Heather Grimshaw: Welcome to Absence Management Perspectives: A DMEC Podcast. The Disability Management Employer Coalition, or DMEC as we're known by most people, provides focused education, knowledge and networking opportunities for absence and disability management professionals. DMEC has become a leading voice in the industry and represents more than 20,000 professionals from organizations of all sizes across the United States and and Canada.

This podcast series focuses on industry perspectives and delves into issues that affect DMEC members and the community as a whole. We're thrilled to have you with us and hope you'll visit us at www.DMEC.org to get a full picture of what we have to offer. From webinars and publications to conferences, certifications, and much more. Let's get started and meet the people behind the processes.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Yeah, I think for me it was the opening session. We had a keynote speaker, Manley, on Monday, and he really emphasized the importance of having a human connection and really living in the experience. He suggested maybe instead of reacting with frustration, as we might do if things aren't going quite right for us, that we take a deep breath and we really just consider other things that might be going on or that the individual might be going through that we're interacting with. And I think his advice on creating safe spaces was a great concept.

And then getting someone on belay, just so that you had someone that was there to support you. I thought that was particularly impactful and really his approach to challenging beliefs in a respectful way, of course, and then asking the right questions to elevate the meaning of our experiences was great. Kristin, what did you think?

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: I. I agree with you. I think Manley's session was so, it was such a great way to start the week and I so many of his, you know, lessons really resonated with me. I love that you mentioned the ask the right questions because I, I find myself being guilty of not doing that or not being as thoughtful around the questions that I'm asking to get the information I want.

And totally coincidentally I came home from conference and in a totally unrelated conversation about something, my husband, he just being difficult and it was like intentionally jokingly and ended up saying to me in the conversation like, well, you didn't ask the question you wanted the answer for.

And it really took me back to that. It's in all aspects of our lives, but it's so true. Like I think we get.

ketamine, we get FDA approval. And that hasn't happened yet. It's still, you know, on en route or still being worked on. But these sessions are always just so fascinating to sit in the room to see people see us learning about how it works. I think a lot of people, myself included, the first time I, you know,

first started learning about these treatment pathways, come into the room with a lot of biases and a lot of preconceived notions around what it is, what it means, and kind of feel like they have some opinions on it. And you really see light bulbs come on for people when they learn about how it's really structured and what goes into it and how it works. And it's just. It's fascinating to see. I think we're going to see a lot more in that space as that progresses. It's exciting to see the changes and what's kind of on deck and what we might be able to do around treatment for some really severe behavioral health conditions and the possibilities that are out there.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: I agree. You can sit in a room and you can just see the audience. If you're kind of looking through there, you can see when they're invested. And then like you said, those light bulb moments.

Heather Grimshaw: Really good points, and I agree, Jess. I always love going from room to room and seeing which rooms are full and listening to the questions that are asked. And I think that it's really telling to see how employers are reevaluating and reassessing and looking for different resources. So it's always an interesting experience.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: You can also, I think, see the. I'm sorry, Heather.

You can also, I think, see the sessions in this. That one comes to mind that really get at people personally, too. I think a lot of us know someone, have been impacted by, have ourselves dealt with behavioral health conditions that are pretty significant. And hearing about some of the success of some of these treatments, it's life altering. It shines a light at the end of what can be a really dark tunnel. So I think it's exciting, too. You sit in that room and you think about the possibilities for your workplace, for your employees. But it's really hard to sit in that room and not also think about your personal life and the people who, you know, who are, you know, impacted in your lives and what might look different. And it just, it feels really invigorating and exciting. And it's, I don't know, the optimism shines through that. And I think that that's really, really refreshing to have little slices of that.

