2023 in Review: Workers' Compensation, Absence Management and HR with Brian Allain

Bill's guest this time is Brian Allain, CEO at the Insurance Education Association (IEA Training), the org on a mission to empower professionals in Workers' Compensation, Absence Management and Human Resources.

Listen as Brian shares his reflections on developments in the industry, and what HR professionals and leaders can expect in 2024.

Brian and his team help optimize the career potential of those in compensation, absence management, and HR through certification programs, classes, and webinars offered in on-demand and instructor-led formats. In the conversation, Brian highlighted some of IEA's significant achievements in 2023. For example, the organization successfully expanded its certification programs -  in both on-demand and instructor-led formats - providing professionals with significantly more resources to develop skills and knowledge. 

Questions for Brian include: 

• You joined IEA in late 2021. As you reflect on your first couple of years in the role, what are you most proud of?
• Specifically in 2023, what were some of the big achievements?
• What were some of the big developments in Workers' Compensation, Absence Management and Human Resources in 2023?
• What does 2024 look like for IEA?
• What events will IEA be involved with in 2024?
• What are your predictions for trends in Workers' Compensation, Absence Management and HR in 2024?

IEA Webinars in 2024

IEA Training has a cool catalog of webinars lined up for 2024, covering a spectrum of topics crucial for HR professionals. From practical skills workshops to in-depth discussions on regulatory changes, these webinars promise to be a valuable resource for those seeking continuous professional development. Professionals can explore the comprehensive webinar catalog on IEA's website for a glimpse into the diverse offerings. Learn more here. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HRGazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Bannum. Joining me on this episode is Brian Elaine, ceo over at the Insurance Education Association, aka IEA Training, the organization that empowers professionals in workers comp, absence management and HR to optimize their career potential through leading edge certification programs, classes and webinars offered in on demand and instructor led formats. I've had the chance now to work with Brian and the team for gosh about six months. I think we've been doing things together. They are wonderful people. They are making a difference to the world of work. Brian, it's my pleasure to have you on the show today.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Hi. Thanks, bill. Yeah, really excited to be here.

Speaker 2: 1:12

I was thrilled when we connected earlier in the year and started talking about doing these together Beyond my reintroduction there, Brian, why don't we start by getting you to introduce yourself a little bit to our audience? Take a minute or two and tell them a bit about you, your career, background and what you get up to now?

Speaker 3: 1:29

Sure, my career path has been interesting. I actually graduated college with a Parks and Natural Resource Management degree. I went and worked in the forest for a little while and realized I would rather be a part of society and ended up moving back to Southern California to be with my family. Once I arrived here, I was bouncing around from sales job to sales job, not finding anything. That was really exciting to me.

Speaker 3: 1:55

When I had met my now wife, she gave me a recommendation to an organization called Professionals in Human Resources Association, better known as PIRRA. Luckily, I was able to get a job there in business development and helped with all the sponsorships and advertising and membership and built my career there for 10 years up to COO of the organization. During that time the California Work Comp law firm Michael Sullivan and Associates was doing sponsorships with PIRRA. I got to know some of the team there and help them with their sponsorship packages. When IEA was acquired by Michael Sullivan and Associates, I was one of the names on the list to offer an opportunity to run the company. That's how I ended up as CEO of IEA Training. Now I'm a couple of years in and I'll be honest before I was offered this opportunity I never expected the CEO role was right for me. I really thrive in the number two spot, but after a little time in this chair I've really found my way and I'm really enjoying the job.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now back to the conversation.

Speaker 2: 3:28

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, shameless plug here. Listeners, if you want to learn more about PIRRA, check out episode 306 with Raphael Rivera, who's the CEO over there. That's quite a while ago that I recorded that one with him. Okay, brian, let's continue through here. So you joined IEA in late 2021. We are recording this in December. This is an episode that's going out at the very end of December. We're reflecting on what's happened this year and what's going to happen next year. As you look back on your first couple of years, though, in your role one that you mentioned just a moment ago that you didn't know if it would be right for you, but actually you're thriving in it. What are you most proud of so far?

Speaker 3: 4:13

Well, there's a few things, you know. We really kind of kind of slowed down a little bit and looked overall at our products, our core offerings, our design. Our team really just evaluated everything about IEA To try to determine what had happened. Why was IEA struggling, you know, in the near past? So took a look at everything and you know, one of the things I've done over the last couple of years is built a really strong team. We have a great small team that's supporting all of our students. We have strong design. We have strong marketing. So the team building was really important and we've got a very solid team now.

