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You're listening to People Behind the Benefits, the podcast exploring the people, ideas, and decisions shaping the employee benefits industry. Thanks for being here

Speaker 0:11

Hi everybody. Uh, I wanted to start by just saying thank you, Jamie, for joining me today on the People Behind the Benefits Podcast. I'm joined by Jamie Boma and I'll, I'll let her do a quick introduction

Speaker 2 0:22

yeah. Thanks Jordan. Appreciate it. Excited to be here. Um, so I'm Jamie Bala. I lead, um, total rewards and HR operations. So I wore a variety of hats on the HR side, um, at Learning Care Group. So Learning Care is a early childhood education company nationwide. Um, you might know us as Tutor Time or La Petite Academy ever, Brook Academy Child Time. Those are a variety of our brands. We have many again nationwide. Um, and so really. We're focused on our employees who are teachers and directors in our schools every day caring for children. So, um, like I said, really excited to be here and talk about how we look at benefits and approach benefits for that specific employee population.

Speaker 1:06

Absolutely. Thank you for the background, Jamie.

Speaker 2 1:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1:08

I know a lot of people might not know the actual learning care group name, but definitely some of the other ones that you mentioned, so that's, that's a good way to put it. Um, and, and I guess with that, a lot of. A lot of what we've talked about and a lot of where, where I've focused in my career has been specifically in Michigan with like manufacturing groups. Mm-hmm. You know, groups now, nowadays where are very widespread across the country. Yeah. So you all definitely have that workforce, right?

Speaker 2 1:34

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We definitely have a, a nationwide distributed workforce, not just Michigan. We are a Michigan based corporation. We are headquartered here in Michigan and have schools in Michigan, but we're across. I think it's 47 states now. Okay. Um, so when we're looking at benefit, it has to be a nationwide footprint, unless there's some niche items in certain pockets, which we've had over the years based on just different network strategies and such. Um, but really looking at it holistically in a nationwide presence to make sure our employees are able to get the access and care that they need.

Speaker 2:09

Yeah, that makes sense. And it's becoming more and more prevalent too, but you all have been doing it for a while, so. Um, yeah, let's, let's start with a couple of the questions that we prepared, so,

Speaker 2 2:19

yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:19

One of the things that I feel like has, has rang, rang out to me in all of our conversations is leading benefits at scale. Right? You, you all, for the people on the. The people listening. Um, you all are a very large organization that would be considered by most, you know, you're not a couple hundred employees. So I guess talk to me about how you're sitting at the intersection of talent and attraction, total rewards, benefits. Talk to me how it all comes together and what people don't fully understand.

Speaker 2 2:48

Yeah, so I mean, we're an employee base of 23,000, so quite large to your point. Um, we have about. 35% of those employees enrolled in our benefits. Um, and what I would say is when we're thinking about things at scale, while insights matter and trends matter, and being fiscally responsible matters, of course, in benefits, um, the most important part for us is really hearing directly from our employees about what matters most to them. Um, and while we can't like. Satisfy everyone. We, you know, we, we know that everyone's needs are different. Um, we really have to make sure that we're asking our employees on a quite regular basis on how benefits aligns. Case in point, right? We ran a recent engagement survey. We do engagement surveys annually, of course, and one of the questions which is very broad is, are benefits competitive? And so what we're going back now is actually diving further and saying. Well, you might've said this or that to that question, but what do the, what does the word benefits mean to you? Mm-hmm. Because I think that's a loaded question. When we say benefits, what might come to mind for many of us in the industry is medical, dental, vision, life, disability, some of the very kind of basic ones that you would expect under the umbrella, right? What our employees might hear is, oh, well, the childcare discount that you provide is a benefit. Well, the, the paid time off that I get is a benefit. Other perks like a. Spotify member premium membership is a benefit. You know, there's so many different things that can layer in there that we really need to capture that and understand that. To be able to then roll out at scale to make sure that we're addressing our employees' needs that aren't steady, that continue to evolve. And so for us too, it's always keeping that pulse on it. Mm-hmm. Um, through engagement surveys, through focus group and round tables, through doing. Surveys just on our benefits alone, um, to make sure that we're really meeting the needs, um, and aligning to the philosophy that we have in place for our benefits.