Heather Grimshaw: I think that's a great point. And I love the words that you used, invigorating and exciting and refreshing, because I think to provide those potential alternatives or complementary approaches is so important, especially now when we see increasing demand for behavioral health services in a realm where there's sadly not a lot of existing resources available. So it was a great session and I really appreciate that. And I think it ties in with what Jess mentioned earlier about that human connection and that experience. And it really is such a personal space. So it leads me nicely into my next question, which was what was different about this conference than previous experience? Experiences in terms of the conversations maybe that you had with speakers or participants, Attendees, I should say, sessions you attended and the roundtables you participated in. And Kristin, maybe we can start with you here.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Sure. So I felt like the conversation in the roundtables and the networking was really, really vibrant, but I don't think that's necessarily new or different to this conference. So there was one particular session, though, that did stand out to me as just kind of having a little bit of a different feel, and that was around AI. We had one of our general sessions around kind of the guardrails and considerations around AI that in and of itself didn't surprise me. But what did surprise me was it really just felt like there was a different feel from the audience, if that makes sense. And I don't necessarily was just kind of a feeling I had in that session of I felt like people have, you know, we went from being kind of excited and a little buzzy about AI and the possibilities, knowing that there's concerns, knowing that there's considerations. There's certainly some always been caution around it. But I think more and more we are hearing about and learning about pitfalls with AI and rightfully so. There's a lot of opportunity for, and I don't say opportunity in a good way, but a lot of opportunity for systemic issues with AI use if it's not, you know, kind of shepherded carefully in our organizations. But I just felt like some of the wind was maybe out of people's sails a little bit around AI. And I feel like not that people aren't still engaging with it.

In fact, I would say the opposite. I actually recently saw. So KPMG did a global study on AI earlier this year and we found that, you know, a lot of people are using it, but in fact in their, in their workplace. And six out of 10 employees admit to making mistakes in their work due to AI errors. And they also said 4 in 10 people or over 4 in 10 it was 44% knowingly use AI improperly at work according to the study. Which was mind boggling to me. I mean just. But I think it's indicative of where we are with AI. I think people know there's a lot of opportunity and possibility with it, but they also know there's a lot of concerns. So it kind of has turned into. In the interim until we know what to do with it, we're kind of feeling like we're seeing sneaking around behind our parents back a little bit using AI. And I don't think that's a good situation for anyone. It makes me just really double down on my excitement for the AI think tank that's happening in our community this year in the absence and disability management community. And I think there will be a lot of. I think it's just so. It's so needed and we need someone or a collective someone to come in and kind of give us some tools to use AI properly, some measures. I mean we're not, I can't speak for everyone in our industry, I'm not a techie person.

And so when you tell me here's this tool at Your fingertips. You could use this to manage these claims. You could use this to track hours or assign tasks or perform some complex,

you know, HR functions. But then you also tell me, but if you make. If there's an error in, in how it's programmed or the algorithms behind it or what it does, it's gonna. It could create this systemic issue and discriminate and have these. This bad impact. Boy, I don't even know where to go from there because I don't know the questions to ask. I don't know the ways to make sure that my guardrails are in place because that's not really my strong suit. That's not my purview. So we're working on some things to really help people in this space so that we can confidently use these tools and keep our programs, keep our workplaces moving forward and keeping current and keep efficient. And I just think that really that's going to make a big difference. But I definitely felt a different tone, a different vibe with, with conversations around AI at this conference than I have in the past.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: See, I wasn't in on that particular session, but I kind of agree with you. AI, I think prior to this conference was more of this shiny big new thing. And now people are like, we really gotta figure this out. Like, not only can it do these great things, but they realize the other things that it can come from it. And it's. I don't know, I think it'll be good to put some parameters and I don't know, figure it out more. I think at the conference this year, I almost am going to disagree with you a little bit on the conversation because that was one of the things that I noticed when I was in the roundtables and the sessions. I found that this year there were just so many more that were willing to speak up and share and they were so collaborative. Not that the conferences prior to this weren't collaborative, but there was just a lot of openness in that sharing. And we were working through issues and they were sharing. Well, this is in my plan and we've included this in our policy and this is the way we gone about doing that. Or we'd be talking about a topic, whether it was a, you know, a session or a roundtable and they would be sharing their experiences with that as well. So I thought that the, the meaningful exchanges and, and the discussions, like everybody was really invested in it. And I thought that was kind of a little different feel from other times. Sometimes some of the sessions are maybe a little more quiet. This time there was so much input that was going in there from the attendees and.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: I have to give you some credit for some of that too, Jess. I know in the first time attendee orientation you did such a good job because you, you host that session of, you know, really bringing people together who obviously everyone in the room other than the ambassadors and the staff, they were first time attendees to our compliance conference. And then you also kind of helped bring people who were alone at conference together and kind of start right out of the gate kind of connecting people. And I think that makes such a big difference in that conference experience overall. And I think that's so special about coming to DMEC is that, you know that it is, it's really approached thoughtfully and really trying to make those connections. And we hear a lot about the people who have been coming for years, those connections, that it's like coming back to a family reunion and reconnecting. And I just felt like you did such a nice job of really creating that space for those first time attendees and in particularly those people who are traveling on their own.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Well, thanks. And I was in one session where there was a crew, they were all sitting kind of in the back corner and they were chatting back and forth and topics were coming up and I was like, do you guys all work together? I asked them afterwards and they're like, no, we just met. But the way that they were chatting and interacting, you would have thought they knew each other for years. So yeah, I like the connections and it is cool that I think that we get to have them meet people right away because you're right, it is hard to go to a conference on your own.

