How The Heck Did You End Up In Workers Comp?

So, how the heck did you land in workers’ comp? I’m just going to guess and say it probably isn’t something you dreamed about as a kid.

One of the challenges we are facing as an industry is how to attract the millennial generation. If none of us dreamed of being here, how did we all end up here? If we can understand where we’ve been it may help us understand where we are going.

Answer this short survey to share your experience https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5WLRGKG. I’ll publish the results next week.

For me, I studied accounting and computer information systems at Indiana University. I’m not sure I even knew that workers’ compensation existed. When I first got started working with Becki Shafer (she is my wife’s Aunt – http://tinyurl.com/hfjxtle) doing research and small projects, my thought was “sure, I’ll help you out with some projects to make a couple extra bucks, but I’ve already got things figured out with my career path”.

We Never Know What Journey Our Career Will Take

Of course, we never know what journey our careers are going to take. The more I worked with Becki the more I liked it and found it made a lot of sense to me. Working with Becki, the projects and responsibility of working with employers on cost containment best practices continued to grow and it wasn’t too long until I decided that workers’ compensation was the perfect career for me.

To the outside world it’s an industry that seems completely foreign with a different language and an interesting dynamic of stakeholders. Once you start working in this industry it takes a while to figure things out. Becki was, and continues to be, a tremendous mentor for me. Without her help, teaching, and guidance, my career and interest in workers’ compensation would have started and stopped quickly.

What we do in this industry is incredibly important. We make an impact on the lives of individuals at a time when they are feeling the most vulnerable. And the reason it was so easy for me to decide that workers’ compensation was the right career is I learned that doing the RIGHT THING actually costs the employer the LEAST amount of money. Act with HIGH INTEGRITY, and you will get the BEST RESULTS. It’s just too good of a concept to pass up.

However, after being in this industry for many years now, what I’ve realized is that not everyone has the luxury of having someone like Becki as a mentor. So many get thrown into it and are expected to produce results with little to no training and guidance.

Workers’ Comp Newcomers

Because of this fact I am inspired to share the lessons I learned working with Becki, so I have spent the last 10 months in the creation of the Workers’ Comp Newcomers Course. I’ve designed it as a comprehensive introduction to workers’ comp cost reduction and injury management systems for employers. It is designed specifically for employers and insurance brokers working with clients that have the goal of reducing workers’ compensation costs.

I took everything that I needed to learn entering this industry and broke it down into bite-sized lessons that average about 10 minutes each. In our fast paced, demanding world, flexibility and accountability are critical components to learning. The course is mobile-enabled and spread out over 8 weeks, with 2 weeks to complete each of the 4 modules. Each lesson has a short quiz to self-test comprehension and a final exam that requires 75% to achieve the certificate of completion.

I hate to even count up how many hours are invested in the creation of this course, so I’m very excited to finally release it. The first class starts Monday, August 22nd. Find out more here: https://workerscompclub.com/wcnew/

Author Michael Stack, Principal, COMPClub, Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their work comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder of COMPClub, an exclusive member training program on workers compensation cost containment best practices. Through these platforms he is in the trenches on a working together with clients to implement and define best practices, which allows him to continuously be at the forefront of innovation and thought leadership in workers’ compensation cost containment. Contact: [email protected].

Do not use this information without independent verification. All state laws vary. You should consult with your insurance broker, attorney, or qualified professional.