Speaker 4:51

Love it. It's a good background. It, it, it makes me think of a couple different things and I want to hit on the first one before I go off on my own tangent. Sure. Um, when it comes to what you do with that data, right? Mm-hmm. So I've seen a lot of employers do engagement surveys. How are our benefits? How, how do you feel? And then a lot of them don't do anything with it. I, I, I've seen that time and time again.

Speaker 2 5:12

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:12

Yeah. Yeah. I guess talk to me about how you action, what you get from those results and, and or put them into practice.

Speaker 2 5:19

Yeah. Listen, I'm not gonna say that we're the best always at it. There's been years where, yeah, we've kind of not done well at re replying to it and actioning appropriately. And then there's been years this year in particular where we're making sure that we're continuing to demonstrate. And it doesn't have to be big, huge things, pie in the sky things, but it's some of those incremental, we heard you were listening and here's what we're doing. Continued conversations. Um, so for us with benefits, right? Somebody tells us something today, we can't action on it always immediately because there's fiscal items at play and there's also plan your items at play. And so we have to take that back and really make sure we understand. Going into those conversations, what are we maybe already planning in the background? Um, and it goes back to some of our, our talk points on planning, um, that we can bring through in a thread to say, Hey, we were already planning this and ooh, you confirmed and validated those plans. Paid Time off is a great example, which I know doesn't necessarily always play into, um. You know, consultants' minds. But it is a, a great example of those are things we can be doing in the background and we're planning for it. And then the employees say, well, I would like this or that. We validated, we say great news. Mm-hmm. We're planning that. Mental health is another great example. We're planning some items on mental health. We expect that to come out too, because we've been listening over time and trying to inch towards, or incrementally put in practice what we know our employees need. Right. So some of that just comes down to what I would say is planning and making sure you're not. Over promising, but have some things in the background that you know you can, but then validating it with your employee sentiments.

Speaker 6:56

I love it. I love it. No, and it's, it's also like perception based too, right? Yeah. Some, some people might come from a different industry where, yeah, limited time off is a thing or,

Speaker 2 7:07

yes, yes.

Speaker 7:08

5, 6, 7 weeks is a thing, and then they enter a different industry and it's like three or four, so

Speaker 2 7:14

Yep.

Speaker 7:14

It's also the

Speaker 2 7:15

a hundred percent.

Speaker 7:15

That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:17

Yeah. Yep. Definitely. That's part of that response too, is making sure we're saying, Hey, this is, and some of it is not saying it in a negative connotation, but level setting and expectation setting about what is possible in the framework in the industry that we have, et cetera. Right. So that's one of actually our, our round table questions is. Compared to, who are you? Like if you're comparing our benefits, who are you comparing to? Right. Spouses, family members, friends. What industries do they work in? Not to disprove anything, of course, but more just relevant information for us to understand. Um, especially in Michigan, our employees at our headquarters like to compare us to the big three automakers. Right. But we are never gonna be a big three automaker. We're not, and we're also not union. And we're, there's a variety of factors there, right, that are very holistically different than an ECE company. So we have to make sure we are level setting out, this is what benefits looks like for us, but we certainly wanna still be competitive in an overall landscape.

Speaker 8:13

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. Union was the other one I was gonna say. Right? I mean that's

Speaker 2 8:17

just,

Speaker 8:18

that's just the differences, but then

Speaker 2 8:20

Yes, yes.

Speaker 8:20

I also think how education then comes into that too, right? Mm-hmm. My, my wife works at a very large organization, not as large as learning care group, but um, very large tech-based company outta California. Yeah. And we've got about a thousand benefits, uh, at our disposal.

