The Role of Gratitude in Workers' Compensation

This lack of trust negatively affects our ability to do business and prevents us from living the most fruitful lives we possibly can . So how do we fix this ? Well , like everything else in life , it's a process that includes many pieces , but since we're coming up on Thanksgiving , we're going to focus on one of the pieces proven to increase trust . It's gratitude .

Yep , according to some recently published studies , one of which is in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences , by being grateful you can develop greater trust for others . And how does this translate into the work comp world ? Well , this week we're going to talk to Debbie Hammer .

She's a specialty claims consultant and assistant vice president at Woodruff Sawyer . She'll share a little bit of the why and the how behind building trust and how it helps everyone involved in the work comp environment .

I've been in the claims world and workers' comp claims for about 35 years , started off , actually as a vocational rehabilitation counselor , where I was really an employee advocate helping injured workers get back to work , and then I made myself , you know , kind of go into the claims world when Voc Rehab went out , california did away with that and so I became a

claims adjuster and worked my way up to supervising . I handled catastrophic claims and ultimately I ended up over here on the broker side with Woodruff Sawyer being a claim consultant and what I do is I am a claim liaison for our clients .

I'm a go-between between our clients , which are our employers , our employers who we set up workers' comp coverage for with various carriers and their claims adjuster . So I kind of like to see myself as a peacemaker . I provide claims , technical expertise and I oversee the claims .

But we're going to be talking , I know , about trust and gratitude today in the claims process and I really see myself as a peacemaker these days and really am motivated to try to bring people together in coming up with claim solutions that work for everybody .

Just overall , things seemed very tense , and I know that they still are , of course , but I think we rolled through the election , at least in a much calmer way than I think a lot of people anticipated . And you know , I think a lot of what made people feel uneasy is this easy ?

Is this what seems like a continued degradation of trust within people , you know , families , within businesses , and that all really rolls into all the things that you deal with on a daily basis , and I deal with in workers' compensation .

That lack of trust seems to be everywhere and you know , as we were talking about , because we're rolling into Thanksgiving now , right , so we wanted to see if there was some kind of a way that we could bring this lack of trust into gratitude .

But I'd like to ask you first , tell us a little bit about what you see as that growing lack of trust kind of in the workers' comp world . Like , talk about what you're seeing .

I'm seeing people spin their wheels and a lot of burnout , and definitely all of these things are causing a degradation of trust in the workers' comp system as a whole and between all the different people who are caught up in it , specifically employers , injured workers , claims adjusters . There's others as well .

Remember , we also have medical providers and nurse case managers , attorneys on both sides , so there's usually no one person or factor that is responsible for when claims go sideways . There's many things that control how a claim file goes . There's the adjuster , the treating doctor , there's other medical specialists and more complex claims .

Then there's the employers , attorneys , judges and the employees , laws and the complexities in workers' comp are really multifactorial , I would say . But unfortunately , what people do often is they blame and they look for a scapegoat .

I think it's easier to do this mentally because it helps people simplify a complex situation and we have a lot of those in workers' comp but it's really no one's fault and the finger pointing is only going to further erode trust . So you know , I'm seeing an issue between employers and their adjusters .

In that relationship there's sometimes a lack of responsiveness by the adjuster , by either the adjuster not replying timely or not really answering the questions being asked . Maybe they're being evasive , they're not being thorough and there's different reasons for that Sometimes the adjuster's caseload is too high .

Reasons for that Sometimes the adjuster's caseload is too high . Sometimes the adjuster needs more technical claims training or more customer service training . Other times it's time management or all of that on the adjuster side . And then there's sometimes challenges on the employer side as well .

The employer may have certain expectations , for example , about how quickly or how often the adjuster should respond and give updates . If the expectation is within the hour or if it's weekly updates , it's probably not going to happen because in most cases very little changes in a claim file week to week .

So the demand for too frequent updates is just going to be counterproductive . But regardless for an employer , not having a claim go the way they think it's supposed to go , whether the expectation is reasonable or not , decreases their trust and confidence in the adjuster's ability to manage the claims .

So then what happens is the employer puts pressure on the adjuster , sometimes micromanaging them , without even being aware of it , but this in turn leads to adjuster burnout and the adjuster then will mistrust the employer . So again , the problem often is a combination from both the adjuster side and the employer side .

The adjuster needs training and then the employer also needs some level setting , and then there's also a deterioration of trust that my team is seeing between injured workers and their employers , and there's other factors that contribute to this .

Some are involving lack of understanding , again on both sides , about what workers' comp is , what benefits are covered , what is the process , what are the laws .

