Masters of Leadership: Eugene Scalia and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

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Webinar Summary

For the second webinar in the new virtual leadership event series, Masters of Leadership, hosted by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® and the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), CTA President and CEO and NVTC board member Gary Shapiro was joined by U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia and Society for Human Resource Management President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

A Conversation with U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia

Webinar Transcript

Rich Montoni:
Thank you for joining the Northern Virginia Technology Council and Consumer Technology Association for this virtual Masters of Leadership series event. My name is Rich Montoni, and I am Chairman of NVTC and the Vice Chairman of MAXIMUS, Inc. I'm delighted to welcome you all here. We have a terrific lineup today. We have U.S. Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia. He will be joining CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro in a fireside chat for the first 20 minutes, and then the Society for Human Resources Management, SHRM, CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. will join Gary for the rest of the hour.

Rich Montoni:
Before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items. Everybody has been muted. During the second fireside chat with SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., if you would like to ask a question, please use the Q&A function to type out your question. It is located in the middle of the bottom bar on your screen. This series is made possible by our co-producer and partner sponsor Consumer Technology Association, and by our premiere sponsor, SAP. Thank you both for your support. If you would like to join them as a sponsor, please connect with Yolanda Lee at NVTC today.

Rich Montoni:
Now, I would like to introduce NVTC President and CEO, Bobbie Kilberg, who will say a few words. Bobbie.

Bobbie Kilberg:
Good morning. On a personal note to Gene. Secretary Scalia, thank you for participating in this NVTC-CTA webinar. It is very important for our memberships to hear from you as Secretary of Labor, and we appreciate your taking the time from an absolutely daunting schedule to do so. And to Johnny, thank you very, very much for joining us as CEO of SHRM. Now, I will turn it over to Gary Shapiro. Gary.

Gary Shapiro:
Thank you, Bobbie. Thank you, Rich. Johnny, great to have you here. I look forward to talking to you in a few minutes. But right now, the focus is on probably the most important person in terms of who we're focusing our jobs and our labor market on, Eugene Scalia. He's the 28th U.S. Secretary of Labor. He was nominated by President Trump in July 2019. Eight months later, the Senate confirmed him just this past September, and what a ride it's been in just eight months. Prior to assuming this role, Secretary Scalia worked as a solicitor of labor, the Department's leading legal officer under former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, and while there, he worked to protect low-wage workers, strengthen enforcement of workplace safety laws and lower regulatory burdens.

Gary Shapiro:
He holds a law degree from the University of Chicago where he also served as a lecturer, and his legal expertise is in labor as well as administrative and regulatory. Welcome, Secretary Scalia.

Eugene Scalia:
Gary, thank you. It's a particular pleasure to join NVTC. Bobbie Kilberg is among the oldest of family friends, by which I mean the friendship is long-standing. She was close to my parents and not only helped me get my first job, which was an accomplishment in itself, but actually, even more impressive, found the woman who married me. So, I'll always be indebted to Bobbie as well as her husband, Bill.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, that is a heck of an endorsement of Bobbie. Of course, we know her and love her. But for your job, it's the hot seat now. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor issued its jobs report. A record lost 20.5 million jobs. Record high unemployment rate of 14.7%. What do you think?

Eugene Scalia:
Well, it was a grim report to put out on Friday. Gary, you've summarized the top-line numbers although I'll quibble with one phrase you used, which is job losses because those 20.5 million jobs, so many of them are actually still there, and that's part of what makes the downturn we're in right now so unusual, so daunting, but I think it holds a little more promise potentially than past economic difficulties we've been in. This one's been in a sense self-induced, not the result of problems and the underlying economic fundamentals, and the concept, of course, has been that it's short-term as well. So, a lot of hardship right now for American workers, families, but there is the possibility that we come out of this and get back to where we were not so long ago.

Eugene Scalia:
There's one page in the jobs report that we put out that particularly caught my attention, and I'll try to show it to you. It may be a little difficult for anybody to see it, but what this reflects is whether people identified themselves as on temporary or permanent layoff status, and what you see is people on temporary and layoff status just absolutely skyrocketing over the last couple of months, but what's interesting, permanent layoff, that's the blue line, comes up just a little bit whereas if you go back to 2009, permanent went up sharply. Temporary, not much.

