompCollegecom, and get their insights on continued learning both outside and inside the work comp industry.
Speaker 1:To learn something. Try to break down what you're studying into smaller, more manageable chunks so it's not as overwhelming. For example, if you're reading a chapter of a textbook, you could focus on one key concept at a time before moving on, instead of reading through the whole chapter all at once. You should also try taking notes when you learn and writing out summaries when you're finished learning a new concept, since writing things down can help you remember them better.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been like way too much time since I had these two guests on REA Audio. Bob Wilson and Mark Pugh are the creators of a website called WorkCompCollege and it is a long time coming and it was very new, I feel like, when we talked a year, almost a year and a half ago, and a lot has changed. So I wanted to have you guys on to talk about education and furthering education and the importance of education and how learning never stops, not only in the work comp industry but in life as a whole. So, bob and Mark, thank you guys for joining me again. It's always nice to have you on REA Audio.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks, todd, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Let's kick things off and just remind people of your backgrounds a little bit. Bob, let's start with you, because you're on my left. Tell me a little bit about how you got to where you are and what led you to starting WorkComp College.
Speaker 3:Well, I've been in the workers' comp industry for about 25 years now. I was a founder and CEO of workerscompensationcom. I was in that position for 23 years. It was a great position. I had a wonderful time. But a couple years ago, the opportunity arose to branch out into a new education challenge with Mark Pugh and another partner of ours who's not on the broadcast today, donald Abrams, out of Austin, texas. And after running workerscompensationcom for 23 years which, as I said, was a great run and very challenging and a lot of fun I think it was time for something new and another new challenge, and so I left that opportunity and we started with Mark and Don Work Comp College. That's my background.
Speaker 2:So just quick, bob. What did you do prior to the first website that you were a part of? Were you in the industry? How did you get into that?
Speaker 3:Well, actually, yeah, I tell people. When people say, what do you do, I say as little as possible, but the reality is I came out of a business management and technology background. I had worked for a large software company. In human resources, I was largely doing technical recruiting. I eventually developed my own web development company, produced over 200 websites for companies in four states and three countries, two continents. Through the course of that, though, I was introduced to a gentleman who owned the domain workerscompensationcom, and with my background and, as I say, I tell people I come to workers' comp from an employer's perspective You'll go back far enough in my life.
Speaker 3:My parents owned a restaurant and motel growing up, so out of college, I went right into restaurant management, eventually became a district manager for a multi-concept restaurant chain. Those days, I could tell you, workers' comp was one of those pain-in-the-butt things we had to deal with, and we really didn't understand workers' comp, and I think that's why it gives me a perspective that a lot of employers really are their own worst enemy. They do not understand workers' comp. You know, in those days, I tell people, if I had a lost time claim, someone named Frank Gates would gig my operating statement 50 grand for something called a reserve and I didn't like Frank too much in those days. Grand for something called a reserve and I didn't like Frank too much in those days. But you know it's. I think it's given me a unique background as I moved into workers compensation, out of business management, human resources, and it's, I think, been beneficial for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the why behind where and how somebody gets places, I think is super, super important. So you have that, that business background, that employee perspective. Mark, what about you? How did you get involved with this?
Speaker 4:Well, I started my professional career in 1980 in computer operations, back when the mainframe operations and computers took an entire floor as opposed to being on my little cell phone that can fit in the palm of my hand. And I learned on the job, did software development, project management on all sorts of different platforms and stuff. And I got an opportunity in 1990 to take over a nights and weekends job of building case management software for a utilization review, company and workers' compensation. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. It was nights and weekends and the guy that was on my team that was tired of doing that said hey, are you interested in a new challenge? So I've continually kind of reinvented myself. I'm probably on version 422 now of Mark Pugh at this juncture.
Speaker 4:Got into sales Would never have thought about doing sales. Got into product development, which is kind of like software development. I would get nervous anytime I would raise my hand in a small group of seven. And then all of a sudden in 2012, I got the opportunity to start speaking in front of people and have done it over 750 times now. Just been a really interesting journey 750 times now. Just been a really interesting journey. Got to meet Bob along that path, as we ended up speaking at different conferences and bouncing off each other. So I've known him for probably a decade, and a lot of our belief systems and how workers' compensation will work were very much in sync, and so when the opportunity arose, basically it was Donald's idea to create this training platform for new people that were not getting the level of training.
