Right to Disconnect - The Work Wire

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[00:00:31] 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.

[00:00:44] It's really great to see you today. 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.

[00:01:02] 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.

[00:01:19] So, but the basic idea and maybe particularly since the pandemic with so much work from home coupled with these guys, smartphones and everything else in the ubiquity of Wi-Fi is that we've kind of in some cases fallen into an always on culture.

[00:01:40] And so now I don't leave the office, the office is in my pocket. You can text me, Slack me, email me, whatever teams has got. I'm always on and in theory always available, but I may not want to always be available.

[00:01:57] California in the spirit of work-life balance has basically said, hey employers, back up. You need to 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

[00:02:19] 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 will call it your out. It's three strikes and you got to give me a hundred bucks.

[00:02:33] So the teeth on this are not super strong, but I'm curious from your perspective, what are the 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?

[00:02:51] I'm going to give you both sides. I'm a really balanced guy. 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.

[00:03:06] So these things start and we at Shermer 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.

[00:03:19] It's our version of what we come out to 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.

[00:03:36] 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 seven and then at some point it's going to die and burn out. But you'll replace that.

[00:03:53] We've decided as a society, we don't want to do that to human beings, right? Well, maybe they keep going. Run them until they die like we rest our athletes. We rest our employees like we rest human beings.

[00:04:07] 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 balances suggest you work nine

[00:04:24] hours in the other, you know, what is that nine, 15 hours of the day are yours and that's the balance. And 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

[00:04:36] 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. I think you have to integrate it and we have to be mindful of the fact that

[00:04:46] 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.

[00:05:07] 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.

[00:05:20] And so and I know there may be some people saying, yes, 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 it started coming across the pond when we're at 3.9 percent unemployment.

[00:05:34] Right. Well, 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.

[00:05:54] You know, 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? If the systems are likely going to come up in an hour, is an hour, is it worth

[00:06:08] 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.

[00:06:23] 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.

[00:06:41] 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. Hey, Johnny, I thought about this. I had this good idea.

[00:06:50] 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 in place. I got an idea. It's a Saturday afternoon.

[00:07:01] 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 them and say, hey, Tina, my chief marketing and branding officer, got this idea.

[00:07:13] 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

[00:07:24] 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?

[00:07:36] I remember working before there was even a beeper, right? So when you left, you left, you were not a, 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 seven.

[00:07:49] Technically we're available 24 seven and that's just how work has evolved. Yeah. So, so we're like, 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've talked about work life balances that implies that they are

[00:08:08] in conflict and we're just trying to minimize the conflict. That's right. So that's not healthy. That's not good for anybody. So when, when you're working in your outside of work life mesh, well, you're going to be healthier.

[00:08:22] 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.

[00:08:38] 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. Uh, our biggest client sent me a mean email and like, I want

[00:08:53] to talk about it right now. It's like, sending emergency maybe is it 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.

[00:09:13] 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,

[00:09:22] but I can delay send and say, I type out my whole email and I say, but don't send it right now. Cause she's going to feel an obligation. Cause the CEO just emailed her to all that's on her that she's checking

[00:09:34] her email, um, that it's, it showed up on Monday morning at eight o'clock. Okay. Work hours and it's all cool. Um, so, so emergencies, you're right. Or totally in the eyes of the beholder.

[00:09:50] Can I, can I, can I, can I just kind of, I want to, I know you got another point you made, but on that one, the example that you used clients unhappy is the weekend.

[00:09:59] Does it really matter if you deal with it on a Saturday instead of Monday? It could, it could depends on the nature of business. Well, and forget even the nature of the business. It depends upon the nature of the client.

[00:10:09] 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

[00:10:25] an emergency, but that client now doesn't renew that multimillion tens of million dollar contract because they think you're not responsive. Um, 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

[00:10:39] 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.

[00:10:54] Um, it depends like, like virtually anything that we talk about, it's contextual. Right. And you just can't make blanket statements that well, an email from your biggest client is or isn't important in the moment. Depends. Um, the, there's a, I'm curious, cause you talked about the manager and.

[00:11:15] And I don't know, maybe, 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 a, you know, upper management kind of a role? Right.

[00:11:28] 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?

[00:11:44] Well, so check this out. Here's the marriage of all three of these things 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. Yep.

[00:12:03] Right. In some cases starting right now and you know, they're re-instituting executive. So if you're the president of some division or business unit of theirs, Saturday morning meetings, hope you enjoy them. And so an emergency and that's a global company.

