The Work Wire
Right to Disconnect - The Work Wire
Join Johnny C. Taylor Jr., President and CEO of SHRM, and Bob Goodwin, President of Career Club, on The Work Wire as they discuss California's proposed "right to disconnect" law. This episode challenges traditional views on work-life balance, offering insights into the benefits of allowing employees to truly recharge. Dive into the nuances of work-life integration versus balance, and explore the impact of state regulations on productivity and employee well-being. The conversation examines the work culture at companies like Samsung and the effects of strict disengagement policies on career growth. Emphasizing the importance of flexibility and clear communication, this episode highlights the need for a transparent and adaptable work culture in the modern workplace.
Join Johnny C. Taylor Jr., President and CEO of SHRM, and Bob Goodwin, President of Career Club, on The Work Wire as they discuss California's proposed "right to disconnect" law. This episode challenges traditional views on work-life balance, offering insights into the benefits of allowing employees to truly recharge. Dive into the nuances of work-life integration versus balance, and explore the impact of state regulations on productivity and employee well-being. The conversation examines the work culture at companies like Samsung and the effects of strict disengagement policies on career growth. Emphasizing the importance of flexibility and clear communication, this episode highlights the need for a transparent and adaptable work culture in the modern workplace.
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Bob Goodwin:Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin and welcome to another episode of the Work Wire where I'm joined by the President and CEO of SHRM, my good friend, johnny C Taylor. Jr, johnny, how are you Great? So good to be here. My man, it's really great to see you today.
Bob Goodwin:So a recent law got passed in California called the right to disconnect, and it's basically saying that companies need to leave their employees alone after work hours. This comes on the heels. I've done a little bit of research in anticipation of this. France, italy, spain, belgium, a number of European companies have had a policy similar to this in place since I think France was 2017. So something like that.
Bob Goodwin:But the basic idea and maybe particularly since the pandemic, with so much work from home coupled with, you know, these guys, smartphones and everything else and the ubiquity of Wi-Fi is that you know, we've kind of, in some cases, fallen into an always on culture Right and so now I don't leave the office. The office is in my pocket Right and so now I don't leave the office. The office is in my pocket Right. That's when you can. You can text me, slack me, email me, whatever teams has got Like. I'm always on and, in theory, always available, but I may not want to always be available.
Bob Goodwin:California, in the spirit of work life balance, has basically said hey, employers, back up, like you need to. Like, give your employees some space and you need to not be in touch with them electronically or otherwise, during non-work hours, unless there's an emergency or something that's got a 24 hour fuse on it. And then if you're naughty and you keep doing this to somebody, it's a three strikes and I won't call it, you're out, it's three strikes and you gotta give me a hundred bucks. So the teeth on this are not super strong. But, um, I'm curious from your perspective. What are the? What are the pros and cons of this? And I might have a different opinion, perspective. What are the?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:pros and cons of this and I might have a different opinion. How can you say what are the pros and cons? And I'm going to have a different opinion.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you both sides. I'm a really balanced guy.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So just to be clear, it's not yet law. It has been proposed in California and we affectionately refer to it as the People's Republic of California. So these things start and we at SHRM are watching it because obviously, if it catches on there, if it becomes law there, there's a good chance that these things move east. They start in the United States. It's our version of what we come out, see, come out of Europe. Listen, the idea of allowing people to separate from work, to disconnect for a while so that they can recharge, is an absolutely noble idea. Got it and, frankly, employers shouldn't have to be told to do that anyway. I don't need a law to tell you, because human beings are not machines and a machine can work 24, 7 and then even at some point it's going to die and burn out. But you'll replace that. We've decided as a society we don't want to do that to human beings, right?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:well maybe they keep going, run them until they die, like we rest our athletes, we rest our employees, like we rest human beings. In fact, if you want optimal performance, you know that rest matters. So let me just start with employers, and sherm in particular, fully understand the importance of getting work-life integration. I don't know if it's balanced, because the problem with balance is it suggests you work nine hours and the other you know what is that nine, 15 hours of the day are yours and that's the balance. It doesn't quite work that they're going to be days when you work 20 hours and then they're going to be two or three days where you don't work any and you have time off to recharge. So balance, as you know, is a phrase I don't really like talking about in the context of this.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I think you have to integrate it and we have to be mindful of the fact that our people are only there only at their best. Our athletes are only able to perform optimally if they've had rest. So the concept don't disagree with. I obviously disagree with the policy decision for A the government to intervene once again in the employment relationship. Right, because the funny thing about it is we do have employment at will and if an employee feels like they're working too much, that employee can always go work somewhere else, take their wear somewhere else, and so. So and I know there may be some people saying it's not that easy, but it is kind of that easy we just went through a phase Remember this all started in 2017 in France and then started coming across the pond when we're at 3.9% unemployment right.