Speaker 2 8:36

Yeah.

Speaker 8:36

And me being the person who understands them more, I don't even have access to the tool to dig into what they are. So,

Speaker 2 8:42

yeah.

Speaker 8:43

You know, when it comes to, uh, education, I think about that a lot because. I always ask her, I'm like, Hey, I've heard other people have this. Do we have that? Mm-hmm. And then she'll go digging their internal resources.

Speaker 2 8:54

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:54

Mm-hmm. So I feel like education on it as well is, is another really, really important thing you have to try to get right.

Speaker 2 9:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think especially for our specific, oh, if I'm thinking about our specific employee base, they're teachers or educators or directors in the schools, in the classroom, right? They are not sitting in front of a computer all day, right? So how do we make sure that they get. The information they need in a way that is timely, that is simple, that is straightforward, not just for them, but for their families at home who are also assisting them, making the decisions or they're making together, right? Um, and so some of that really comes down to how we, you know, our communication patterns, how we best support them. Some of it is our benefits design. Um, you know, we can talk more about that too, I know, as we get through our conversations, but, um, but it is, it is very, very different in an approach.

Speaker 9:45

Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, and I guess shifting gears a little bit when it comes to maybe some of the results and then. Just change, change management in general. Yeah. A lot of the other podcast episodes that I've done and, and recorded, we've talked a lot about change and just how people perceive it, how it's done, how companies go through change management. And I know that you all brought on a new CHRO back in, I think the end of 25. Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:11

December. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 10:12

So, I guess talk to me a little bit about how, like, how that plays in, how culture, how mm-hmm. Change happens, and just make sure that what you're, you're already doing. Uh, carries forward.

Speaker 2 10:23

Yeah, I think it goes back to a little bit what I was talking about, engagement surveys and expectation setting, coming in and understanding what it looks like kind of going forward. And that's really grounded in con not constant, but continued communication. Right. Um, and so like when the new CHRO came in, you know, really thinking about like from a benefits and total rewards perspective as we're planning and have things baked in and we're, we're moving towards. Um, for even the next calendar year for CY 27. Really it comes down to kind of educating her about our population, about their wants and needs, demonstrating what we've done along the way and what we're looking towards, and then certainly valuing the input she might have. Um, even though she was out of industry, um, just she had a very similar. Um, client or a similar population that she had at, at her former employer. And so really just making sure that even though priorities could change, knowing what we have in for this year is really what we think our employees. And they've told us mm-hmm. Um, need for this next calendar year. And, and I, I'm really thankful at this point too, that she really took me as a trusted partner along the way in understanding what we've been planning for benefits and really kind of seeing that through, we're still in planning. Um, I know we'll talk a little bit about my planning process because I, uh, we run a fiscal year that is. July to June. And so everyone takes the collective gasp there that where they're like, how do you plan benefits that way? It's interesting. So we are planning and practically baked for CY 27 at this point.

Speaker 12:04

Yeah, I mean that, that bleeds into the next question perfectly. 'cause I've talked to so many other employers where. You know, they're a one one renewal or a a six one renewal and they're talking two, three months out for

Speaker 2 12:16

never

Speaker 12:16

what our renewal looks like, what changes we might make. And it's, you know, it's, even for smaller organizations, it's becoming more and more important to have that plan way, way in advance.

Speaker 2 12:26

Yeah. Um, it's interesting. So like I said, we run, uh, July to, to June fiscal, but we do run our benefits on a calendar basis for one one. So again, when you're thinking about that, we're planning. Because our budgets stay with me here on dates because our budget's typically set for the next fiscal. It starts in July. In May. So coming up here real shortly, we're planning, usually, we started planning pretty much right after we close out OE and are into our new calendar probably about nine months out.