Eugene Scalia:
Back then, only about 30% of people said they were on temporary layoff. In our most recent survey, 88% of people said they were on temporary layoff, expected to go back to their jobs. Part of my mission right now is to get them back there safely.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, that's a good explanation. I mean, but certainly, you have been thrust into a very incredibly difficult situation. You started off record high employment the U.S. has ever had and here in our lifetimes, this is probably the record unemployment, our biggest labor crisis maybe since 2008 or even before then. How has your prior experience led to this, your leadership guided you through this crisis, and what's been the biggest challenge in responding to this crisis?

Eugene Scalia:
I feel prepared for the job. So, hopefully, that's of some comfort to people watching us today. As you mentioned, I was at the department before and very familiar with the agencies that I'm now in charge of as secretary. I was the principal legal officer here, so I dealt with all of those agencies. We're spending a lot of time in OSHA right now because of workplace safety. That's an agency I know very well from my career, and then my prior time in government at other agencies, working with Bill Barr at the Justice Department, I feel I do know my way around the government, and then I spend most of my career as a labor and employment lawyer.

Eugene Scalia:
So, I know the private sector. I do understand the concerns that businesses will have right now as well as those of workers. So, that private sector experience I feel has also helped prepare me for this very unexpected situation. Beyond that, I felt blessed to step into the team that I did here at the Labor Department. The principal agency heads were already here. The deputy secretary is the person that had I been told, "Gene, you can pick anybody as your deputy secretary," he's the person I would have picked. The person who's now the chief legal officer is somebody I've known a long time, who I think very highly of, so I've been blessed with a strong team here and a good team and good relationships at the White House.

Eugene Scalia:
In any administration, you tend to see a lot of press about the supposed disagreements at the White House, with the White House. That's not been my experience. It's been a good functioning team across the administration as well, and then just one final observation, something that's really been helpful in a strange way is this is such an enormous challenge to the nation and to the country that we're all more or less focused on the same thing right now. So, I am the recipient of constant suggestions, ideas, as well as support and having all of us really in a sense nationally as a team that vice president has spoken I think of a whole nation approach. I'm a beneficiary of that.

Eugene Scalia:
There are governors, industry leaders, union leaders, members of the Senate, House, all coming forward with suggestions that they're helping guide us through this as well.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, certainly, it's bipartisan. We want you to succeed, but what's been your biggest challenge?

Eugene Scalia:
The most challenging part of COVID-19, from the Labor Department's perspective, and I suspect from others as well, has been how fluid and shape-shifting it is. Things have moved very rapidly and often in unexpected ways. If you go back two months as this was getting underway, we actually put out a stupendous jobs report in early March for the month of February. You touched on it, Gary. We had 3.5% unemployment just in February. We spun off without 250,000 jobs in the economy and then all of a sudden, we had this just extraordinary steep drop, and then the issues that I'm dealing with too are fluid. They're shape-shifting.

Eugene Scalia:
Early on, we were very focused on a paid leave, so that people who are sick would get out of the work place. We did some things with the unemployment insurance rules to make that easier. Then Congress, of course, provided paid leave to small business. But then within a couple of weeks, paid leave became less important to a lot of workers because the jobs weren't there and all of a sudden, we needed unemployment insurance. That took on a great significance. I was very focused and still am to a degree, but two, three, four weeks ago, very, very focused on just getting the new unemployment insurance law up and running, helping the states deal with their very old and sometimes bulky computer systems to get those unemployment insurance benefits out and yet, now, we're looking at reopening in the great majority of states, which means we should have an unprecedented wave of people coming off unemployment insurance.

Eugene Scalia:
So, having struggled to help get them on, we now want to look toward helping get them off, so that's another way in which all of these have moved extremely quickly. So, I would say that's the biggest challenge. Obviously, we're always mindful of the personal impact. We talk a lot about numbers, but in various ways, we're each reminded of the personal impact, and that's always hard to absorb as well.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, you did mention the shift in emphasis that I think we're all hearing lately about the challenge of getting Americans back to work. So, what's the deal while thinking on that and how can employers help?