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:We do have choices, and so one. Just this notion that the state will insert itself into what is a relationship between an employer and employee is a little bothersome to us. But secondly and the wonky lawyer in me says, OK, define an emergency. Yeah, you know that that's really really the question. You know, if the systems go down, for example, and I have to call someone on a Saturday morning, is it an emergency? And I have to call someone on a Saturday morning, Is it an emergency? If the systems are likely going to come up in an hour, is an hour? Is it worth interrupting someone's dinner or breakfast on Saturday morning with their family? I don't know. But the state making that determination means we're going to clog our courts or administrative hearings determining was this really an emergency or not. So I just think practically this, trying to define what an emergency is, is interesting. And then, finally, the biggest struggle is it's for me, is it is going to further distance that relationship between the manager and the employees that they manage. If I need you on the weekend, as long as I don't abuse you and take advantage of you, I should feel like I should just call you.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Hey, Johnny, I thought about this. I had this good idea. I'm innovating. We don't just innovate Monday through Friday, nine to five, we innovate at all times. And I have literally. Maybe I'm at fault for this, but I'll call it employees. I got an idea. It's a Saturday afternoon. I don't expect the person to pick up and stop what they're doing, but if I could have a thought partner for the moment and I want to noodle I'll call and say hey, Tina, my chief marketing and branding officer got this idea. If she said Johnny, I'm out with the kids right now, or a text in response to my phone call, can't talk right now, I'm with my family, or whatever, that's a different conversation. But I shouldn't think I just got fined for that, because otherwise we have an artificial sort of work environment. And it's back to your point, the point that you made. It used to be that you worked and you went home. We're going to date ourselves. Bob, Do you remember? I remember working before there was even a beeper right.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So when you left, you left, you were not, no one was able to contact you. And then the beeper came about for people who had beepers. And now you're right, we are on 24-7. Technically, we're available 24-7. And that's just how work has evolved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so we're like no, no, no no.
Bob Goodwin:No, we're going to. Let's go through this, because you know, like you, I'm a huge fan of work-life integration. The way I talk about work-life balance is that implies that they are in conflict and we're just trying to minimize the conflict.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That's right.
Bob Goodwin:So that's not healthy, that's not good for anybody. So when you're working and you're outside of work-life mesh, well, you're going to be healthier, you're going to do better work and you're probably going to stay at that job longer because it fits your life, that's good, right. So highly agree with you on that. The the emergency thing yeah, that's in the eyes of a beholder, I mean. I guess if you're, you know the utility company and you know you just had a cyber attack on the grid or something. I mean I think we could call that an emergency.
Bob Goodwin:Our biggest client sent me a mean email and, like I want to talk about it right now. It's like setting emergency, maybe it's, it's still going to be there and nothing we can do about it over the weekend, probably. So can that hang till Monday? You know, I think one of the great features is delayed send on email, right, so I can be thinking about it, I can be noodling and I want to get something in front of Tina because I've got another one of my brilliant ideas. I want to get in front of her. But I can delay send and say I type out my whole email and I say, but don't send it right now because she's going to feel an obligation, because the CEO just emailed her to all. That's on her that she's checking her email, that it showed up on Monday morning at eight o'clock. Okay, work hours and it's all cool. So emergencies, you're right, are totally in the eyes of the beholder.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Can I just kind of? I know you got another point you may have, but on that one, the example that you used, clients unhappy is the weekend. Does it really matter if you deal with it on a Saturday instead of Monday? It could.
Bob Goodwin:It could Depends on the nature of the business.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Well and forget even the nature of the business. It depends upon the nature of the client business.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Well and forget even the nature of the business. It depends upon the nature of the client. If that client expects you to respond to them and if you haven't responded from Saturday, they think it's an emergency. So therefore, if you have a client, it is an emergency. And so if you think in, you know objectively, no, that wasn't really an emergency. But that client now doesn't renew that multi-million, $10 million contract because they think you're not responsive. I'm not so sure that long-term is good either. So that's part of the problem is how are we to define what it's an emergency in and of itself? Objectively, was that situation urgent? No. But if the client thought it was urgent and the client will therefore tender their business somewhere else because I didn't respond, that is urgent, no no, no, I don't disagree.