Speaker 12:55

Yeah,

Speaker 2 12:55

we're planning. Um, and so at this point right now, in April, um. We're an RFP on a few items. We expect those to wrap by end of month, next month to have decisions and basically finalization by June. So six months out. We're done pretty much. Now we're not totally done because of course you have integration work and communications and we still kind of think about if what our premium increase might be. We bake that in at a certain base level. Um, but essentially, I know it's super uncomfortable to hear, we're practically always planning like, I mean, and again, that's why I'm like the collective gas might be, what do you mean you're always planning and, um. It. Part of that goes back to what I was saying before about even understanding your employee's needs. If we're in that constant state of what can we be doing next and what is next on the horizon for us, and how are certain things tracking, then that doesn't ever leave us feeling like we're in a scramble. Yeah. We know what our next move is. And we're planning for it. We're ready for it. We're, we're, okay. Now let's go ahead and go out to RFP on that. Okay, let's do our modeling on that. Okay. Let's understand what that looks like from a cost basis. Okay? How do we offset that if we aren't wanting to add incremental spend? All of those things come into play. And, and have to, so we can make sure we commit appropriately to our budget. Right. And, um, we've been really successful in that. We have really good predictability and understanding our timing and how that flows in. And we have really good success with our, uh, consultant group and the actuaries that they have on their team to be very successful in calculating out and projecting out what our fiscal year spend is gonna be. With two cys impacting it. Yeah. Right. Um,

Speaker 14:34

that's a lot to unpack there.

Speaker 2 14:36

Yeah.

Speaker 14:37

It's, uh, it's good though, and it, it makes me think of, you know, my general industry and mm-hmm. Consultants in general and how they work with their, their different respective clients.

Speaker 2 14:48

Yeah.

Speaker 14:49

I wonder, so for someone maybe not like you all, who is not as, as planning or as, as heads down into benefits like you are. Maybe they're a lean organization, maybe they've got one HR person. I don't know the scenario, but I guess what would you say to maybe the consultant side of, of how they can maybe do more of that legwork and do more of that planning and help with their clients of a couple hundred employees or a, a mid-size organization?

Speaker 2 15:15

Yeah. I think what I've seen in really good practice from my experience with our own consultant group is that they're bringing forward a strategy that's multi-year, right? So they're taking a landscape, and this might be very basic, but they're taking a landscape of. Okay, where are your strengths and your opportunities and how can we get there over a multi-year journey? And so that way you as an HR person are thinking, okay, I know I might not be able to, to pull this lever year one. I want us to get there. I do see that as a need. We've heard it from our employees, but maybe by year three we can, and here's how we're going to start shifting things to get there. Right. Or layering it into budget if it isn't incremental. Um, which is very rare by the way that we're ever. Status quo less, um, which is, you know, uh, and so I think it's, it's really that that broker, that that consultant coming alongside and saying, okay, we see you, we understand your employees. They're listening. Right.

Speaker 16:16

That was the next point I was gonna break. Yep.

Speaker 2 16:17

That was, that's a huge component of our. Uh, partnership today with our own consultant is they know our employees as well as we know our employees, and they are bringing things alongside of like, we, you know, we think this could do this though, if we do that right? And that's helpful to us because I don't feel like they're. Um, a even just a partner, I feel like they're one of our team, right? Because they have such a niche down understanding of not just the usage, not just the numbers, but really who our employees are and what they value and, and, and what they kind of need and want from their benefits. So that starts that groundwork and then it's from there. Okay, what recommendations do we have? Year one, or here's where your gaps are. And then just vetting it out with the HR person to say like, there's things that our, our brokers brought through before. And we're like, yeah, we think that's a good idea, but. We don't see it anytime soon. It's not as high priority as some other things that we might be wanting to do. Right. And that's, that's more of an all-inclusive look too, Jordan, on, not just on benefits, but what in general do we wanna do for our employees from an HR landscape? And there might be some other things that we need to pull those levers on that's outside of benefits, but we know it's going to be good value to our employees.