And you know we don't expect injured workers to have a technical understanding because they're lay people , but we do expect that HR leaders would have some technical knowledge and unfortunately it's not always the case nowadays , because HR managers often come from non-work comp backgrounds , you know , like payroll or accounting , and while they may be well-versed in other

employee benefits , they often lack experience in workers' comp . So what happens is when people don't understand something , they will fill in the gaps with assumptions , and those assumptions are often unchecked and faulty and they create misunderstandings and relationship conflicts'm breaking down the mistrust , breaking down trust . Um .

So another problem I'll say one more problem is turnover and staffing shortages . We're seeing it especially on the claims adjusting side , but it's really everywhere , including on the HR side . This is creating delays in response times . So the injured workers aren't feeling the love , they're losing faith in both their adjuster and their employer .

And I think what makes this problem worse is the increased sense of entitlement and urgency among younger generations . That's a whole , separate subject .

You know , obviously I think when you think of mistrust at least when I do within the workers comp world I think mistrust between the injured worker and the insurance company right , that's like the number one , like oh , they're trying to not pay me what is owed to me , right , and that's like the , that's like the original line of mistrust .

But when you brought up employers and adjusters and employees and employers , that to me gets a little bit deeper into . It seems almost like it all comes down to communication , into . It seems almost like it all comes down to communication , right . I mean obviously here at re-employability .

There's a lot of moving pieces in what we do with regards to placing injured workers into nonprofits and from a sales perspective . One of the things I've learned here is it is better to manage expectations on the front end than it is to try to fix things on the back end .

So , even from a sales perspective , I would rather be upfront and transparent to a prospective client and explain to them what this really is and what it really isn't and let them make the decision .

If they want to move forward with it , then Because I would rather you be satisfied knowing that and my experience has been most people when you just communicate with them and say , listen , you know , maybe not in these words , but hey , I'm a human being , we are imperfect people and this is what we can do for you .

Although there may sometimes be hurdles , people understand that because it puts us all in the same place .

Right , I am not perfect and nobody here is , and I really like having this conversation because anybody hearing this just realizes if I can just be a real human being to another real human being on the outset , a lot of times that'll overcome some of this trust .

Have you mentioned or have you noticed that a lot of this decline in trust has it been kind of since COVID ? It feels like COVID kind of just put a wrench in our machine somehow and as we came out of it , things just didn't boot up properly . Does that make sense ?

But there are ongoing residual effects in many areas of life and one of those areas is workers' comp and insurance .

You know , one of the increases or one of the problems is an increase in litigation , and what I've seen happen is my theory is that the reason why there's more litigation now in comp is because during the pandemic , the shelters caused many people to be out of work , with less workers , there were less injuries , so applicant attorney firms were losing money , they

were losing business and when things started opening up again , they had to recoup their losses . So they increased their marketing budgets and they started telling injured people , injured workers , that they needed to have an attorney represent them in their workers' comp claim , which is simply not true .

No one needs to have an attorney represent them , which is simply not true . No one needs to have an attorney represent them . So that's one area that I think has been directly impacted by the pandemic . Another area is remote work . Employees who are working remotely aren't interacting with their managers as much .

And I know that employers have made efforts to replace in-person interaction with virtual interaction , but I don't think it's been consistent and it hasn't been enough . So we know that behind a screen is impersonal and we know that building and maintaining trust in relationships requires regular communication and face-to-face time is always better .

I think that more workers are feeling isolated and social disconnection can make people suspicious . I like to call it Twilight Zone paranoia that's the name that came up for that .

One of the things we run into is , I can recall before the pandemic , we would go into a carrier or a TPA's office and there would be 20 , 30 adjusters there and we'd bring them lunch and we'd do a refresher course as to what our program is and how it can better them and better their clients . And we would have interaction .

And I could see the guy that was up in the right-hand corner on his phone while I was doing my presentation . And so there's ways , as a presenter , that you can bring people in and be more creative and fun with your presentation to hopefully engage people and get them to understand the benefits of what you're doing .

And when you're on a Zoom call , I've done Zoom or Teams presentations for hundreds of people and you don't know if that person is there or not because nobody's got their screens on , or if they do , you know who knows ? But nothing will ever replace shaking somebody's hand and introducing yourself .

And maybe I'm just an old guy , but I do not believe that we can go 100% like what we're doing right now . I would much rather be in the room with you , debbie , having this conversation and meeting your folks and those things . You're absolutely right . I think that interaction is key to building trust , for sure .

Right , so I can control what I can control , and part of what I can control is some tools that I can do to to increase my level or ability to trust other people .

And one of those things , again as we go into Thanksgiving , is is gratitude , which , believe it or not , there are some studies that actually show that , by doing gratitude lists , those types of things help you become more trustful to the people that you're interacting with , whether it's family people or if it's people within business .

Have you had any experience with gratitude and developing trust with your clients ?