I don't know, for me it's a little intimidating to walk up to someone and just meet a bunch of strangers.

Heather Grimshaw: Jess, I love the fact that you mentioned the meaningful, I think you said meaningful exchanges and sharing solutions, which is also one of the hallmarks of DMEC conference. So when you think about the changes to compliance in the last, let's say five years,

what is it that's the most challenging for leave management professionals? And how do conferences like this one provide support? So I know that's kind of a huge question to ask since there are so many challenges for leave management professionals. But I'm hoping, Jess, you can start us off with,

with a few examples.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Sure. I think one of them is just the Alphabet soup that you're served when you're trying to navigate this ever changing landscape of this compliance regulations. As you've got the state leave laws, you've got the PWFA, you've got the ADA, you've got the FML. I mean, all the policies that businesses offer. I mean, back in the day when I was case managing, I had it pretty easy, I guess. I mean, it didn't seem so at the time, but I focused on ADA, I focused FMLA, I had short term, I had some long term, some work, but it's so complicated. And I think that was one thing that I heard over and over again was just those challenges. And it's kind of why I wish everyone knew about our conferences, because I feel like we, we have those supports, we have the professionals there,

they bring their insight in, they share all of the, this information,

whether it's through a case study where they can really focus on analyzing specific examples, which I think helps you to take back that, you know, for experience. It helps you take back that when you go to manage your own cases. But we also had the roundtable discussions where there was that open collaboration. Again, I just feel like that's something or that's maybe how we do our part to provide support as DMEC.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the same. For me, it's, I think the most challenging is really just the, there's so much to balance and get right and it's really,

it's just dizzying.

Heather Grimshaw: I like the reference to Alphabet soup and the, the Alphabet soup being served. I think that's. Now I'm, I'm getting hungry even thinking about it. But that's not, that's not an appealing thing to leave management folks. So what's one takeaway or new information? What that you both will continue to research after this conference. Kristin, you talked about the psychedelic treatment session and I'm hoping that you'll share a little bit more about some of the continued learning that you'll do after the conference.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Yeah, absolutely. Certainly, I think all of us at dmac, but just continuing to keep an eye on where that goes. We are still waiting to see, see if and when some of the psychedelics get FDA approval. I, I think in the meantime, a lot of the communication around it is education. Most people, when they think about psychedelic drugs, they're thinking about, you know,

magic mushrooms and things like that. And they're thinking about. They have a different perception that probably comes from younger years, kids doing drugs recreationally. And it's not anywhere in the realm of what we're talking about in this space around regimens of treatment for specific conditions and very monitored and controlled administration and the work that is done following the administration of the treatment to rebuild those neural pathways in a healthy way. So I just, I think there's a lot of education and I feel like, you know, there is already a lot of stigma around mental health and I think this aspect of treatment in particular will also come with its own, you know, stigma.