Speaker 4:We've grown tremendously, way beyond that and my first thought was well, I know somebody who could really help. I didn't realize that he was very technically adept, bob, in doing a lot of this stuff. I thought I was the techie, but as it turns out, bob is the actual techie. So it's been a really interesting journey. You know, I think honestly where I'm at right now, what I'm doing right now, is basically a culmination of everything that's happened in my entire life. You know, I would not have thought that I would ever speak. I would not have ever thought I've written. But it took. You know I'm an overnight sensation that took about 28 years to develop. So it's an interesting place to be at workcompcollegecom being provost, you know, doing product development, looking and talking with ideas. I would not have been able to do this 20 years ago had it not been for the experiences in version one and seven and 42 and 322 of more pew that's gone along the way.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I thought, if I could really quick, I just have to mention that, as varied as our backgrounds are and probably unique stories that we have, that's not unusual in workers comp. This is an industry that is completely staffed by accident. None of us are actually sure how we actually got here, but I tell people when I speak in conferences this hotel is like, this is this industry, is like Hotel California you can check out anytime you like, but you can never, ever leave.
Speaker 1:Okay, because they do.
Speaker 3:The faces stay here and there's something that draws people to this industry and once they're here, there's a there's a noble cause behind it and they stay. So it is an interesting phenomena that none of us Todd. How did you get here?
Speaker 2:I've never met anybody in workers' comp in all my travel since I've been with re-employability who said, yeah, I graduated from high school and I was like, hey, I want to be an adjuster in workers' compensation.
Speaker 2:No my background is actually in media sales. I worked for radio stations for 20-plus years and sold radio. I did some on-air production and promotion stuff and the opportunity came about to work here at Reemployability and I took it because it was very intriguing to me. And you're absolutely right, bob, when you can get below the surface and understand the reality of what it is that we do, regardless of what you do within the industry, how it impacts people and the ability that you have to impact people, it's a very rewarding career. No doubt about that backgrounds is that it absolutely required continued learning, not necessarily learning in a classroom setting, but it was learning meeting each other at conferences, hearing what other people did, grasping onto that and making it your own and learning as you went around. What were you saying, mark?
Speaker 4:I was just going to say. You know that is absolutely true and I think you know being a lifelong learner is something that is a practice, discipline it's. Sometimes it's an innate skill, Sometimes it's something you lean into. But one of the things that drives us is we know that the the talent gap that we have in workers compensation, with retirements and resignations and stuff. We can't count on people finding us. We have to strategically go out and get them. And that's one of the driving forces in why we have outreach to independent property and casualty adjusters, for example, that are tired of assessing the damage of a roof in a car and want to make a bigger difference and want to get into comp. But they don't know how to get there.
Speaker 4:And we've had a number of conversations and a number of students who've actually graduated and make that transition because we've got to go out and get them. So you know the ultimate sustainability of our industry can't be based on Hotel California that we hope people find us and we hope that they like us, that they never leave. We're literally going to have to promote and try to compel people that the noble purpose of workers compensation is a reason for them to come into that. So I think you know the industry has lasted 100 plus years on people kind of indirectly and involuntarily finding work comp. We're to a point now where we can't count on luck to staff. We've actually got to provide a compelling reason for them to join us.
Speaker 2:You talked a little bit about how WorkComp College was created, or, yeah, the how as to how it got created, but can you talk a little bit about the why? Why did you see? What was the why behind the opportunity you saw in creating WorkCopCollegecom? Why?
Speaker 3:don't we field that one first? Yeah, why don't you take a stab?
Speaker 3:at it, I'll field it and then Mark will fill in what I forget. So he's very, very detailed. There are, you know, what I would describe as adequate training facilities for the industry. In a lot of places, however, training has taken a hit in the last 20 or 30 years in the industry and I don't think it's been given probably its full due that it deserves. And one of the things we looked at was some of the programs that were out there. They're very technical in nature, they were competent in that respect, but they really failed to incorporate the biopsychosocial elements that can so often dramatically affect the outcome of a claim.
Speaker 3:You know, an adjuster today can be doing all the things they're required to do and do all the things that are mandatory and necessary, and still have a claim go completely off the rails. And we talk about how. You know I may have fallen and injured my elbow and people are. You know we're good fallen and injured my elbow and people are. You know we're good at treating that elbow. We can do that, but we don't pay attention to what's going on here inside the head, and it's what's going on, as Mark often says, what's between the ears, what's going on between the ears of that injured worker what's happening in their lives, what's influencing them, what's impacting their viewpoints can often take that claim off in different directions and we need to better understand that.
Speaker 3:So we really wanted to develop a new certification program that focused on proper communication, understanding, listening, emotional intelligence, trying to really get a better grasp of understanding what's going on in the mind of those injured workers when we're working with them, so that we could really work towards better outcomes. We focus on better outcomes for employees. That's our tagline better outcomes, better communities, better world. But the reality is we can get better outcomes for injured workers. We're also getting better outcomes for their employers and for the societies in which they live. That's just really the bottom line. We've got to find better ways to avoid work disability and avoid putting people on the Social Security Disability Index, or, in other words, you know, and there can be better outcomes if we're focused on the whole person, not just the injury.