Eugene Scalia:
Well, I got this chart again. I don't know how well people can see it, but with this extraordinary soar of people, this red line, people, who at least at the time they filed or at the time they were surveys, regarded themselves as on temporary unemployment, and again, our focus is to make that sell and to open as promptly as we safely can because I'm certainly mindful that the longer that we take to reopen, I think more those bonds between employer and employee are weakened and fall away. That's one of the reasons that I was a great supporter of the Paycheck Protection Program. It's not a program that we administer here at the Labor Department, but for me, it was all about the employment relationship, and it was about preserving that relationship, so that when we reopen, the workers are there, the companies have staff. Everybody can get going quickly.

Eugene Scalia:
So, I want to make that happen, and I want to help the governors do it but of course, it's got to be safe, and it almost goes without saying, but from the Labor Department's perspective, that means safe workplaces. We've put out an extraordinary amount of guidance through OSHA on steps that employers can and we think should be taking to protect their workers. We talk a lot about the reopening, but we need to recall, and I think most folks on the phone on this call today know it. There are thousands of workplaces across the country. They've been open all along and finding ways to keep safe, and we want to use that through guidance, through the example others have set to keep workers safe, but OSHA is getting complaints and conducting investigations too.

Eugene Scalia:
So, it's a two-prong approach for us when it comes to workplace safety. It's guidance and assistance but where necessary, we're prepared to bring enforcement actions as well. So, those are some of the main issues that we're focused on right now.

Gary Shapiro:
What about this: You mentioned the shift to getting people back to work, but the last several weeks, I've heard from business executives in a [inaudible 00:13:44] indicating that the [inaudible 00:13:48] of emphasis of employees has followed the law, they see that many employees have asked to be fired. They didn't want to work because they are getting paid more. They're getting unemployment plus $600 a week. That's a factor where you had a well-intentioned loan, and you had some people taking advantage of it in a way that certainly wasn't intended. Should those be the last to be rehired or what are the moral implications there? Do you feel good about wanting to extend that? What should happen that? There's a moral hazard that has clearly occurred. I mean, this is every industry, every executive. They're all talking about this.

Eugene Scalia:
There was a strong consensus at the time of the CARES Act, which of course was late March. Strong consensus that something significant and additional needed to be done for the millions of people that were going to be put on unemployment, and that resulted in the provision that CARES Act providing $600 weekly unemployment payments on top of what's made available by the states. The situation here is just so different where people are being put out of work not just through no fault of their own, which often is the case, but really as a matter of public health and safety, and we've never had people sacrifice in that way. That was the reason for this stepped-up benefit, and also, I think very importantly, extending these benefits to the self-employed, not only people in a traditional employment relationship.

Eugene Scalia:
With that said, it is integral to the unemployment program that it's for people who don't have the ability to be at work. You can't quit your job because you think you'll do better on unemployment. Those people should not be getting unemployment, and when you're called back, and let's stipulate that workplace is safe. When you're called back, you can't say, "Well, I just rather remain on unemployment." We have been reinforcing that with the states from the time of enactment of the CARES Act. Our Inspector General actually got $26 million into the CARES Act, which is about a third of that office's annual budget. They got an additional third just to focus on potential abuses within the unemployment insurance program, and we've certainly talked to the Inspector General about focusing on abuses that may occur with respect to people who have the opportunity to work but aren't taking that opportunity.

Eugene Scalia:
Something that we're often tough talking to the states about is just as we had record numbers of people coming on to unemployment, we will have people with the opportunity to leave unemployment as states reopen in record numbers as well, and the states will want systems by which they obtain notice from employers that workers are being called back, so that the states can check their rolls and make sure that those people as they're called back are leading the unemployment insurance rolls. And just finally, and I certainly am not unaware of the, as you put it, Gary, moral hazard that concerns some people.

Eugene Scalia:
But do remember, this program does expire in July, and I think it's a bad decision for a worker to not go back to a job that's there in the thought that he or she will get a few hundred dollars a week for just a few more weeks. I don't think the incentive is as powerful I hope as some people fear.

Gary Shapiro:
You don't think it will be continued by Congress?