There was a court case in the 6th Circuit last year and Chapman vs Brentlinger Enterprises and essentially the court found that an in loco parenthesis relationship can be established in adulthood.

It doesn't have to mean, for instance, where the employee is acting in in loco parentis to someone else, say a sibling or something like that. That relationship, that in loco parentis relationship does not have to be established in childhood. They didn't have to be, you know, 15 years older than their sibling and kind of providing day to day care. It can come about when both siblings are adults and one sibling has a serious illness or injury and requires a level of care that might qualify the relationship for in local apprentice. So that was, that kind of threw open the doors I think, on in loco parentis and how we assess that and how we consider it under the FMLA. You know, I think we oftentimes think of FMLA as kind of our tried and true leave law. You know, it's not, it's newer than ADA, but it's been around for a while. It's very regimented. We feel like we know the ins and outs of the FMLA because there's a lot of guidance for us around that. And this just kind of shows you, you can't sit back on your laurels. There's always new court cases or new developments or new opinion letters or interpretations. There's these laws even kind of are more bread and butter ones, keep us on our toes still. And definitely in loco parentis was one that had a lot of people buzzing. And we came back with some ideas around some member resources that we are going to work on this year to help support employers in their assessment of, you know, doesn't in loco apprentice relationship exist and so,

you know, stay tuned there. It's kind of still in the idea phase, but we anticipate getting out at least one or two resources around that this year. So I think, you know, that's always exciting for us to go to these conferences because that wasn't on our list for member resources. We're really focusing in on some of our member resources this year and putting, you know, new ones out pretty frequently. I will tell you that wasn't on our list, but it got bumped right up toward the top at the conference.

So it's always fun to. To be in that environment and to get those ideas and to. To, you know, be agile and adjust what we're doing.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: So you're saying that one wasn't on your bingo card?

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: It was not on my bingo card. But I tell you what, it's. It's. It's.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: It is not.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Jess, what about you?

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Um, well, I think I sat through the DOL session and they went over some of the opinion letters and to kind of hear the why behind and. And the information,

you know, the thought process that goes in behind them. I found that to be great information just to have that perspective. But one other thing that kind of stood out to me was, I guess it wasn't as much new information, but it was kind of be cognizant of how you're presenting your information.

It was like, see the glass half full instead of seeing it half empty. And I remember doing this as a case manager. I'd always try to kind of focus in on an individual's abilities rather than their disabilities.

We would acknowledge what they couldn't do, but we'd really spend that time and focus on what people could do. And they might have to do it a little differently, but they could get it done.

How. How could we work together to get it done? And some of the presenters shared some great examples on their approach to this or how you could utilize this in your case management daily.

And one of them was explaining accommodations. They're not like, don't look at them as an accommodation. Look at it as an exception. And this, it kind of rang bells for me. It took me back to the day when everybody wanted a sit stand desk. And I remember talking to a manager and they were like, if you give one of my employees a sit stand, sit stand desk, they're all going to want a sit stand desk, all of them. And the kind of the way that it was framed up in this presentation was,

you know, look at this as an exemption. This is something that they need They've got the documentation here for it and in this particular case we're going to give them the sit stand desk.

And sure, you might have to give out other sit stand desks, but it'll only be if they're needed, like if there's documentation for them. And it was kind of turning that, I don't know, conversation almost on its head, like just reframing and reminding that these are needed things for them to do their job.

Not this is hitting my budget and I don't want everyone or not I don't want, but everybody wants a sit stand desk. Was. And that was just back in the day when I was case managing.

Heather Grimshaw: I think that's really helpful. I did hear several speakers talk about the need to reframe that approach and I think the reference to focusing in on what people are able to do is such a good message for listeners instead of focusing on what someone may not be able to do,

whether it's temporary or long term. So I'm curious if any of the information that was shared during the conference surprised you this year You've both talked about the opportunity to learn both from the speakers as well as from the attendees, which is really valuable and would love to hear if there were any kind of surprises I can start.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: So I don't know if I should say surprised necessarily, but I'm often taken aback by the things that companies or managers will do or say and then the hefty fines that can result in these missteps. So if you hear me say that I enjoy sitting on those legal yearly wrap ups.