Speaker 4:And I would totally agree with that. That was a lot of the discussion. In fact, Bob has been advocating to change the name of the industry from workers' compensation to workers' recovery for a decade.
Speaker 4:So the whole concept of workers' recovery professional certification. You can understand who may have had influence on the naming of that certification and curriculum them, but the other thing, too, is a democratization. One of the interesting things that I found during COVID is that at some point they ran out of people to staff 17 webinars every day, 365 days a year and they needed to grant opportunities to people that were really smart, had great experience, maybe young, maybe old, maybe been in industry for six months, maybe been in industry for 60 years, but had never been given the opportunity to kind of explain their perspective and give that output. So we specifically leaned into having a very wide variety. We've got over 130 faculty members. That was by design. We reached out to people that had name recognition in work comp, and we also reached out to people that nobody had ever heard of before but were very smart, had a very interesting perspective on things, and so that democratization, I think, was an important kind of a why as well, is to give other people opportunity. Bob and I have been on the speaking circuit, you know, for however many years a decade plus you know. We get calls unsolicited calls to speak at conferences and be on podcasts and different things like that, because we've been there, done that. It's hard to break into that speaker circuit unless somebody reaches out, gives someone the opportunity, that first opportunity to make that presentation make a really big impact. And so part of the design of our system was to have as many faculty members from as many different disciplines, from as many different geographic locations diversity in ideology, diversity in gender and race, just everything to kind of give a really wide variety of people to present this.
Speaker 4:And part of that democratization also is smaller employers.
Speaker 4:Large employers typically have training programs.
Speaker 4:Smaller employers oftentimes when they bring somebody on, it's really reliant on a mentor to be side to them.
Speaker 4:I had a recent discussion with someone who started a new job and they were assigned a mentor. That mentor immediately went into an audit, was not available for two weeks and then they went on vacation. So the first three weeks of that job, the person who was supposed to be telling them and showing them, et cetera, was not available. So it was pretty much kind of doing cannonball in the deep end and hoping that they survive, which is not a sustainable solution. Those people will leave because they feel disenfranchised and they didn't get the level of training and the injured worker and the other stakeholders aren't going to get the service that they need because their claim is being processed by a novice that doesn't have the support. So that democratization of being able to give this consistent training from a very wide variety of faculty members to a company that doesn't have the resources to have an internal training program gives them a leg up and gives them the ability to have someone kind of hit the ground running.
Speaker 3:Todd. I do need to add just a little bit, because Mark had talked about reaching out to various people and he did a great job of describing that. But I also need to point out that some of the people on our faculty reached out to us when they heard out what we were doing, and I think that's a real testament to the industry because, while there's a little bit of financial incentive to do so, believe me, very little for these folks, most of them donated at the kids' chance. We made donations on their behalf for their work, because their motivation is to follow what you know. I was a terrible Boy Scout, by the way. I was a horrible longest running tenderfoot in the history of Troop 504 in Durango, colorado. However, I loved camping and what I learned.
Speaker 3:the one thing I took away from scouting is you always want to leave your campsite in better shape than you found it, and we want to leave workers' comp in better shape than you found it, and we want to lead workers' comp in better shape than we found it. And the people who have sought us out some highly qualified, very talented, knowledgeable people have that same goal they want to contribute to a better workers' compensation system. So what's really been exciting about this is we started with a concept hey, let's do this, let's do a certification and it's turned into a real community driven effort to really enhance and reform an industry, and that's what's really exciting about this.
Speaker 2:No, that's awesome, and so you know we were talking a little bit about some of the benefits that you know, if you're already in the industry, how this will help you be better. Right, so you can take courses on WernkopfCollegecom to help you get better at what you do. You know, taking into account more of that psychological factor and kind of the soft skills and other things as well. Are you using this as an attraction to get people into the industry? Are you finding people that are outside of the industry are finding this website and finding these courses and taking them so that they can break in?
Speaker 3:I'm going to let our chief mentor and provost handle that particular question.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's been very, very fun to be involved in some mentoring groups to again kind of get access to these property and casualty independent agents or adjusters who are looking for a change. We're reaching out. We've had conversations with colleges and universities, with community colleges, even with an organization that deals with high school students, because, again, we can't count on people to find us involuntarily and decide that we have to kind of go in the byways and highways and try to recruit them in here, and so it's been really interesting when you expose the fact that this, yes, it's highly regulated, yes, it can be antagonistic at times. Yes, it's very paper-oriented driven. Yes, there's a lot of stuff that maybe you have to say no in very challenging circumstances.