Speaker 17:29

Yes, that a hundred percent. And this is now, I think this is my third conversation now within this series, where a multi-year strategy mm-hmm. And like an actual plan has come up. Yeah. Versus, you know, I, I wanna be your broker or your consultant because we have access to this, and I can do this for you. Yeah. That's, that's fine. But I think one of the other, one of the other episodes, uh, talked about not having a bunch of shiny balls and like new things. But an actual strategy and plan, right?

Speaker 2 17:58

Yes, correct.

Speaker 17:59

But then knowing the population, because you can have a strategy that might work for a couple hundred employee tech company, but it might look very, very different for an onsite manufacturer or a county government.

Speaker 2 18:09

Absolutely,

Speaker 18:10

right?

Speaker 2 18:10

Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 18:11

Knowing the

Speaker 2 18:12

employee and even demographic like. We are 98% female. Vastly different than most companies. There are not many companies out there that are 98% female. And in terms of decision making, in terms of the needs and wants, in terms of how they utilize benefits or spouses, utilize benefits in terms of children on the plan, like just dramatically different. So, um, it does help when, especially for us, when our consultant knows us so well to say, okay. This is kind of the personas that we know exist in your population and how they would interact and what they might need and want along the way.

Speaker 18:50

That's makes complete sense. Yeah. I want to, I wanna ask another question on that and then I wanna come back to the RFP conversation, so Sure,

Speaker 2 18:58

sure, sure.

Speaker 19:00

My question that it just made me think of is when it comes to your current consultant and the relationship and how well they know you and you know, it seems like they're almost. Uh, planning ahead for you and, and know, knows what you need. Was that something that happened over time or was it more in like the beginning? They, they knew your population because they have other clients? Talk to me about that.

Speaker 2 19:21

Um, yeah, I think, you know, they started with us, it was really unique. They started with us many years ago, I think it was 17. Um, so longstanding relationship, um, whereby they did a project work for us and pharmacy. Yep. And that kind of led into, uh, saying. We would like to see more of this and kind of evolve from there. And we've added things along the way. We have an advocacy arm with them where they do our call center, so taking enrollments and questions from our employee base on benefits. We also do comms with them for benefits, so we've kind of added over time. Um, so I think that was just kind of like organic. I don't think they like understood population day one, but they certainly had. Um, efforts behind really narrowing in and understanding, and it, it is a two-way street, right? We're bringing ideas forward to them. They're kind of giving us their expert opinion or things they've seen. Um, they're bringing ideas forward to us and we're kind of valuing those and giving feedback. Um, so I think it's just really that continued communication and talk through and collaboration that really has. Contin, like made that that line go through all the way, right. They didn't necessarily understand this overnight, but I think they dug in very quickly to say. Who is this group? And I think that, not that I would recommend advocacy groups for every, um, employee population, but for ours, that made a real difference because they were hearing directly from our employees.

Speaker 20:45

There it is.

Speaker 2 20:45

Right? And so that flowed through, maybe over to the consultant group to say, we hear a lot about this. Here's the trends we're seeing that people are calling for. Here's what they're asking most about. Right. So that also helps just having that direct line to our employees too.

Speaker 20:59

Absolutely. That makes sense. But it's also mm-hmm. Starting somewhere and trust is built over time,

Speaker 2 21:04

right? Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's what, it wasn't an overnight thing.

Speaker 21:08

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Mm-hmm. I think we've got time for maybe two more questions before we, uh, depart. I, I feel like this conversation can go a while, so maybe we'll have to hang back on. Um, the RFP conversation's interesting to me because I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of different consultants out there and a lot of different employers who just do it as. You know, it, it's, it's required and they don't really ever take a look at it. Mm. You described it a little bit differently as more of like a discipline versus desperation. Yeah. Um, and also to be said, I've seen it in the desperation moments where it's like,

Speaker 2 21:42

oh, sure,

Speaker 21:43

oh my gosh, we got a 30% increase. We need to go out to RFP. Yeah. Um, so talk to me about how you all view RFPs and how you go to market for different things.