Well, you're right, I do. But there were several ethobell cases that were talked about in one session and they focused around that honest belief defense. And there were highlights of the importance of, you know, documenting your reasonable beliefs and then providing the training to everybody that needed it and, and the potential consequences of the mismanagement. Some of them were like they were million dollar fines and 350,000 in punitive damages to go along with those. And instances though where it was kind of the flip side of that coin where the courts sided with the employers because they had the documentation or they had taken the time, you know, to really think things through before they active or acted. So kind of that taking yourself out of a reactive situation and really focusing in on the right things or the things that needed to be considered documenting them,

um, that was one of my takeaways for there. I don't know, Kristen, if you had anything.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Well, and I would actually just piggyback on what you were saying with those court cases, they're always really startling. I think the year in review session is always. Those cases are always so interesting to hear about. Everyone's always feels like they're at the edge of our seats. And I think Jacqueline Kugel, she is at Brown and Joy, and she did such a nice job of really tying each one of those, not just with, here were the findings and here were the damages and the. What it cost the employer. But here, you as the audience, here's your takeaway, here's what you do with that.

Just really coming full circle with that was so valuable. She did such a nice job with that session, I thought. But it really struck me when I was sitting in the audience and you hear the gasps when you. When she goes through the case facts of what the employer did or what the, you know, what the case manager said or what the. What the case manager did, kind of the flow of the process. There's these gasps in some of the cases of, you know, oh, my gosh, I just can't believe that someone would do that. And when we sit in a room, you know, a year, two years, however long after the events have unfolded, and we have, for one, we have all of the facts at once. We have no bias or additional noise, you know, other. All the other information that's extra that kind of just clouds things. We don't have any of that. We just have the basic cultivated facts and presented very succinctly. And the cases seem sometimes so egregious. Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes there's some that you're like, well, it's a little borderline. Some of them seem so egregious when we read about them and when we hear about them sitting in a room. But I think what we can kind of lose sight of is that they're often trickier when we're confronted in the moment when we're in that seat. I think we make a lot of assumptions. We hear the facts, we make assumptions around, well, that was a bad manager, or that was a bad case manager. Um, I think I've always liked this Stephen Covey quote. I think. I think it's Stephen Covey quoted or credited with this, but it's. We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior. We hear about this behavior, what they did next, what their course of action was, and we think, oh, my gosh, like, they're awful. I would never do that. My team would never do that. But the fact of the matter is, when it's the employee that has. Is constantly giving you grief, is constantly late, pushing the boundaries, questioning things in a way that feels kind of destructive rather than constructive. It's. Or when there's just more information or you don't have all the facts in front of you,

it can be sometimes easier than we think to make missteps. You know, there was a case where that was talked about where an employee's schedule was changed. She worked in a retail setting and had a developmental disability and having a shift change was. Was really difficult for her. And I think she missed work and ended up being terminated and requested an accommodation or she had previously had an accommodation. I think to have a set schedule that went away. I, you know, it's just. It seemed really egregious when we heard about it. But if you think about some of our structures, when you think about a centralized intake team who might not know all of the information or who, who they're not in there working with, her understanding necessarily all the details. Now, should they have gotten that and asked the questions? Yes, but sometimes we know things move too quickly or things get missed. And I don't know if that's the case with this case, but I just to kind of point out there's sometimes different sets of facts or details that can blur. Those things that do seem so egregious after the fact that can be trickier. And I think it really underscores the need for us to continue to engage in training and education. And really going back to the very beginning, Jess, when you talked about Manley's session for our keynote, you know, asking the right questions and challenging beliefs and,

you know, all of this really ties together and I feel like is just so necessary. There's just. It's so much more complicated than it seems on paper sometimes.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: And theoretically, yeah, I agree. I was going to mention that as well. Like, ask the right questions, take the time. You know, it's easy to sit back and look at it afterwards.

They always say, what is it? Hindsight is 20 20.