Speaker 4:All of that is true. Your life may be challenging from a day-to-day standpoint because you're asked to do too much, because you got too many claims on your day. That's the reality of work comp. But what our pitch is, it's a very noble purpose If you are someone who's driven by a purpose-driven life, that wants to make a difference, that wants to be the tenderfoot that Bob never was. I was the tenderfoot.
Speaker 3:I never went beyond that be the tenderfoot that Bob never was. Oh no, I was the tenderfoot, I never went beyond that. I achieved tenderfoot status. You know, got it, got it yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've seen you walk. Don't undersell me, pal yeah. I've seen you walk. You definitely have tender feet, yeah thank you.
Speaker 4:But the whole concept is, you know, recruiting people for that noble purpose and explaining, yes, this is the reality of what you're getting yourself into. And yes, nine out of 10 conversations may be why did I jump into this? But that 10th conversation, when you help someone who is completely disillusioned, completely confused about the system, doesn't have a support system at home that helps them in that recovery process, doesn't have a support system at home that helps them in that recovery process, is trying to figure out how to meet, have financial ends meet, because they're getting two-thirds of their paycheck and they have to make challenging circumstances and you arrange for transportation, you make it very easy for them, you explain what the doctor told them so that they understand how to do that. That 10th out of 10 times pays for the nine times when it was maybe a very challenging circumstance and that allows you to go to sleep at night and have a. You know, to wake up in the morning and be excited about hey, maybe today is the day I get to make a change.
Speaker 4:And so changing the vernacular of what work comp is into the insurance regulatory driven driven, it is all that. But it is also that opportunity to legitimately make a positive difference in someone's life. That may not just be their life, but maybe generations. Because if you get them back to work and get them back to financial wholeness and back to their family, now their kids are not dysfunctional because they're not raised in a dysfunctional system, they're grandkids. So you can have a generational change by making a difference in that particular person and so making that argument to people that want to make a difference. Hey, workcomp actually is a great place to do that. That's really the argument. So having those discussions with people that are trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up and I'm 63, and I'm still trying to figure that out, right, we all kind of mature at different levels and figure out what we want to be, but we're trying to give those people young in their career this is an opportunity to really make a difference.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, though, and specific to your question, Todd, we're a young school. I don't know why my camera just did that. By the way, I know this is an audio portion, but it occasionally zooms in and out you need to pay your cameraman better Geez, I need a better camera. I have a crew that follows me all the time, you know, so they pan and zoom.
Speaker 2:But it is pretty cool. They got you good on that one though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they did. Makes me look very, very fat.
Speaker 2:All I can say is I'm glad you have pants on Bob.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, me too. You know it was a 50-50 shot, but you lucked out today.
Speaker 2:Knowing you, I don't doubt that.
Speaker 3:Specifically, though, you know we're a very young school. We've been around actually online a year and a half basically but we have at least two specific instances where we know of young professionals who had insurance experience but no workers' comp experience, have been looking to get into workers' comp and not been able to find the right opportunity. They've gone through our courses and, since having completed our courses, have landed good jobs at two very well-respected and well-known companies we're. You know I can't say we did that, but I'm very happy to be part of that equation and I think we are trying to help people who want to come into the industry, to give them a foundation that can help them get into that position.
Speaker 2:You know, mark, I'm glad you mentioned about, you know, the effect that the family has when somebody comes back to work or becomes whole again, right, because I think one of the things I know was a kind of an eye-opening experience for me during the pandemic was how everything is connected. And I don't think people always realize that, right, you know, like I didn't get toilet paper, not because there wasn't toilet paper, but because this truck couldn't get here, because this person wasn't there, because this part of the country was closed down, and you know it was all just a big circle. Right, and it's absolutely true. With human beings Everybody is connected and that's how and this sounds kind of hokey, but that's how sometimes, passing somebody in the hall, you smile at them, you make them smile, you make their day. That could change that person's kid's life for the rest of that day, right? So you never know how the little things that you do can impact others and moving on forward. So I'm glad you brought that up because that's so important to remember, especially when you're having a crappy day and you don't want to treat people nice, when you realize that you could have such an effect on them and so many others just by doing that small thing that might take a little bit of effort.