Bob Goodwin:It depends, like like virtually anything that we talk about, it's contextual and you just can't make blanket statements that well, an email from your biggest client is or isn't important. It depends. Isn't important in the market? Yes, depends. I'm curious because you talked about the manager and I don't know, maybe you know this In this proposed thing, is there any exemption for if you're an executive at the company versus you're not in an upper management kind of a role?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Right. So that's one of the conversations is are we going to exempt management? Is this only to rank and file, et cetera, and even that creates all sorts of issues. I think, ultimately, the suggestion is that we will exempt management, but then who is management going to go? Well, so check this out.
Bob Goodwin:Here's the marriage of all three of these things. Is Samsung? You may have seen this too. Samsung's the marriage of all three of these things. Okay, Is Samsung? You may have seen this too. Samsung just announced that they've decided their whole business is in an emergency crisis mode right now and they are moving to a six day work week.
Bob Goodwin:Yep, right In some cases, starting right now. And you know they're reinstituting uh executive. So if you're the, the president of some division or business unit of theirs, saturday morning meetings, hope you enjoy them, right. And so an emergency. And that's a global company so you can say what about that? South korea, like, that's like no, no, no. Samsung america is a huge organization, right, and now they're part of samsung. That said no, this is how we roll. Now we're on a six-day work week. What about everybody who's in california?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:well, and and that and you know, listen, you just described. One of the other problems is that, as you operate on a global business is how do you make this work? Now, california may say that's fine, but if you operate in California, then this is the way we operate, in which case companies will then have to make a decision that are you going to continue to operate in California? So I think that's a risk to employers and employees. If your company decides this I'm just I can't do this and I'm going to go move across the border to Nevada or another state then that may be the consequence, so there'll be job losses in that state, and that's another thing that I don't think we can underestimate.
Speaker 1:I do want to talk.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I know we're not supposed to be talking about Samsung today, but you brought it up Because I think it underscores the point that I made in the beginning Six-day work week, for as a standard way of business, I would argue, does not give. Now I'm going to be fair. I don't understand how they are defining that, but human beings do need downtime and rest time and time away from work, because we're not machines, and so I think decisions like that are responded to by legislation like the proposed legislation in California. Is there like OK company? You probably have gone too far.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:It's one thing for the business to operate six days a week. It's another thing for an individual to operate six days a week and have to be at the top of their game maximum productivity, efficiency, accuracy, et cetera. So I do worry when I see headlines like that because, listen, we want human beings to enjoy work and life and, mind you, I didn't say balance, but we have to get this right, and two days seems about right, and some you, I didn't say balance, but we have to get this right, and two days seems about right, and some would argue three days, and we've talked about the four day work week Of course it's interesting.
Bob Goodwin:You've kind of got your kind of polar opposites on how people are thinking about that, but you know there's some unintended consequences for this from the employee's perspective. So it's like, oh, I assume this is enacted Now I've got, in theory, legal protection. You know, like, johnny, quit calling me on Saturdays, keep your brilliant ideas till Monday, please. I'm living my life, I'm resting, I'm doing whatever I'm doing. However, however, if Johnny calls me he's got a brilliant idea and he wants to kind of just noodle it out a little bit, and I take the call and Johnny's like that was a great idea, bob, you know, and just makes me like Bob more.
Bob Goodwin:And Bob, bob becomes more of a go to guy guy for me, like like who's getting promoted, yep, who's getting recognition, who's getting dragged into the more important projects? Is it the person that you know is taking the call, answering the slack? You know responding to emails on the weekend because they're more committed, they're more passionate, they're they just, they're whatever more that I want more of as the employer. So I can, you know, there's also the opting in and opting out, you know. Back to my point, like, if tina chooses to open the email or not, right, well then, don't open the email, stay out of email, like, if you want to be left alone, be left alone. So I think, though, that, for employees, you need to think about this a little bit too of how important is work to you and you.