Speaker 2 21:51

Yeah, I would say we never get to the desperation standpoint because of the way our budgeting is built, right? We can't get to a renew now. We have some predictability of that, but we can't ever work in desperation because we've already decided and are going by that point, it would be too late for an RFP. Um, so we have RFPs going on right now, um, and we do them more, uh, like you were saying, as a discipline. Some sharpening of the pencil certainly. But I think some of it is like mindset. I. Don't always expect savings, though. We would love that and we would definitely welcome savings, you know, and certainly like that is part of it, but I don't always expect it. I expect that we're getting good partnerships from it, that we're learning along the way. Maybe something we didn't know about our own partnership or what other vendors are offering that we can bring back to our current partnership to say, Hey, what's really interesting, we learned this. We haven't seen that from you all, even though we still wanna be with you, could you? Right. I think there's a good thing there just to continue strengthening that and not this mindset of set it and forget it. You set it and forget it. It's going to wear away. Something will go awry along the way and it's not gonna operate the way that you initially wanted it to. And so really the RFP process helps us learn some of that. I mean, we go through finalist meetings. We may not change our incumbent, but we will go through finalist meetings and we'll make sure that what we heard from our incumbent still stands as what we believe in for our employees, both from a fiscal and financial standpoint, and both from an experience standpoint. Those are equally of value to us Now. Of course, if somebody financially brought in something egregiously, savings wise, we might have to consider that. But experience is paramount in our mind, and so we take it all the way through. It's not just a great, they did it, check the box. Um. Process for us. It, it, it never is.

Speaker 23:41

That's great. No, it, it's a, it's a good mindset to have and it, it leads me into one other question before we get into my final one.

Speaker 2 23:48

Yeah.

Speaker 23:48

You talked about, uh, uh, a program that you all did last year called bea.

Speaker 2 23:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 23:53

I think it's interesting with a group of your size, because I. I think we, we talked about that over the summer of last year.

Speaker 2 23:59

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 24:00

By the time I had talked to you next, you were like, yeah, we're doing it. Yep. Um, so talk to me about like the, how you're able to just make a decision like that, because you, most people would think of a big organization as lots of red tape, not able to just pull the trigger on something.

Speaker 2 24:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes it certainly can come up. Um, but, and I know this is kind of funny to say, and you wouldn't immediately think it when you think of an early childhood education company, but we're fairly innovative in how we approach things. We love. To try new things and pilot things, benefits or otherwise, right? Because if we see that there's some inherent value, we wanna see if we can realize that out. And so, as I mentioned before, we're a 98% female population. So something like early detection of breast cancer, which the be of technology offers and they specialize in, was extremely important to us during the month of open enrollment during October, which is breast cancer awareness month, to make sure and, and also understanding. That it's simple. It's easier for our employees to access. It takes away some barriers that many might have to scheduling a mammogram, right? Is not mammography, but to scheduling the regular checkup. Mm-hmm. And so we said, yeah, let's try it. Let's see. Um, and our employees raved about the experience. I mean, again, it was simple, it was timely. They got the results right away. It was non-invasive. Um, and a lot of that comes back to knowing what our employees want too, and like. Thinking about things in a way that just really makes it very simple for them and straightforward and giving them something extra along the way of like, we're gonna provide this to you. There was no cost to our employees. It ran through claims wire. Um, they obviously had to be enrolled in our medical plan. Um, but yeah, I could see us doing that again. We, we love to pilot things because what that tells us then is, okay, that population loved it. That will hold true likely in our other populations, right? We did it at our corporate headquarters. Um, easier to sometimes pilot some things there, um, but certainly as we think about the rest of our employees, certainly on our roadmap to see how we could potentially roll out to them too. Yeah,

Speaker 26:03

I love it. I, I love the idea of just being able to pilot something like that too on a, on a smaller scale than to bring it back to the population. That's a, that's a good.