Speaker 2:I'm really interested in kind of the nuts and bolts of workcompcollegecom now. So what is the commitment like, like, do I have to take like a whole, you know, like six-week course? Can I pick and choose? What are some of the options that are available now for folks that might be listening, that are in the industry and folks that might be listening that are not?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great question, because I would be the market, I would be the first people to tell you that what we offer today has changed even dramatically over what we originally envisioned when we started talking about this, you know, about two years ago. We now have, you know, actually three official certification programs available. We have the workers' recovery professional certification 64 courses, about 51 hours of lecture content. It is a structured program, it's a self-driven program, but that is a defined program. We have an associate level that contains 19 courses, about 15 and a half hours of content, designed really for people who need to understand the basics of workers' comp but are not necessarily assisting injured workers or managing claims on a day-to-day basis. We have an MSPA, a Medicare Secondary Payer Accreditation. Now that we did in partnership with Sanderson Firm. That's been very successful to help bring education to the people responsible for Medicare set-aside and those Medicare secondary payer situations. But what's really been most unique in the last year was our realization that we could parcel out elements of our training for individual customized training. So today, if you come to us and say I just want to take this one course, that really generally is not available online, but if an employer, for instance, we just launched, about three months ago, a virtual training center and we did this for a fairly good sized TPA who was very impressed with our technology and our system and wanted to know if we could actually set up a similar system for them to house their own custom content but bring in select courses from work comp colleges campus, not just for their workers comp people, because they've already been running people through the WRP program, but for their general and auto liability general liability and auto people as well. And we set that up. So we now host and manage a virtual training center for that company. That is a customized solution. We have now a customized solution for the Office of Injured Employee Council in Texas. They're the ombudsman in Texas. They have 72 people in the system with a collection. They have their own homepage within our campus and their own collection of our courses that we've made available that they selected. So we are customizing solutions for employers based on their individual needs.
Speaker 3:We just launched a program a few weeks ago called CompStart Onboarding really focused Again, it can use the VTC, the virtual trading center, or it can use a custom solution built within our campus to integrate content and customize those solutions. So you as an individual, may not be able to come and say, look, I just want to take your emotional intelligence course. That's not something we've made available yet. But as an employer, you could come and say I'm really interested in having these seven courses developed into a custom program for X number of my new hires, because we're onboarding them and they don't. That's one of the things we're realizing is we're all running around trying to find new people. I one of the things we're realizing is we're all running around trying to find new people. You know it's. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of friends that are retiring and I am Mark's elder, by the way he mentioned. He's 63.
Speaker 3:By two months, no three weeks probably, I'm like three weeks older than Mark and I demand the respect of an as an elder. You, young whippersnapper, you but it? Where was I going? Before I even joke, See your moment already Squirrel, squirrel, no people, people, my friends are all retiring and I don't understand it, because it's similar to Mark, who's still, you know, the kid trying to figure out what he wants to be. I have similar attitudes and I, until I look in the mirror.
Speaker 3:I don't understand why people are retiring. It's like, oh yeah, I'm not 30 anymore, but we need to find these people to come into the industry and I think we have the ability, with some of our content, to now customize onboarding solutions so that, no, they don't know anything about workers comp. We can take care of that. You can train to your specific programs and your specific policies, and if you want to put that in a video program, we can help you with that or we can actually host it for you. But if even not, we can take care of that workers' comp component so that they better understand not just the industry, but where they fit it's my hands that do it with the camera but where they fit within the scope of the industry.
Speaker 4:You're throwing people off on an audio-only podcast. I know it's an audio program.
Speaker 3:My camera automatically tracks me and zooms, and if I talk with my hands it zooms way out and I look like a big bowling ball with a head parked on top of it.
Speaker 2:We may put this on YouTube just because of that.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I'm wearing pants then Well, if you put it on they could see you do have a radio background because you have that enormous microphone in the image. You know.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Speaker 4:And you know, todd, I think what we have learned over I mean, literally, our first business meeting was Memorial Day of 2022. So we're just coming up on basically two years of kind of putting the business plan together and so forth. And I think what has been so fun for me and I won't speak on behalf of Bob and Donald, but I think they probably feel the same way is we listen to the marketplace, we look for opportunities and we respond. There's a certain point where you don't have critical mass, you don't have enough courses, you don't have enough faculty, you don't have enough students. You know you can put all this stuff together and go, okay, great, whatever, but we have reached critical mass and all those different things. So we can treat each individual course as an individual asset and then respond to the industry.