Eugene Scalia:
Let's see where we are. I think that the program that we adopted where there's a flat payment amount regardless of prior income was one that we were forced into a bit because of limitations in the state's computer systems. They really can't individualize payment amounts. If anything is done past July 30 when this expires, it would warrant a very careful look as to whether the same mechanism we have right now, which fit a particular purpose at a particular important time. A careful look will be on whether continuing that particular delivery mechanism is the right way to go.

Gary Shapiro:
Let's talk about the reopening, if you will. How will that be different? How can companies support it, business executives, and will the world look different? Will we be going away from open office environments? Will people be teleworking more? Will there be more flexibility in terms of start times and close times, so people aren't on public transportation crowded? Have we forever changed as society and how do we turn this horror into an opportunity where people get new skills?

Eugene Scalia:
All good questions. Things will clearly be different in some ways. I think we'll see more teleworking. Undoubtedly, there are many people out there who hadn't really had much experience with it and liked it better than they expected, although I'm also confident that there are people who have been confirmed in the view that teleworking is only second best. I'm probably one of those. It worked well for us here. We're 90 to 95% teleworking, but I think being in person, being present is often even better, but that will be one change. You're right about how we view mass transit at least in the near term. Open office space is another idea that I guess I confess I had some skepticism about.

Eugene Scalia:
There will be perhaps more now. Longer term, we've pulled together as a nation to some extent. I don't think the analogies to World War II were misplaced. The challenge for the nation has been just immense. The sacrifice we've had to make has been different. It's been in a way more introverted than one thinks of when one thinks of being at war, but it's been a sacrifice. It's been a shared experience. I think some good will come of that, and I for one think there will be more focus on American independence, on assuring American economic and public health security. I think we've seen dependencies we have, including with respect to China, which has not acquitted itself well in this experience that many of us are going to want to revisit.

Eugene Scalia:
So, I think there'll be some changes in trade policy that will make sense even to those of us that recognize all the great benefits of free trade. And then finally, Gary, you mentioned apprenticeships, and it's funny. Just a few months ago when the economy was roaring, I would talk to people like Johnny Taylor, by the way. We had a good conversation about what was being learned over the last couple of years about training workers and particularly about apprenticeships and how important it was to remember those lessons and embed those lessons in our worker training systems because I would say someday, we can't know when, we'll have a downturn, and we want to be ready, and then two weeks later, there we were.

Eugene Scalia:
So, we learned a lot recently about worker training programs. Apprenticeships are terrific. Actually, today is the day that we begin accepting applications for what we've called our Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, which are meant to be an alternative model to a registered program, more flexible, much more suited to high tech. We've been working with some tech companies about potentially becoming what we called standards recognition entities under our apprenticeship program, and we welcome applications and stand ready to help people apply for that because there is obviously going to need to be worker retraining.

Eugene Scalia:
I was talking to a CEO of a major company today that is hiring, and there are companies hiring. One lesson that we gained in the last few years is how to better train people, and we'll be applying that too.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, thank you for ending on that optimistic note about getting some lemonade out of this lemon. I appreciate what you do. We're all rooting for you, and I want to respect your time, so thank You, Mr. Secretary.

Eugene Scalia:
Well, thank you. It's been a real pleasure to join you all. Bobbie, thank you as well.

Bobbie Kilberg:
You're welcome, Gene. Thank you.

Gary Shapiro:
Thank you. Now, I'm going to turn to Johnny C. Taylor. He's the president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. Over 300,000 members, making them the largest HR professional association in the world. Heck, it's actually one of the largest associations in the world. Let's be honest here. He actually leads the national conversation on the workplace. He's often testifying before Congress, and he writes a weekly Ask HR column in USA Today. In addition to being a practicing lawyer in three different jurisdictions, he has held executive leadership positions at IAC/InterActiveCorp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Compass Group USA among others.

Gary Shapiro:
Prior to joining SHRM, he was President and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. He serves on the boards of the University of Miami, his undergraduate alma mater, Jobs for America's Graduates, and the American Red Cross, and in 2018, he was appointed by President Trump as Chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and he's also a member of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board. So, please join me in welcoming Johnny.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Hey, Gary.