[00:12:24] So you can see 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?

[00:12:41] Well, and that, and listen, you just described one of the other problems is that as you operate on a global, 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.

[00:13:00] 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 time, just, I can't do this and I'm going

[00:13:12] 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. I do want to talk.

[00:13:23] 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, uh, as a standard way of business, I would argue does not give now.

[00:13:40] 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, because we're not machines. And so I think decisions like that are responded to by legislation

[00:13:57] like the proposed legislation in California is there like, okay, company, you probably have gone too far. 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

[00:14:10] 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.

[00:14:25] And mind you, I didn't say that once, 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 before. So it's interesting.

[00:14:36] 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 employees perspective. So it's like, Oh, I assume this is enacted now I've got in theory,

[00:14:54] legal protection, you know, like Johnny quit calling me on Saturdays. Keep your brilliant ideas here till Monday, please. I'm living my life. I'm resting. I'm doing whatever I'm doing. However, however, however, if Johnny calls me, he's got a brilliant idea

[00:15:13] and he wants to kind of just noodle it out a little bit. And I take the call and Johnny say that was a great idea, Bob. You know, and just makes me like Bob more. And Bob, Bob becomes more of a go-to guy for me.

[00:15:30] You know, 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.

[00:15:48] They're 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.

[00:16:05] 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, how do you want to draw the lines in

[00:16:22] your life, whether California draws them for you or not? That's my point. I, 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?

[00:16:38] 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. If you make yourself unavailable, literally artificially, like I don't talk on Saturdays and Sundays. Great.

[00:16:55] 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.

[00:17:07] Not going to, I'm going to give you your good bonus, your regular bonus, et cetera. But Mary over here, who does respond when I would like her with reason. She's, you know, it's not three o'clock in the morning and it's not all day,

[00:17:18] 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. Cause I'm up on a Sunday preparing for our board meeting on Monday and

[00:17:33] 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 a hundred bucks. So I said, okay, I'll call Mary. She's perfectly fine with it wants to do it wants to be in the throw of

[00:17:44] 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

[00:18:03] motivators. Motivators and we will, 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. Maybe, maybe I got our sequence of events out of order here.

[00:18:21] 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, like are just masses of people saying, hey, my boss calls me on the weekend all the time. That's what we can't figure out.

[00:18:39] 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 were working coming to the office overwhelmingly Monday through Friday, nine to five or eight to seven. Right. You watch.

[00:18:54] And so now we, we know that people have been allowed to integrate work in life in ways over the last three years that they've never done historically. So it's better by definition. We also know that because of the great resignation and quiet quitting and

[00:19:11] 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.

[00:19:26] So companies have been, so I will say that's the thing that got me. It's like, where'd this come from? Where did it come from that, that you thought that it required of all of the big issues confronting the workplace right now, that this was something a

[00:19:41] California legislator or two thought was a good idea. Like this is on the top five things that we need to fix in the workplace is the right to disconnect that. I guess for me, look, you know, that my heart is with the employee, the

[00:19:56] candidate, that kind of stuff. Yet, you know, I certainly not to the extent that you do, but, you know, dealing with HR executives as well. And there's, there has to be, maybe you used the word wrongly now, but a balance, right?

[00:20:10] It has to be judgment that's exercised, right? But 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, I mean, look at there are people that are very hyper career

[00:20:28] 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. Honey, I'll be right back.

[00:20:42] Let me take this call from Johnny. This is amazing. So, so it depends. Like you can't just sort of put everybody's value, your one person's value system onto everybody because that's not fair. Another thing that I don't think that this really anticipates, and I've had

[00:20:59] this exact situation is you've got an employee for various reasons who works weird hours, right? Right. You know, between family care, healthcare, 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.

[00:21:21] 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.

[00:21:32] Well, when am I allowed to communicate with that person? Yeah. No, you've, you've nailed the issues with this. Like it's you're so spot on. And I'm going to go back to, to the first point that you raised about some people

[00:21:44] actually like to work like this and some industries. So, you know, I've, you've seen all of the pieces about a wall street and Goldman Sachs, and you work like a dog, but people die for those jobs.

[00:21:55] I mean, and then some cases die because of jobs, but because, 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

[00:22:07] 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. That's just, I mean, and the companies are clear on the way. And I used to know the CHRO of McKin, of, oh gosh, what's the big

[00:22:22] one out of Goldman Sachs? And he was like, listen, we tell them upfront. 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.