Speaker 4:And I think you know, from product development standpoint, it's really cool to be able to have conversations with people at conferences or on Zoom calls or Teams calls and go. You know what? I'm really struggling with this, or have you ever heard of anything that does this? Or you know? And it sparks an idea. And Bob, donald and I meet every Monday in a board of directors meeting and we come up with ideas that we heard, like the associate certification. Literally the fourth time I heard somebody go you know what? Wrp is great, but 64 courses, 51 hours of content, that's way too much for my particular role in understanding the breadth. Fourth time I heard that we got together and go, hey, we need to come up with a skinnier version that maybe not as deep but it still is as broad, that gives people that opportunity and open up people, ops, operations, people, salespeople, hr manager, people that don't have necessarily the time to commit to 64 courses but can do 19 courses and maybe over a couple of three week period. And so that's what's fun from business owner.
Speaker 4:You know, founding partner, whatever you want to call it, it's our baby, it's Bob and Donald's and my baby. We have a board of trustees that have been great advisors to us. We got deans that have helped us craft the curriculum. We've got faculty, obviously, but it really comes down to the three of us and we're just keeping our ear to the ground in regards to what is the marketplace looking like. And it's really cool to be able to go hey, now that we've got critical mass, now that we've got all these different assets, how can we do. That's where the comps start onboarding.
Speaker 4:We kept hearing from a couple of our clients were doing this as a part of their onboarding process. It's like, well, that's a term that we hear a lot, that people don't have a grasp of. Why don't we do a particular customized version of that that people can kind of wrap their heads around, rather than having them connect the dots, we connect the dots for them and say this is a customized platform. So I think you know that's the fun part of now. You know, two years into a business plan, our business plan is completely different. I mean, it doesn't even hold a hold a candle to what we originally talked about Day 2022, just because we've been adaptive to what we hear from the marketplace.
Speaker 2:Any thoughts of doing anything that would be like employee or injured worker facing? It's funny that you mention that. I guess not because you pulled it straight up in the air.
Speaker 3:Can we edit that pause out? Yes, we will.
Speaker 4:It's funny that you mention that, because we do have a voice of the provider, which is in partnership with Brooks Rehab. That's talking about all the different disciplines outside the paywall completely available We've done 21 episodes on that. Completely available We've done 21 episodes on that. We're working on a voice of the injured worker with re-employability. That will be a similar kind of style podcast thing that is going to be telling the story from the injured workers perspective, and we do have a couple of faculty members that are injured workers themselves kind of telling that story, you know as we're having HR managers, HR managers coming back to us and risk managers are going.
Speaker 4:How can we kind of how can you help me kind of figure out this, this whole process?
Speaker 3:So it's a part of that process of continuing to listen to what the industry is doing, and, you know, have a lot of publicly available resources in our outreach center, and Mark has already covered some of those between webinars and articles and things like that. The injured worker, though, generally, is a very hard population to reach, and people get mad when I say this. Some people get very mad. There's no one who really speaks on behalf of the injured worker. Okay, everybody, even unions, can have conflicting needs and priorities over their specific injured workers. I know a lot of attorneys and there are some really good personal injury attorneys or plaintiffs attorneys who are the real deal, but even they, if they're not careful, their incentives can be misaligned with that of the workers they represent Very tough audience to reach.
Speaker 3:When I was with workerscompensationcom for many years, we had a discussion center that was open to anybody, an online discussion center. It was absolutely dominated by injured workers. They seemed to have a little more time on their hands than a lot of us. Every once in a while, a professional would wander in and try and offer advice. It was like watching Bambi be devoured by a pool of angry piranha. It was not a pretty sight, but and unfortunately after I left the company, that discussion forum was removed, which was, I think, unfortunate because it was an education as to for me as to how injured workers view the system, what happens to them in the system and there are.
Speaker 3:There are a lot of really good people in our industry. There are bad players, as there are in any industry, and when they had bad experiences and just the way they viewed things, it was a, it was a great education. But even they're very tough to reach and very you know. The thing that a lot of people don't understand, a lot of injured workers don't understand, is, you know, we have responsibilities to the injured worker. We are obligated morally, ethically, legally, contractually to do things for injured workers. They also have responsibilities in their own recovery and that is one of the hardest things to convey and that's one of the things that we focus on in some of our training. But that's really we have to focus with the professionals to get that done because we can reach that professional audience. The injured workers are pretty widespread. Without that organized entity that can bring them together, there is no institute of injured worker that you can go to, a conference and teach or learn or discuss, and that's one of the challenges I think we have as an industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And the reason I brought that up and it just popped in my head. My wife is a teacher. She fell off a stool in her classroom about a year ago, hit her head. She was fine, but obviously it was a work comp claim and had I not been in the industry she wouldn't have had a clue about what was going on.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that was kind of the direction of my question. I don't know if any clients of yours, any companies that work with you, have looked into some kind of a portal for someone that they could just send a link to for an injured worker to just learn the high level, like this is the process, just for people to understand, I think actually that would be an excellent idea to produce something like that that just explains process and things.