Heather Grimshaw: I think you guys see that regularly too, during webinars, right? The DMEC webinars, when, when presenters will pose the polls or questions to the audience. And you have these leave management professionals chiming in and you see the variation in answers, which shows, as Kristen, you mentioned that need for ongoing education and training, which is.

I love the polls. I love the questions. That's always one of the things to me that highlights the opportunities. And speaking of questions, Kristen, you always do such a nice job during the conferences of Being that emcee facilitating the conversations and also teeing up questions that are asked by audience members for the speakers. And so would love to hear what some of the most popular questions were and which ones were voted up, so to speak. I'm using air quotes here since these are submitted through the DMEC app.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for the kind words, Heather.

It is always fun to see the questions, to see what really resonates. And as you point out, people can vote them up, so they have limited numbers of kind of votes. They can give in an amount of time. And if questions in there they really like, they can kind of throw some points to it and vote it up. And you know, there were a small handful of questions that got thousands of. Of points, which usually we'll see. You know, 500, 400 is kind of some of the higher ones. And, and there were some well above that, more than doubled and tripled. And I. It's in local apprentice questions were really popular in.

At this conference and I kind of spoke to that case earlier that kind of opened this back up for us and, and made it feel a little weedier than I think it has in the past. And, and so that made sense in light of that court decision from last year. And then people always love to put in some specific scenarios. I think that gets a little trickier because depending on the session, I often can't ask a super specific question. Now, ask the experts, some of the gloves come off a little. Not gloves come off on that one, but some of the guardrails come off a little bit. And that kind of gives me a little more flexibility. But we, we try to make sure the questions are applicable for a lot of people in the room and, and really engaging for people. But people do love to put in, you know, certain specific situations that they're dealing with and, and get some guidance. But just generally speaking, if I was going to say one bucket of questions that got quite a few votes and quite a bit of interest, it was definitely in loco parentis.

Heather Grimshaw: Okay. And then just to wrap us up today, I'm hoping to hear what inspired you about this conference. I think earlier in our conversation today, you both mentioned the opportunity to see people connecting and feeling energized by different sessions as well as messages, and would love to hear some specifics if you're willing to share. And Jess, maybe we can start with you on this one.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Sure. Yeah. And as you mentioned, I think for me, one of them was seeing those connections being built and just the open discussions and really when information was provided and people were having these discussions, just kind of the empathy that was built into that.

I think people that are working in our field, they really want to do the right thing. And you could hear that in their responses or in the information that was being provided.

I had written down one thing in my notes, and it was from Rachel Shaw's session. She had mentioned something to the effect of, you know, you have an employment life cycle, right, and you have your employees, and if they're going to stay with you for 20, 30 years, you're going to have them at their best, but you also have to be willing to care for them when they're struggling. And she said it took some of that, and then another portion of it was that you had to remember that we're all human and we're all imperfect. And this was emphasized, you know, it was in Manly's opening session. But the focus on creating these safe spaces and challenging beliefs and, you know, celebrating small victories, I think that you could see in so many of the different sessions and just in so much of the conversation that I heard going on there. And I think that kind of practical insights paired with that, actionable strategies, you know, just shared throughout the conference, it really reinforced the importance of how, you know, the continuous learning and being willing and able to adapt to these,

you know, especially well, being able, willing and able to adapt in this field of compliance. I think that is one thing that really stuck out to me.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: I. I would agree. And I think definitely just the. The energy of this particular group of attendees, you know, these are the folks who are really parsing the details and the nuance of the leave and absence and disability landscape. And they're really managing those intricate details of programs, whether it's them directly or them, you know, kind of managing groups who do that. But seeing them get to come together with one another and connect on,

you know, really finding their tribe and talk and reconnecting with their tribe that they've already established is just. There's such a great energy around that. And I think that's a lot of fun and that's really inspiring. And I think it always recenters us. And I know it does me on the why on the why we do this work and why it's so important. And I think all of the sessions really did such a nice job of.