Speaker 3: 4:54

Another really important part of it was the content and design updates to all the IEA courses. So there's a transition, obviously, to a lot of on-demand learning and you know there's a certain expectation of production these days. And then, of course, all the content needs to be continually managed, updated and reviewed. So we've done a lot of that and happy to say that at the end of this month, beginning in January, we'll wrap up our final revision projects for two of our big courses. And then the final thing I want to mention is the brand and technology updates. We spent a lot of time with the branding firm. We modernized our brand and made it more inclusive, and we just launched a new innovative learning platform this year, which makes it better for us to manage the school for our students, but also it's just a better and more modern experience for the people that are learning with IEA.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Okay, so this is an episode which is reflecting on 2023 and looking ahead to 2024, as I mentioned a moment ago. So, in terms of specifically in the year of 2023, brian, if you get to point to one major, major achievement, the biggest thing that you're proud of, what would that one thing be?

Speaker 3: 6:07

I've got to say it's building this team. You know the importance of your workforce is. It doesn't go unnoticed and if you get the right people in the right seats you can make a lot of really great things happen. So, even though we've had a lot of big accomplishments, you know, with growth and with products and with courses, still I think what I'm most proud of is the team that we have together right now.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Let's look back on this year 2023. It's been a mixed bag globally politically, but in the world of HR and absent management and workers comp and whatnot, there's been things going on there. What are some of the big developments in those areas that you guys have seen in the year of 2023?

Speaker 3: 6:58

Well, it seems a lot of it has to do with workforce. You know it's. It's a really challenging time. There's been a lot of changes happening over the last few years with the workforce, so Our audience usually HR professionals, work on professionals.

Speaker 3: 7:15

They're the ones that that are seeing the most change in that. So, with the, you know, adapting to an evolving workforce. You know I don't have any claim, I won't claim any predictions on AI, but it seems clear that it's going to be a big part of everything and, considering how quickly Technology has advanced over the past couple of decades, we're not gonna have long to adapt. And so I think, worldwide that's that's a big issue, not just to our industries, it's something that we need to be ready for. And then another big one, specifically pertaining to work, comp and Absence management, is the remote work. You know, we have a lot of companies trying to bring their work first back, but a lot are gonna remain remote and it's just a Different environment for an HR department to work with when you have remote employees, even locally or all over the country, all over the world. It is a changing workforce and I think that's probably the biggest impact I've seen over the past year. Brian rightfully.

Speaker 2: 8:18

We can't record an episode of the HR chat pod these days without talking about AI, of course. It's such a huge. It's such a huge impact on on our personal lives and and what we're doing within the world of work. Let's look ahead now to 2024. If that's okay, we will get into some specifics in the moment around, for example, the events that you guys gonna be involved with. You've got an amazing list of webinars already set up for next year. But before we do that, just at a top level, what does 2024 look like for IEA training?

Speaker 3: 8:53

well, I feel like 2024 is kind of like our Official launch year, you know. So we did come out as a new organization. Iea of past was a nonprofit Association. We have relaunched as a more modern e-commerce for profit company.

Speaker 3: 9:12

What that gives us the ability to do is really invest in our technology and in our overall product base. So 2021, 2 and 3 we've done a lot of building. We built the new brand, the new platform, or revising the courses or bring things up to date. We're trying to find new content to put out there, releasing free webinars all the time. So we've done a lot of that, but what it's all prepared us for is 2024.

Speaker 3: 9:39

So I think the two big items that will be focused on in 2024 is one this Certified professional and disability and absence management certification course, we have better known as CPVM.

Speaker 3: 9:52

This is the nation's only certification course focused on integrated disability and absence management and it's available and targeted not only at the Frontline staff in an HR department but also the C-suite, because it talks about how to integrate you know, the approach to managing your employees absences and disabilities in the workforce, but it also involves strategies and practices aimed at effective handling short-term and long-term absences, disability claims, return to work programs.

Speaker 3: 10:28

The integrated approaches is something that a lot of people are adapting to and we are going to push nationwide with our certification for that to make sure everybody's ready. Another focus for 2024 that content related and you mentioned our webinars is. We do have something that's coming up for the paid sick leave laws, known as California Healthy Workplaces Healthy Families Act, and they're increasing the amount of paid sick leave employers are required to provide California employees effective January 1st. So we partner with Ann Cousy from Tellus Health to make sure that this information is pushed out properly to our audience, and she does have a webinar coming up December 13, but it will be on available on demand if you miss that date.

Speaker 4: 11:26

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Speaker 2: 12:02

Okay, another shameless plug here. Then Check out I think it's around episode 650, I want to say with Ann from Tellus Health, a great person, lots of important information shared on that episode. Anyway, this is a conversation with you, not with Ann, so let's continue through for now. Okay, so you mentioned the webinars. Let's talk a bit more about those. You've got guys with so many webinars planned already who lost to you guys having all that set up. Tell us about a few of those that you're particularly proud of or you feel like you're a bit different, might test some boundaries, might make people think in different ways Any webinars you particularly want to highlight to our listeners today.