Speaker 3:I don't know. We would have to find very receptive employers. There's a lot, unfortunately, from an injured worker's perspective. Sometimes there's mistrust for anything that comes from the insurance company. Okay, you know they aren't going to trust that necessarily. Now, if they like their employer, they will probably trust what is sent to them by their employer. That would be an interesting thing.
Speaker 3:And here again, we do listen and I'm sure Mark and I will be discussing this after the call is is could something be done to be made available on this is what happened. This is what you can generally expect. These are your rights and responsibilities generally. I mean, we'd have to make it a pretty high level overview because they're all different in every state. We did, you know.
Speaker 3:I know we have one discussion with one very large company that has a lot of franchisees in the country about developing specific training for their franchisees on how to go about managing workers' comp claims, because you know claims professionals can tell you that sometimes an employer is their own worst enemy. They will torpedo a claim before the adjuster even knows there is one. With the way they behave, with the way they act, the way they treat the injured worker. So you know that project didn't come to fruition. But you know something that could be made available on a basis to an injured worker to help explain and familiarize them. Probably not a bad idea if we could get companies to use it and we could do it in a neutral perspective that people would trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what do you have looking a year from now? Hopefully we talk in less than a year, but if we sit down a year from today, you can tell me what happened. What do you guys have planned for workcompcollegecom.
Speaker 3:Well we are. I will say that's very hard to say because if you'd asked me a year ago what we'd be talking about today, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. Some of it I can tell you. Let me just quickly I'm going to tell a few numbers we're really proud of. We're a year and a half in and we have 500 people more than 500 people enrolled in our programs. We have 180 people who have received certifications, actually more than that. Now, if I add in the MSPA numbers, probably 195 people that have received our certifications. Very pleased with that. Compared to what maybe other organizations may have achieved in their initial launch, we had a great response. We are working. Gee Mark. Should I talk about the project we're working on at the moment? I probably should.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, I was going to tease that there's a new certification coming out, probably later this summer, that we can't disclose.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, it will be a certification and it's very large and it's something that people deal with in every state in the nation. Along the medical front, I'll tell you it's along the medical front. Okay, that's enough, Bob. That along the medical front, I'll tell you it's along the medical front. Okay, that's enough, bob, that's enough. No, that's okay. That's okay. But, yeah, we're working on a new program. You'll need to check back with us later this summer and we can talk about it a little more. But, yeah, we're excited by that. That's one of the things we're working on. We really are looking to round out, we have an area called ATEC Prime, which is our Advanced Training and Education Center. It's really designed for those people who have been through our certifications to maintain that certification.
Speaker 3:Continue education offers a lot of courses. We're busy expanding that feature. We are working. We'll be announcing in a couple weeks a new AI-powered assistant that will actually be able to answer questions based on the multitude of documents we've uploaded through not just our campus but also elsewhere online. That will just be an AI-powered assistant. And this summer I'll plug the WCI conference in Orlando. We are producing the first ever technology track at WCI. We'll have four sessions on that Wednesday and we encourage everybody to plan to attend. And, by the way, those people who are certified through us will get continuing education credits for attending the WCI technology track section. So those are some of the things we're working on this coming year.
Speaker 2:Super cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would add that there are probably going to be even more customized implementations, because that seems to be the trend for us, of employers going hey, I've already got something, can you augment it, can you add to it? How can I incorporate what I've already got with what you've got? So we've got kind of a hybrid model. So that's something that we are certainly going to be embracing. So if we were to do this next February or whatever, hopefully, rather than the two that we're talking about, with Office of Injured Employee Counsel and the TPA that's doing the virtual training center, maybe we've got five or ten different implementations and each one of them are different because the needs of the employer is different, the training needs, where they're coming from, what they already have. But I agree with Bob, we're as good as a magic eight ball at this point as far as trying to predict the future, because we're listening constantly. We're talking on a weekly basis on what we're hearing, trading ideas back and forth. We have discovered that there are no bad ideas until they have been proven.
Speaker 1:So, yes, we have proven a couple of things. We've proven a couple.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have learned the hard way on some of those cases. So we're going to continue to experiment and continue to expand and you know, I think that again that's what's fun, uh, in being involved, um, with two guys that I really respect in the board of trustees and deans and faculty and students and stuff. This community that we're growing, we really want it to be, a community we're we're leaning into maybe, um, some more interactive things as well, like office hours for faculty members that would be free and open to students to go. Hey, they're going to be here from three or four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon, you know Zoom meeting. Would you like to join?