Bob Goodwin:How do you want to draw the lines in your life, whether california draws them for you or not?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:that's my point, the whole point you make. This is the essence of it. So that's my point, the whole point you make. This is the essence of it. So if we know how this works, if there are people you can count on they're your clutch players, using the language of sports Right, that becomes my go to player. That's the person I pay more. That's the person I give different opportunities for promotional opportunities. That's the person I can count on to get things done. That's the person I can count on to get things done. If you make yourself unavailable, literally artificially, like I don't talk on Saturdays and Sundays, great. Well, that means that call that you may have gotten for the plum assignment goes to someone else. I'm not penalizing you. I'll accept that. That is the way our relationship is going to work Not going to fire you, not going to. I'm going to give you your good bonus, your regular bonus, et cetera.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:But Mary over here who does respond when I would like her, within reason. It's not three o'clock in the morning and it's not all day Saturday and Sunday but she is there to get. Guess what? Mary gets the next promotion. Mary gets the opportunities, the visibility with senior management, with the board, et cetera. Because I'm up on a Sunday preparing for our board meeting on Monday and you, tina, are unavailable because you choose to be, and the California now has said if I call you, I've got to give you 100 bucks. So I said, ok, I'll call Mary. She's perfectly fine with it, wants to do it, wants to be in the throw of it. You cannot, 10 years later, say, I wonder why Mary's a CEO and I'm not. Well, that's how this all works. So there's this bit of this stuff. We have to be really careful At some point. Coaches and that's what I think of CEOs as ultimately coaches and talent motivators and we're going to go to the player who's our clutch player making yourself unavailable artificially over your days off will not likely make you the clutch player.
Bob Goodwin:Maybe, maybe I got our sequence of events out of order here. It's just going all the way back. What is the perceived problem? Just the magnitude of the perceived problem that this proposed legislation like are just masses of people saying, hey, my boss calls me on the weekend all the time.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That's what we can't figure out, like, where does come from? Because we are in an environment where more people are working hybrid than ever you know. Think about pre-pandemic. You're working, coming to the office overwhelmingly Monday through Friday, nine to five or eight to seven, right. And so now we know that people have been allowed to integrate work and life in ways over the last three years that they've never done historically, so it's better by definition.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:We also know that because of the great resignation and quiet, quitting and turnover that employers began to take into consideration that we needed to be better employers. So we have not been. You know, just drive you until the point that you quit, use you and replace you, because we didn't have anyone to replace you. So companies have been. So I will say that's the thing that got me. I was like where'd this come from? Where did it come from that you thought that it required, of all of the big issues confronting the workplace right now, that this was something a California legislator or two thought was a good idea? Like this is one of the top five things that we need to fix in the workplace is the right to disconnect, yeah.
Bob Goodwin:I guess for me look you know that my heart is with the employee, the candidate, that kind of stuff you know, I certainly not to the extent that you do, but you know, dealing with hr executives as well, and there's, there's, there has to be I'm gonna maybe use the word wrongly now, but a balance, right, and it has to be judgment. That's an exercise, right. But you know, you talk a lot, and rightfully so, about culture. This seems to be something that needs to be more mandated by culture, right, and so that that I mean, look at, there are, there are people that are very hyper career focused. This isn't like my CEO called me and had an idea that he wanted, or she wanted, to share with me. That makes me feel really good that, like, I somehow made the short list to get this phone call. Yes, sir, honey, I'll be right back. Let me take this call from Johnny. This is amazing. So it depends Like you can't just sort of put everybody's value, one person's value system, onto everybody, because that's not fair.