Gary Shapiro:
You're a legend. I saw you on CNBC and an ad this morning. I said, "Wait a second. How could he be in three places at once?" So, any immediate reaction to what Secretary Scalia said?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
He was spot on, and he alluded to the fact that we'd had some early conversations. What I'd say to you is, what I love about the American people in particular is how resilient we are, and your question about, "What's the new normal going to look like?" I'm betting, and I could be wrong by the way, but all of our research says to us that it's going to be more normal than we think. Yeah, there are going to be some differences. People are not likely to handshake and embrace like they used to. I mean, we will represent fist bumps, head nods, all of that kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, I think we're seeing people quickly gravitate.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I was talking to a group of millennials the other day on this show. It was hilarious and Generation Z, and I shared with them... We all thought after 9/11. Those of us who are gray enough to know after 9/11 that the world would change, right? It would never happen, and people wouldn't fly, and dah, dah, dah, and it's amazing how resilient the American people are and how we... Yes, it's different. I used to be able to walk up to the plane's side and put my mom on the plane and all of that. So, now, there's some security mechanisms, PPE, if you will, but we got back to flying, and I think this too shall pass.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I'm an optimist, and again, I could be wrong here, but I'm convinced, and I think the secretary ended on that note that we're going to have a new normal, but I don't think it's going to be that abnormal.

Gary Shapiro:
Great point. Well, tell us. What will it look like on the other side of the crisis? What will change and what will stay the same?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Well, a couple of things that we know that are going to change. I'd mentioned just how we interact with people. You're going to be less likely to touch people. Talking about personal space, we're going to recognize that. Now, whether or not it'll be to six feet or two meters, I don't know. I mean, I think there's some reality setting in. I was reading an article this morning about a United Airlines flight. The reality is it's going to be really hard to keep people two meters apart, six feet apart in every one of their interactions. What we know is public transportation is the biggest concern. Everyone's focused about what happens when you get to the office, taking temperatures, offering masks, and all of those sorts of things.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
The real question especially in heavily populated areas like in New York City is there's just no way. Even if you staggered it, you couldn't push eight million people into that area under that short of... You could stagger it forever, and people would never get to work. So, the other big change. So, public transportation and how people think about it, how they're going to interact with it is going to be a real big question mark.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
The second one though is remote work. In the past, we thought of remote work as something that your employer offered as a perk or as an accommodation. If someone was sick, get out, et cetera. Now, we're really looking at whether or not all of those jobs that used to come into a physical place whether or not we need to do that, and I think we're going to bring a lot of people back to the workplace because there is something to be said for a spring décor. There's culture and interaction, but I think I know. For example, there was a recent Gartner report that suggested that 75% or more of CFOs are now sitting down saying, "Those jobs that we thought that couldn't be done remotely can and have actually done it nicely."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, I think we are going to see it become more common. Then the last area that we're seeing is a big focus on mental health. What we've seen from all of physical health, we all understood, but people really did not have a full appreciation for the impact of forced work remote or forced isolation, and we are seeing it. Everyone thought it was a great idea, but we're seeing employees really under stress, depression, domestic violence, divorce. I mean, go down the list. People are really struggling with this assumption that everyone wanted to work remotely ignores the fact that no one wanted to be mandated to work remotely.

Gary Shapiro:
Right. Good point. Marc Benioff of Salesforce said, "37% of their employers are having mental health issues," and I think it's... I mean, there's a variety of circumstances out there where people are being stuck with kids, and kids don't even have playgrounds, much less schools anymore, or just being alone is difficult or taking care of a loved one or worrying about multi-generational films. There's so many different cases out there. But right now, 64% of salaried U.S. employees are working from home.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
That's right.