Speaker 4:There's a variety of different things. We're talking about projects that we can work on as a group, like an incubator, you know, kind of system. So we're kind of continuing to lean. Those are a little bit early in the new one, you know, in of system. So we're kind of continuing to lean. Those are a little bit early in the new, you know, in the development phase. But you know we're we're constantly reinventing ourselves.
Speaker 3:Well, I used to say the same thing in my last company too is the benefits of being a small company is you can gather people together in a room and come to a boneheaded decision much faster than a larger corporation.
Speaker 3:As Mark said, there are no bad ideas until they're proven bad. And we've had some great ideas and we've had some less than stellar ideas, but it's all been fun and I think the bottom line is we have a very serious business, but we're never going to take ourselves so seriously that we can't enjoy ourselves and try things and be willing to make some mistakes in the process.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you guys both really pulled it around full circle here, because we're talking about learning never stops, and the only way you're going to learn is by making mistakes, and coming up with ideas is a giant amount.
Speaker 3:I'm highly educated by now by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, unfortunately, I think too many people are just so afraid to do that, and that's all part of the process. Whether you're 20, 50, 50 or 70 years old, it's okay to try new things and it's okay to jump in with both feet, and if you fail, you fail, but at least you gave it a shot, right I think a lot of people have heard of FOMO fear of missing out.
Speaker 4:But there's another one that I just recently came across. I'd never heard of it's FOMO fear of messing up. And fear of messing up will will keep you from entertaining ideas, keep you from trying different things because you're afraid of what the repercussions are. You know the repercussions for us is, you know we make a, we make a mistake and go sorry. You know that didn't work. This is not a life or death circumstance. You know we, we we're not, we're not making those kind of decisions.
Speaker 4:But I, I would advocate for people to get rid of fomo fear of missing out. Um, because that's a sense of comparison that is never good. Um, as as good a car as you drive, you can always find somebody that's driving a better car. Comparisons never work. But fomo is definitely a destabilizing, um, almost, uh, you know, a freeze kind of a mode where your fear of messing up and you're you're afraid of making that next move. We have not been afraid of making that next move and I think we're evidence of you know three older guys reinventing themselves. Uh, you know, uh, some by choice, some not, not by choice, but um, you know we were willing to step out and if we can be somewhat of a model or a guide or an inspiration or motivation for other people that need to step out and do something different or a cautionary tale or yeah, yeah, hopefully we're still here and uh, paying the utility bills so we can be on Zoom with you in February of next year.
Speaker 4:But you know, if we could be a motivation, because there's a lot of people that are stuck and they're they're, they're not happy. That's what happened with the great resignation during COVID. All of a sudden they go why am I doing this? This is stupid and they decided just to bail.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that are stuck in positions that don't make sense in careers that don't have a good journey ahead of them, that have bad work life balances, and I would advocate like, hey, if you get the opportunity, don't be FOMU, you know, take that opportunity of making that next step. Yeah, that's a great way to wind things up, mark work comp. Collegecom is the website. If anybody, if we have employers or carriers out there that want to talk to you guys about stylizing some platforms for them, is that the best way for them to get ahold of you is through the website.
Speaker 3:They can go to work comp collegecom. There is a contact form they can use. Our toll free number is there. Our email addresses are listed there. They can email us through the site. So yeah, like I said, we're happy to have phone conversation. We're happy to set up Zoom calls. We talk to people all the time to answer their questions. Sometimes it's better to have that face-to-face call and we prefer that sometimes because we can answer those questions more quickly than you can through a series of email exchanges. But anyway, whatever their preferences, we're there to easily communicate with, I think.
Speaker 2:Right, bob Wilson and Mark Pugh from workcompcollegecom. Yeah, I'll tell you what. 10 years ago, if somebody said you're going to interview two guys about a website that educates people on workers' compensation, I'd be like, oh, that's going to be thrilling, yay. And, quite honestly, I love talking to you guys. It's always fun to get you on and I actually kept you longer than I expected and I appreciate your time and appreciate everything you guys do and we will definitely get together in less time than a year.
Speaker 3:Sounds great. Thank you, todd, we really appreciate it and appreciate your support and the opportunity to talk.
Speaker 2:Thanks guys. Alexa, did you go to college?
Speaker 1:I didn't go to a school, in particular, but living in the cloud is like taking a perpetual online course. My credit hours are off the charts.
Speaker 2:If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask you for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw, and when he's finished he'll ask for a napkin. Then he'll want to look in the mirror to make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache, and so on and so on. Learning should always produce new questions, and so on and so on. So here's to your never-ending journey in learning. Hopefully we inspired you to take some action today. Thanks for listening to REA Audio. Please make sure to follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of your week.