Speaker 3: 12:48

Yeah, I'll mention a few coming up, but first I'll let you know that when I first came on board with IEA Training, there were some webinars going out and for a small fee to see the webinar. But it seems to be in the market. There's so much free content out there that it really was a hurdle for people even a $25, $49 webinar. We looked at it and we thought why are we doing this? Why are we charging these small amounts and making this more difficult for people? What we run now is every other week we run a free webinar and it's available to everybody to join and you can earn CEUs from them and great content. Let me just do it as a service to the industry. So I'm really proud of Martina Quinn, our marketing manager. She puts together all of this content and coordinates everything here and already for next year we're starting off strong.

Speaker 3: 13:43

We have a new Medicare reporting mandate webinar that's impact on your workers' compensation settlement. That will be taking place on Valentine's Day, february 14. In January you can watch the 2024 Medicare penalties and how to avoid them. That's going to be on January 10. And there's also the new laws webinars coming up, which we do release a first run of them in December, but they are replayed and also available on demand. So we have the new workers' compensation laws of California coming up with Dave Chikati, which has been a longtime IEA supporter and provider, and then also the ANKZ webinar. I mentioned the state leave laws changes for 2024 and beyond. Once again, that's on December 13, but it will be available on demand after that if you don't get to it by then.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Okay now that there is a select group of people out there, believe it or not, who still like to get together in person. Brian, I know this because I've run a bunch of in-person events for HR pros and leaders and recruiters and such around the globe in the UK and Canada and the US and places and it does still happen, even though we live in a world now post pandemic, where people are much more comfortable with technology. But from your side, from IEA training side, are you guys going to be exhibiting after attending any events in 2024? If so, can you share any of those with us?

Speaker 3: 15:17

Yeah, absolutely so. Over the past couple of years we've tried out a few of the conferences here locally and some HR conferences. So we do like getting out there, we like connecting with our peers and our customers, our students. So we will be participating in many conferences in 2024. Just a couple to highlight here in California we like to go to the Elevate Conference, CCWC and EWC. So those are our three main conferences for work here in California We'll be attending. Being a past member of Pira and staff member of Pira, Of course I want to support them, but also I want to bring my new company to that community. So we'll be participating in the Pira local events and then the Pira conference. And then last year, for the first time we went out to Shirm in Las Vegas and we had a really great time. You know it's such a big conference. I was concerned, you know, being a bit a small fish in a big pond, but we met so many great people there and we had a great experience. So I'm looking forward to Shirm 2024 as well.

Speaker 2: 16:32

Okay, brian, we've just got a couple more minutes here left for today, so before we wrap up, two last quick questions for you. Firstly, anything else, and what I mean by that is is there anything else that you'd like to share in terms of what IEA training is getting up to in 2024?

Speaker 3: 16:49

Yeah, it's something really exciting that we've been working on, mostly, you know, for the California workers' compensation market.

Speaker 3: 16:55

But we fill the gap out here in California for the industry, because over the past couple of years we've heard everybody complaining about finding adjusters how do I hide?

Speaker 3: 17:06

Or qualified adjuster, and what we've found is that our certification course, which satisfies the state requirement to become a work comp adjuster, is exactly what they need.

Speaker 3: 17:20

So we found a lot of customers or a lot of companies coming to us asking for some type of training package. So in 2024, we're going to be rolling out the California Work Comp Adjuster Certification course. What's great about it is it integrates the company's internal training along with IEA training and we have different schedules where we can run it for six weeks, 11 weeks, 15 weeks where we're using IEA content to go from Work Comp 101 to the claims practitioner and workers compensation certification course which qualifies them to be an adjuster, and then to the SIP exam prep course which qualifies them to be a self-insured adjuster. This package together satisfies the hours required by the state, and what it does for companies is it helps them build loyal and strong adjusters from the ground up, whether it be your administrators or you're hiring a group of 10 new emerging professionals and putting them through a training program. The results have just been excellent, so watch for that program in California coming in 2024.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Wonderful. And just finally for today, brian, how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe that's through LinkedIn email I bet you're super cool and all over Instagram and TikTok and places. And, of course, how can they learn more about IEA training?

Speaker 3: 18:47

Yeah, I don't know how people find so much time to be so active on social media, I've got to say. But you certainly can find me on LinkedIn. It's slash brianrlain, but if you just search Brian Elaine IEA, you'll find me. I do have a social media for Instagram and also Facebook. However, I honestly don't visit them very often. As far as our organization, you can find us at IEATrainingorg. That's our main website and if you ever want to ask any questions of us or you're interested, you can go to our website. We have a live chat feature so you can chat with some agents there and ask some questions to make sure things are right for you. Give us a call at 800-655-4432. Or you can always email us at our general email at info at IEATrainingorg.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Perfect. Well, that just leaves me to say for now, for this time. I'm sure we'll get you on again soon, but for now, brian, thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR Chat Show. Thanks, bill, I appreciate it, and listeners as always, until next time, happy working. Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1: 20:04

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