Speaker 2 26:11

Yeah, we actually did that with another vendor two years ago. We did that with, um, a musculoskeletal provider that we use, um, uh, sword and did a pilot with them and said, wow, the proof is in the pudding. Our employees loved it. We saw great value. There's a lot of bending, lifting, stooping in our industry, you know, caring for children, picking them up, moving them, and, um, and so saw a great value and ended up rolling that out. To all, to all, you know, enrolled employees. So, um, that's kind of another case example of us piloting something years ago and then saying, yes, this works. Let's do it.

Speaker 26:48

That's great. That's great. It's a good strategy too.

Speaker 2 26:50

Yeah.

Speaker 26:51

Okay. I think we got time for this last question where I think sounds people with, um, it's actually on, I don't think it's gonna be the one that you, you think I'm gonna ask you. Okay. I'm ready. It's on your past podcast because that's one thing. I, I think I called out to you when I initially talked to you. Yeah. Um, you've had your own podcast, you've had your own experience, so I guess as you think of who I told you is, is really the audience for this one. From the experience of your own, what do you think from an HR and benefits leader perspective? Uh, that they want to hear more of that?

Speaker 2 27:23

Yeah.

Speaker 27:23

Maybe some stuff that they're tired of. I, I guess just talk to me a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 27:27

Yes. I think, I don't know if this will be a popular answer or not, um, but I have to say if I'm thinking about it personally

Speaker 27:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:35

And. We others, um, are sick of hearing about ai. Okay. Like there's a lot on ai. Listen, I love ai. I think it can do amazing things. I think it's gonna revolutionize a lot of things in the industry of benefits and HR and a variety of areas and can make us. Work smarter, not harder. Right. Totally. And I know it'll continue to evolve and, and will be, but I, I have concerns that we're gonna bypass the critical item for HR and benefits, which is to me, in my words, human relationships and human connections. And that is what my industry of ECE is built on. Yeah. Is human relationships and human connections. You don't have those dynamically working in the right way. It all falls apart from our employees, for our customers, right? For all of that. And so I think we need to dig past what can AI do for us, which is certainly relevant, um, but more of like how can HR and benefits show up in a way that continues to support connectivity and relationships for the real people behind all of the work out there. I

Speaker 28:45

love it.

Speaker 2 28:45

Yeah,

Speaker 28:46

I agree. 'cause you see it everywhere and

Speaker 2 28:48

everywhere. Every article I read is on AI that I get in my newsletters, right? Yes. Um, it's relevant. Hundred percent. I just, I don't wanna bypass and miss something that is also really relevant and, um, which is like the human connection,

Speaker 29:02

right? So, absolutely. Yeah. And even from like a sales perspective, Jamie, you'll probably laugh at this. I, I hear people out there talking about like, AI agents actually picking up the phone and doing full, uh, cold calls, and it's like,

Speaker 2 29:14

oh yeah.

Speaker 29:15

I cannot believe those are gonna be re received Well, but I guess we'll see.

Speaker 2 29:19

Right. I, yeah, I don't think I would really love that. Let we first send this end.

Speaker 29:23

Not at all. But that's, that's great feedback, uh, for the audience. Things not to talk about.

Speaker 2 29:28

Right? There you go.

Speaker 29:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:30

I think it says sprinkle in. Hey, also we're doing this with ai, it super cool, renovated or hip seem to hear things.

Speaker 29:37

Yep.

Speaker 2 29:37

But it's not the whole conversation.

Speaker 29:39

Yes. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 29:41

Yeah.

Speaker 29:41

Well, awesome. Well, I think we, I think we covered most, so I, yeah. I wanted to take a second and say thank you for being on, uh, thank you for spending some time with me and answering some, some what I think are fun questions.

Speaker 2 29:54

Yeah. I appreciate Jordan. It's been great.