Bob Goodwin:Another thing that I don't think that this really anticipates and I've had this exact situation is you've got an employee, for various reasons, who works weird hours, right, right, you know, between family care, health care, whatever might be going on, you know husband, wife works an off shift. And they've got, they just need to be, but they get their work done. It just happens at weird hours. I don't care. Like, do it at two in the morning or two in the afternoon, as long as it's, you know, ready when it's supposed to be ready and it's high quality, I don't care. Well, when am I allowed to communicate with that person?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Yeah, no, you've nailed the issues with this Like it's. You're so spot on. And I want to go back to the first point that you raised about some people actually like to work like this and some industries. So you know, you've seen all the pieces about, oh, wall Street and Goldman Sachs and you work like a dog, but people die for those jobs. I mean, and in some cases die because of jobs, but you know what you're signing up for. It goes back to this point of cultural clarity. You know that if I'm going to take some newly minted MBA, some 22 or 23 year old, and pay them a gazillion dollars, they can't think they're going to have some great work life balance of McKinney, of oh gosh, what's the big one out of Goldman Sachs, and he was like listen, we tell them up front like if you want to work nine to five and have your weekends off and da, da da, this ain't the job for you, there are other jobs out there. They're going to probably pay you 50% of what we pay you, but that's what you signed up for, so you can't have it all Like that's.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:The problem right now is employers and we've talked about this are facing unheard of wage inflation. So you want more money but you want to work less. I'm not sure that we can make that happen and I know, for those who are listening, it's not that absolute. I get it. I'm not suggesting that, but it is that as we try to continue and maintain our profits and you need profits to pay back your people who invest in these companies They've got to get a return on their investment. We've got to get productivity out of people. Again, does that mean working someone 20 hours a day for prolonged periods of time? No, periodically. Yes, because that's how work doesn't come evenly right. That's number one. The second thing is it's all about culture. Just be clear with people. This is how we operate here.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I interview people a lot, as you might imagine, here at SHRM to come for opportunities, and it's amazing the number of people who, because they see org after our email right, they think, oh, this is a nonprofit, I'm going to have an easier life, I'm not going to work as hard and I'm like no, no, no, this is a nonprofit that has to make profit, to meet payroll and to deliver on our mission to make work work for all, and so this is like a big deal for us and it does require that you have the same level of excellence and accountability and work ethic. So we just tell people up front if you don't work on weekends. So many of our major conferences start on Sundays. Yes, right, our annual conference. 25,000 HR people convene every year somewhere around this country and it starts on a Sunday, which means you're likely my team is in place sometimes three, four days ahead of the conference, so talking Wednesday and they're going to work all the way through the conference.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:There is no work life balance during that period, end of story. And we tell people this is our culture. Now, that being said, we have open leave at the end of the year. We give people about a month to six weeks off, not included in their vacation time, so it all works out well. It's not in balance at any given time. That's that's the point, and so this is a cultural conversation. I think that's the key is if you tell people this is what you signed up for. If you go work in law enforcement, you're not going to have nine to five hours, right, that's just what it is, because emergencies, the fire truck needs to be where the fire truck needs to be whenever it happens, right.
Bob Goodwin:Or I'm out with my man for it.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Right, I'm at dinner right now with my family. Let the house burn. It doesn't work that way. That's it. Or worse, look suffering our government. Last night we heard about the bombs and the missile strikes in the Middle East, and so the question is imagine someone saying I don't want to answer that call right now I'm in the government. I don't want to answer it Because guess what? Whatever happened last night is going to essentially be the case in the morning. Like it's not, we can't do anything until tomorrow morning. That's just how this really you question the practicality of this all. Does that make?
Bob Goodwin:sense to you? It does. I want to talk just for a moment about. I work at just a regular 50-person company. We do whatever we do. That's our business, and I'm the accounts receivable person at this company, right, I'm not a CXO or anything like that, right, I just work at the company and you know, if the boss calls up and says, hey, I've got a question about, you know, a payment that we've received or not received, you know, can you clear this up for me? I'm in the office on Saturday morning just looking at financials and this came to my attention. Okay, that's fine.
Bob Goodwin:I mean, like, like, take, I don't see that as being a big problem with taking that call. It's like, if this, when it does become a problem, though, this is back, use the word conversation a minute ago, and it's like then you need to be able to go to the owner of the business and say, bob, like I get it. You know, sometimes you have a question. This has turned into a recurring Saturday morning meeting that I have to ask you like, can we either have this call on Friday afternoons or Monday mornings please? I know you need the information that you need, but doing this on the weekend is not great for me.
Bob Goodwin:That's my family time and this. So now you've stated your position in a very, as we like to say, civil, constructive, you even offered a solution. I'll do it on Friday, I'll do it on Monday. Would either one of those work for you and then, if it's, you know well, this is my business and I need you to be available. Then I think that's what it does become. Is this really the place for me to work anymore?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And that's hip hop, and so it does. So you're familiar with Walmart, largest private employer in the country. So Walmart for years would have had this saturday morning yes, yes so you're familiar with it, right?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:so employees and I'm not just talking executives, but people would come in into bentonville and they'd have this rah-rah and it would include management, a lot of management. But they did it. This was a part of their culture and and it was in keeping with the fact that their stores are open. So why should the corporate executives go home after Friday? They're off and they'll be back on Monday, but meanwhile you got people operating stores all over the globe 24-7 or however long they stay open, et cetera.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So this idea was we are a retailer, we are a retail culture, which is a seven-day-a-week business. That means holidays, that means everything. So that's how we operate and you've got to decide if this works for you. So I love what you're saying. It's like just be clear about who you are with, and I want to make sure everyone here hears me we are not suggesting that you run human beings 24, seven, 365 days a year, blah, blah, blah. We're not suggesting that. We're just saying at least I'm suggesting that the state coming in and trying to create a solution for something that is not that big of a. I hate judging and saying it's not a big of a deal. We have far more significant workplace issues to tackle right now and this just feels like a piece of legislation that feels a little faddish, to be honest. But that's why I wanted this. Just feels like a piece of legislation that feels a little faddish, to be honest but that that's why I wanted to give, just like, a very pedestrian example.