Of kind of bringing that back home for us as well and also thinking about, you know, why we approach things the way we do those asking the right questions and challenging our beliefs. Again, going back to Manly session But it came up for me over and over through the week. There was a session where Matt Morris from ComPsych gave some statistics around a staggering percentage of employees who are working in hybrid work environments. And they're engaging in what they call coffee badging. And so essentially what it is is it's, it's making their presence known at the office. They come in, in the morning, have a couple cups of coffee, you know, make sure they say some loud hellos, and make sure their presence is known for 30, 40 minutes because they're required to go to the office, you know, two or three days a week, and then they go home and they work from home for the rest of the day. So it's really kind of a performative appearance in the office. But what that, what, what that kind of brought up for me is the why are we asking the why and the things we do. Are we asking the why and changes to our absence programs or our policies or what we will, what we think we can and can't do as an accommodation?

Because the coffee badging is just one example of that's a, you know, representative of organizations who. That felt the need to come back hybrid. But why are they really getting the value of that hybrid work environment that they think that they need? If employees have found a way to kind of work around that and they're actually still working from home, they're just showing up at the office for 40 minutes. While that's not specific to our space necessarily, it certainly does have impact in our space,

but really kind of resonate or what it really kind of brought to light for me was we can learn a lot from our quote unquote offenders. The people that, and we know every, every. They're everywhere. The people who kind of skirt the system or find ways to make the systems or processes work for them.

We have a lot of systems and processes in our space. There are some people who are finding this kind of sneakier things to do in there to make them work for them. Are we taking the time to ask the questions about those and learn from those? And there's opportunity that comes from that. It is very frustrating, but there's opportunity that comes from identifying those situations. When that occurs.

And what do we learn? Sometimes it's just we learn that our policy needs to be tightened up or our practices need to be tightened up. But sometimes we learn that what we thought was so critical or that our belief around what we needed to do or what we could or couldn't do maybe isn't as accurate as we Thought so maybe we need to ask some of those challenging questions or challenge our beliefs around that and look at it a little more openly. So that was kind of taking a situation that maybe isn't ideal necessarily, but finding the silver lining in that and the learning from that. And that always is to going kind of fun, I think.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Yeah. I had that similar experience in one of the sessions that I was sitting in. They were talking about leaves and how you could stack them all together and people could be gone for so long. And one of the questions that came up was like, how do we kind of get our arms around that? Or what do we do? And one of the attendees just said, we just tell them, this is everything that you have and this is all available to you. These are the different ways that you can use it. And there were some audible gasps in the room, like, you do what? And. But she went on and she explained why and it was. She really. I mean, they were. Not that we don't all. But you have the employee there. And she said, they're going to take this leave anyway. They're entitled to this leave. It's better that you tell them how they can do it or figure out how they're going to do it so that you can prepare as an employer as well. And that was kind of the approach that she took to that. And afterwards they were all like, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But at first it was like, you tell them everything, like all of it. And it was. I mean, just the after of that conversation was like, aha. There were light bulbs that turned on in that room.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: I love that.

Heather Grimshaw: Light bulbs. Yeah. I sat in on a conversation about caregiving. I think There were about 11 or 12 people in the room. And it's very similar, Jess. People would start talking about the different caregiving leaves that are either being considered or have been tested. And some of the other folks literally leaned in and were like, wait, start from the beginning. You know, I think it so true. Yeah. It brings us full circle from the vantage point of so many opportunities both to learn from.

From the presenters on the main stage, as well as your colleague sitting right next to you and remembering one of the things someone said to me, I think it was the first morning that it's such an exciting opportunity to learn from people who you can talk to instead of above, from the vantage point of knowing what you do, the challenges you have, and then providing you solutions like you're just talking about there. So I so appreciate the opportunity to hear your takeaways from the conference and did want to just wrap up our conversation by mentioning the DMEC is preparing for the virtual compliance event on June 4, and did want to flag the fact that the agenda is live, and several of the sessions that Jess and Kristin have mentioned today are listed in this agenda. So we'll include the website information in the notes section and encourage everybody to check out the agenda and join us on June 4th.

Jess Dudley, CLMS, CPDM: Thanks.

Kristin Jones, CLMS, PHR, SHRM-CP: Thank you!

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