Actually , I'm not even kidding , I have a gratitude journal and I find that that is really helpful for me , and I do think that when an individual can reflect on what they're grateful for , they can become more trusting in general of people and society .

You know , gratitude and trust are both positive emotions , so naturally they will flow from each other in alignment . But I also think that it's difficult to have gratitude for something or someone if you don't already have trust in the system or person you were trying to be grateful for .

So I think that building trust is a prerequisite , or at least very important , to genuinely developing a sense of gratitude . Gratitude and I think that this is the situation we are in with the many different relationships and players in the workers' comp system , all the ones we've been talking about I think that there's also prerequisites to building trust .

So you know the importance of regular interaction like we talked about , facetime is important Responsiveness and being timely and thorough in responsiveness . And then , you know , to your point , setting clear and reasonable expectations .

And I agree with you wholeheartedly , it's all about positive communication , you know , and I think that the feelings of gratitude and trust come with reciprocity . I think that if I appreciate you , chances are you probably appreciate me too .

And what I have found is , when a lot of these things stem from conversations , I'm so grateful for my dogs , because if it weren't for my dogs , my wife and I would not take evening walks almost every evening , right ?

So when the dogs force us to take a walk together , we have conversations , and a lot of times those conversations are about things that we're dealing with on a daily basis at our work and things , and and I'll come to her and ask her you know , what do you think about this ? And she'll ask me what do you think about that ?

And it forces me to put myself in the other person's shoes when it's difficult for her to do that , and she does the same thing for me , and we're able to help give a perspective that maybe neither one of us had seen from that other person . So I mean , I'm super grateful for that .

And it's those little things that when I'm sitting down to make my gratitude list that I'm going , you know , maybe I need to sit back a little bit more and realize those little things on a daily basis that really impact what your outlook and perspective is for the rest of the day . Right , what are talk a little bit about some .

So obviously you're interacting with employers and you're kind of that . You're kind of the bridge or the glue between the employer and the carriers and TPAs . Are you actively involved in brokering peace or brokering trust or helping others understand the perspectives of the other party ? How does that work with what you do ?

And then it's clear communication . I think that kind and clear communication is the key . Let's see some of my tips and tricks around building better communication and trust . I think education is a big one and at Woodruff Sawyer we do a Workers' Comp 101 presentation covering the basics for our clients , at least annually . Sometimes we do that more often .

We also hold webinars on specific topics like legislative changes , those things . We try to make education and information a part of our claim reviews , where we're not just talking about the status of individual claims , we're clarifying general legal issues and processes .

We're clarifying understandings of our clients and what we need to clarify more for them , giving realistic estimates for certain actions to be completed . You know people need to know that workers' comp isn't a bullet train .

It's more like a slow kiddie train zigzagging along through the park and it's not a great thing , but it's our reality and we have to accept that and do the best we can .

It takes time for injured workers to get medical appointments set up , it takes time to get the reports back from the physicians and it takes time for the work comp boards to schedule hearings and approve settlements .

So again , all we can do is take control of what we can and be as proactive as we can , and I think that education and information do help create realistic expectations , which then builds trust possible . I am honest with my clients about options and strategies .

If a client makes a request and I don't see the request as reasonable , I will tell them so and I'll explain why . You know we're not here to sugarcoat and tell people what they want to hear or make promises that can't be kept In the long run . That won't go well for anybody and it's just going to break down trust In the long run .

That won't go well for anybody and it's just going to break down trust . So I think that people want honesty , even when it's not the answer that they're looking for .

And it's super , super important , even if you're an adjuster and you work with a lot of construction companies and you've heard it all from every construction company before . Right , ask the questions , even if you think you're going to know the answer , because chances are , every once in a while there's going to be something new that kind of piques your interest .

And if you can ask that question and repeat the answer back and dig a little bit deeper , it shows your client , it shows the injured worker , it shows the doctor that you are paying attention and that you do care about their needs , and then you're going to do what you can do to meet those needs .

Even if you're not going to be able to provide everything that they want , at least you're showing empathy and transparency and care . And it sounds so easy , but it comes down to one human being talking to another human being and being grateful for the opportunity that we have to serve each other .

So I think we as consultants are in a position to nurture these positive relationships . And definitely back to your point about just checking in making sure everybody understands and is on the same page and you know , seeing what needs to be clarified , what information people still need , what questions do people still have , and seeking to answer those questions .

I think we move so quickly through claim reviews . It's all rapid fire , it's a lot of abbreviation and lingo and we're not checking for understanding as often as maybe we used to in the past and as often as we should .

Those things are very important and soliciting feedback from people to make sure their voices are heard and do they have any special requests that can be accommodated .

Let's not go two years .