Bob Goodwin:right, yes, we're not talking about bombs going off or the grid going down. It's just you know a company that makes pipe fittings, you know, and you know the the boss keeps calling a regular run window employee. So just have a conversation. Right, look, expected like work happens. There you go, there's an expression for it, work happens. So it's like hey, no, I need you right now. I really I need you for 30 seconds, but I need a piece of information from you please?
Bob Goodwin:OK, happy to like be flexible. We want flexibility from the employer. The employer should expect some flexibility from us.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Cool. Well, let me classic. Yes, last week I took my daughter to the dentist on a Saturday, friday. I was working with you know you get the information, advance the paperwork and I sent my insurance card to an employee who worked Friday but wasn't there on Saturday. I'm standing there on Saturday, me and my daughter, and the person in the dental office on Saturday can't find my paperwork, my insurance card. So I said call your colleague, because I spent time yesterday getting it to them. I'm going back out of town and I need. I'm here, my daughter's teeth are going to be clean. I mean classic, this isn't some. The world's going to come to an end.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:But that office manager picked up the phone, called the employee and said hey, where did you put Mr Taylor's information? She says oh, I scanned it. It's sitting right next to the fax machine. It was two seconds. That was an emergency to me. That was an emergency. It was, you know, no, it was my kid. Was my kid's teeth falling out? No, but it. I had scheduled to be there and so that's to your point. It's a very pedestrian, normal example. That's the struggle with defining what is an emergency is that business manager in that office on Saturday has a potentially very irate client sitting there with this daughter saying I took care of all of this because your person's not here. Just call him freaking and get my find out where this document is so that I don't have to reschedule. Think about it, bob, that's just real.
Bob Goodwin:My concern is you know, from a culture perspective, that you know that it creates a false sense of sensitivity, that, like I, have got this force shield around me. You know, on days called Saturday and Sunday, and you may not penetrate this force field and it's like but we, we want flexibility, like it's just being a team. Yes, right, do you want to be on a team or do you not want to be on a team? If you don't want to be on a team, you know that's okay. It doesn't mean that the team owns you. It doesn't mean that the team has 100 access to you all the time. It's just when, when a privilege becomes abused, that's a problem.
Bob Goodwin:So we need to communicate it civilly, as we like to say, provide alternatives and then, if it doesn't change, then you've got agency to go do something else if you want to. So yeah, it does seem. I want people to be able to disconnect, be with their families. You do too. Nobody wants people burned out, flustered and not able to produce their best work and develop a bad attitude about the employer. But it goes both ways. It's like everything. If we can be civil and communicate clearly in both directions and set expectations in both directions. Do you really need a law for this?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I would argue absolutely not, but that's my point of view. But I do fully, as we wrap this up, I do fully understand that we need to have this conversation, and maybe it is that the benefit is whether it becomes legislation or not.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:We're having this conversation as companies, you do have to remember that you're not, these are not robots, and human beings do need to be able to step away from business and recharge. So if that's the, if that is the benefit, if that's what happens and comes out of this, then this is great. Uh, I'd hope that we don't get to the point of passing legislation in the 50 states each one, because these are state pieces of legislation. There's no federal right to, to, to disengage or whatever.
Bob Goodwin:Right then then this is going to be a worth the conversation there you go exactly and, as always, this conversation has been worth having and I hope you, as listeners or viewers, found this to be worthwhile. Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to share with us here on the WorkWire, johnny, I always appreciate your insights and your time and thank you so much.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:It's all right, my man. How about it the WorkWire?
Bob Goodwin:Have a great one.
Speaker 1:Okay, bye-bye, okay, bye-bye.