[00:22:33] 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 the problem right now is employers and we've talked about this are facing unheard of wage

[00:22:45] 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 listening, I'm not, it's not that absolute again, I'm not suggesting that, but it is that as we try

[00:22:59] 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 the prolonged

[00:23:15] periods of time? No periodically. Yes, because that's how this 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.

[00:23:29] 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 dot org after our email, right? They think, oh, this is a nonprofit. I'm going to have an easier life.

[00:23:45] 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.

[00:23:57] And it does require that you have the same level of excellence and accountability and work ethics. 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

[00:24:15] 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. There is no work life balance during that period.

[00:24:29] 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. Wow.

[00:24:45] 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

[00:24:56] 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. Or I'm out signing up for it. Right.

[00:25:11] I'm at dinner right now with my family that fouls burn. It doesn't work that way. That's it. Or worse, look, suffering on government. Last night we heard about the bombs and the missile strikes in the Middle East. And so the question is imagine someone saying,

[00:25:28] I don't want to answer that call. Right. 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 that.

[00:25:40] That's just how this really you question the practicality of this. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I want to talk just for a moment about, you know, I work at just a regular 50 person company. We do whatever we do. That's our business.

[00:25:59] And, you know, 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, if the boss calls up and says, hey, I've got a question about, you know, a

[00:26:17] 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. I mean, like, like take, I don't see that

[00:26:31] as being a big problem with taking that call. It's like, if this, when it does become a problem though, this is back. Used the word conversation a minute ago. And it's like, then you need to be able to go to the owner of the business

[00:26:46] 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

[00:27:03] you need, but doing this on the weekend is not great for me. That's my family time and this, so now you've, 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.

[00:27:18] I'll do it on Monday with 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 on, then I think that's when it does become a, is this really the place for me to

[00:27:32] work anymore? And that's hip hop that it, and so it does. So you're familiar with Walmart, largest private employer in the country, da da da. So Walmart for years would have, they had this Saturday morning Yes. Yeah. So you're familiar with it, right? So employees, I'm not just

[00:27:49] talking executives, but people would come in into Bentville 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.

[00:28:03] So why should the corporate executives go home on, you know, after Friday, they're off and they'll be back on Monday. But meanwhile, you got people operating stores all over the globe 24 seven or however long they stay open, et cetera. So this idea was we are a retailer.

[00:28:19] 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. You've got to decide if this works for you. So I love what you're saying is like, just be clear about who you are with.

[00:28:33] And I want to make sure everyone here hears me. We are not suggesting that you run human beings 24 seven, three hundred sixty five to zero, 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

[00:28:50] solution for something that is not that big of it. I hate judging and saying it's not a big 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.

[00:29:06] But that's why I wanted to give just like a very pedestrian example. 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 boss keeps calling a regular

[00:29:24] run window employee. So just have a conversation. Right. Look, expected like work happens. There you go. There's an expression for work happens. So it's like, hey, no, I need you right now. I really do. I need you for 30 seconds, but I need a piece of

[00:29:42] information from you, please. OK. Happy to like, like be flexible. We want flexibility from the employer. The employer should expect some flexibility from us. 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,

[00:30:01] they you get the information in advance 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.

[00:30:17] 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, it's classic. This isn't some the world's going to come to an end,

[00:30:29] 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.

[00:30:45] It was, you know, no, was my kid was my kids teeth falling out? No, but 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

[00:31:02] 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 them for can and get my find out where this document is so that I don't have to reschedule.

[00:31:18] Think about it, Bob. That's just real. No, 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

[00:31:40] penetrate this force field. And it's like, but 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 the team? If you don't want to be on a team, you know, that's OK.

[00:31:54] 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. So we need to communicate it civilly as we like to say, provide alternatives.

[00:32:10] 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 and flustered

[00:32:29] 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?

[00:32:49] I would argue absolutely not. So but that's my point of view. And 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.

[00:33:06] 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, that's what happens and comes out of this,

[00:33:22] then this is great. 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. Then then this is going to be worth the conversation.

[00:33:39] There you go. Exactly. And as always, this conversation is 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 your own workwire. Johnny, I always appreciate

[00:33:53] your insights in your time. And thank you so much. That's right. Well, man, how about it? The workwire. I love that. Have a great one. OK, bye bye. Check out career.club for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrm.org to become part of the largest

[00:34:07] human resources organization worldwide.