Speaker 29:56

Absolutely. All right. Have a great day.

Speaker 2 29:58

You too.

Speaker 30:00

Cool. That was pretty good.

Speaker 2 30:01

Yeah. Yeah. I love it.

Speaker 30:04

Yeah. 'cause we kind of went to the broker one early, which was good.

Speaker 2 30:07

Yeah. I like fluidly. I, I mean, I know your question, so I'm like, let me just start pinging to places.

Speaker 30:13

Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 30:14

Um, and grabbing some of the things I knew I was gonna say, and I'm like, and if we wanna take it further, we could take it further, like wherever, like

Speaker 30:20

No, those were great. Especially with a, I actually was not expecting you to say that. I, I agree with you though, because so many people are leading with it. Yeah. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut this part of the recording. So my, my company doesn't see this, but like even my own company, they're like, you need to use AI for everything. And I'm like, it works and I will for most things. Mm-hmm. But like, mm-hmm. For me to search something in our CRM and then create an email, I'm just gonna do it.

Speaker 2 30:45

Right. I just, I just worry about like, are we losing some of like that Yeah. That personal nature of us. Yeah. Right. Of like, and we're just slapping on some canned out word words that come from chat or cloud or whatever we're using and. I don't know. Like, I mean, I have some grave concerns about AI in terms of governance too. I'm not gonna take it there, but you know what I mean? Like

Speaker 31:08

no, same here. I mean, you, you saw how it all went down with anthropic and, and I think open AI and were fighting for the government role.

Speaker 2 31:15

Yes. I just read that and I was like,

Speaker 31:18

yeah.

Speaker 2 31:19

Yeah.

Speaker 31:19

Well it's also interesting 'cause I have some engineer friends, uh, who have like been front end developers their whole, whole career.

Speaker 2 31:25

Yeah.

Speaker 31:26

Their jobs are basically gone right now. Yeah. See that just, I can do it.

Speaker 2 31:30

It's, it's, it's crazy, crazy, crazy. Again, I feel like it's so, like N-I-N-A-I-N-A-I.

Speaker 31:37

I know. I know.

Speaker 2 31:37

But then, okay. But, and I don't ever think like it'll replace. Like a actual hr, actual, like, you know, the work you're doing, but

Speaker 31:44

I don't think so.

Speaker 2 31:44

It's not even about the like job like security kind of things. It's more about like, are are we gonna just like lose ourselves in the AI that we forget about why we're here and doing the things we're doing

Speaker 31:55

that I think so, but I hope not.

Speaker 2 31:57

Yeah, I know. I

Speaker 31:58

hope that I've also

Speaker 2 31:59

read a little bit from that, but I know I'm saying I'm gonna be the early reader to be like, Hey,

Speaker 32:04

I know, I know I said

Speaker 2 32:05

it, I said it.

Speaker 32:05

I'll have to send you this article too that I found it was, yes. Actually, one of my, one of my colleagues made a joke about it because a lot of employers are just building like AI agents to build all the code behind everything. And there articles out there talking about how that's just gonna crash everything soon.

Speaker 2 32:20

Yeah.

Speaker 32:21

So that's a little, again, that's a little scary.

Speaker 2 32:23

Grave concerns? Grave concerns.

Speaker 32:25

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. No,

Speaker 2 32:26

that was my like counter-cultural little like hot take there.

Speaker 32:31

No, it was a good one. It was a good one. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being willing to do this. Yeah,

Speaker 2 32:34

totally.

Speaker 32:35

Maybe down the road. I mean, we didn't get to a lot of questions. It'd be fun to have you back. But

Speaker 2 32:38

yeah, I'm open to that. Just keep in touch, so Sounds good.

Speaker 32:41

Cool. Alright, Jamie,

Speaker 2 32:42

all thank you again, Jordan. Talk to you soon.

Speaker 32:44

Bye.

Speaker 2 32:44

Bye.