Gary Shapiro:
And their question is how much of that will continue and what role will technology play in that? I mean, you're talking to two big technology groups, one in National Association, and the other would be the Northern Virginia Technology Association. Is technology going to continue to play a role? Will these Zoom things we're doing be part of regular what we do? Would we have to wear ties for them?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Well, let me tell you. Thank God for all of the technology providers and the companies that you represent because I cannot imagine... Back us up a decade and God forbid 20 years. What would we do? Whatever has happened to our economy, imagine what would happen if we weren't able to continue transacting business at some level remotely. So, thank God for the technology companies and the investment and all of the work that your member companies are doing. I think we are now more reliant on it, and we're going to become more reliant, and as you get these systems to... Every once in a while, we have a quirk. It doesn't work the way we want it to work, but it's going to get better, and I think we will all use it far more effectively to become more efficient and effective in our role. So, great stop there.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
But people will have to learn how to do it. I think the answer is somewhere in between. It's not, you said it, 64% of people are working remotely now. There are a significant number of people, and our research is telling us. SHRM does this research poll. We're taking these spot surveys constantly. Pulse surveys is what they call them. But in any event, what they're saying is that a lot of folks say, "I'd like some version of it. I don't want again mandatory work from home. If I have a child, I'd love to do that."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Just put up on your slide now, 32% of our employees are saying like, "I've been furloughed, laid off, and if the option is I can get back to work by working remotely, I'd love to do it." The most important one that you pointed out is 68% of employers believe they're done with their layoffs. That's good news. Now, the downside is 32%, maybe not so much. 64% of them are working remotely. Now, I'll give you some stats later on. We believe that as you break that down between hourly employees and salaried employees that we're going to see a shift of who's going to come back to work and when.

Gary Shapiro:
That's a really interesting slide, and that tells that those are big numbers there. But in terms of from an employer perspective, and we certainly have a lot of them watching at the executive level, the fact is employees have different views. Some are very fearful about returning to work. Others just can't wait. How should employers deal with this? What could we do? Do we get rid of the open office environment? Do we use technology more? For our association, all our employees got a special technology fund to use because they were working from home, and that costs some money. Does that become standard? Do flexible hours become standard? Where do you see this going, Johnny? You're the number one expert in the country on all this. So, where do you think-

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I'm practicing. I used to say that when I was in law. I said, "I'm practicing guys. Give me a break," but what I will say to you, Gary, is that we're going to see a couple of things. All of that's true, yes. we're going to revisit whether or not some roles can permanently be done remotely. When you come into the office, there'll be precautions. Some companies depending upon their CEO's predisposition, depending upon their culture are going to have thermometers at the front door. They're going to have you sign these documents. I mean, we're going to run the gamut. PPE will be common. All of that, yes.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
The real though question when it's all said and done is whether or not we think it's going to fundamentally and forever change. One of the stats that we haven't is one that should be on your slide, the bottom one, is 99% of U.S. employers expect furloughed salaried workers to return to work within six months. So, again, this idea that this is going to forever change us, and we'll operate differently. Sure. We'll reconsider how we lay out office spaces, configuration of touchless doors. I expect fully that we're going to have more touchless doors. There's no reason for you to have to hit that elevator and touch a button every time. So, we're going to figure out all of that.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
But here's the advice that we're giving our employers, and this is across industry, is employers have to be very careful. Words matter, and when you say to an employee, "I will bring you back when this workplace is safe," it's like that statement that we will be transparent with you. Well, sort of. You'll be as transparent as you reasonably and respectfully can be, but promising employees safety is you're going to do your best to provide them the safest reasonably safe, like you've got to word that. I would tell that to all of your members and be very carefully over-promising. OSHA doesn't say you're going to have a workplace that will be guaranteed safe. That isn't how it works.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, we're really saying be careful with your words because employees are listening to you, and if you make those commitments, it'll undermine their overall trust in you. The other point that we really advise companies to do and employers broadly whether they're for profit, not profit, public sector is when you're talking to people about their fears, there are some people who have a generalized fear. I had someone say to me the other day, "I'm not coming back to work until they have a vaccine," and I said, "Well, you may not have a job then." I was just blunt.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I mean, the reality is I understand we're going to do as much of this as we can remotely. I'm going to do everything I can to make the environment as safest I reasonably can, but you can't just say, "I don't feel comfortable coming to work because of COVID, and I'm going to come when I want to come." It doesn't work that way. So, employers have to be very, very careful in their word choice and be honest with their employees, tell them this is what our culture is.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Think about the front liners. I mean, front line, first line, first responders. They can't say, "I'm a nurse, and I'm not coming to work." It doesn't work that way. Certain jobs have to be done in person, and what we're going to do is protect you as much as we can. So, it's words, and I think the communication, partnering HR, technology, your communications and marketing teams is going to be critical. Don't make promises you can't deliver on.

Gary Shapiro:
I think that's really good advice, and I appreciate that. You're right. Americans want a safe environment. We have a first-world problem here that we think everything is guaranteed-

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
That's right.

Gary Shapiro:
... and there are risks though, and one of the concerns I've heard from employers, and I'd like to know, you're working with all the HR people, if it's a concern there as well is liability because no matter what an employer does, you can recognize there could be a risk of transmission especially with this terrible virus where the symptoms don't appear for a while. You could be asymptomatic and contagious. It can be an asymptomatic case, which is not good because it spreads it to people around them. Korea's facing that problem from a guy who visited several bars recently.

Gary Shapiro:
What about liability? Is this a job now for Congress to step in and say, "Look, employers, gross negligence is still bad, but let's be reasonable here. This is not the Trial Lawyers Relief Act here," you're trained as a lawyer. I was trained as a lawyer. We know how lawyers are like... To them, it's just a business, and it's tax that American employers pay. It's a vig that our competitors around the world just don't pay. What are we doing about that?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Well, I'm hoping that what we're doing is just as you... I think we should be walking the halls of Congress, if you're walking them virtually or otherwise, talking with members and saying, "We really do need to give some attention." To your point, not for irresponsible employers. if you know for example that you're in a workplace, and two or three people on a floor have tested positive for COVID, the notion that you would keep people coming to work every day and dah, dah, dah. I mean, you got to be careful and smart, right? I get that part, but if we open this door as we know, it's a litigation for everything. It just won't work, and let me tell you something, Gary. No one, and I know. I'm very careful when I say this because people think, "Oh, you're comparing COVID to the flu."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
But the fact of the matter is a lot of people die unfortunately every year because of the flu. Imagine if employees or the families of people who died because of the flu could bring an action against their employer because the employer brought them to work and exposed them to it. I mean, and again, I'm not comparing COVID and the flu. That's what the epidemiologists are trained to do. That's not what I do, but there are all number and sorts of diseases that one can contract at work and under normal, good, safe practices, and I just can't imagine that we think it makes sense from a global competitiveness standpoint for American employers to have to shoulder that burden. So, Congress does need to act.

Gary Shapiro:
I agree with that. Boy. Let's shift over to skills. Is this an opportunity here for people to re-skill during this break? Will there be a long-term impact about a skills gap? Should we shift as a country? What are HR departments thinking here? What are you suggesting?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Well, we've been talking about it for a while, the need for people to be lifelong learners, and the need for people to be constantly re-skilling, up-skilling themselves, and now, here we are forced to deal with it because a number of employers are revisiting as we pointed out earlier. Right now, CFOs are saying, "Do I need that job? Do I need a human being to do that job?" We've been talking about AI and automation and robots and its impact. Well, during this prolonged period, we're all revisiting whether or not we need the same number of employees to do the same type of work they've done in the past. To me, that is a call for employees to cease and employers, but specifically personal accountability.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
You and I realized, and I can say this more in law school. I mean, there was a different type of practice that you were engaged in, document production. Computers do it now. So, you just got to constantly re-skill, and we've got to emphasize to people that their failure to do it will result in their job loss. So, it's not necessarily COVID. A number of these jobs as the Secretary pointed out are actually furloughs. They're coming back to work. The question is will you be prepared to do the new work?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, one of the things that we're encouraging... I mean, my heart goes out to the high school graduates and the college graduates of 2020. They're coming into an ugly job market. I thought I had seen ugly job markets before, but this is one, and what we've said to them is, "While you're out for these 6, 7, 8, 10 weeks whatever it is, you should be re-skilling," and there are all sorts of online... Coursera, Udacity, LinkedIn Learning. There are all of these opportunities for all of us to learn something new while we're out, so that when you do go back into the workplace, you actually can be more of an added value to your employer.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, lifelong learning, using all of the technology that you all have enabled that technology enables us to do is we've got it now stop just talking about retraining and retrain people.

Gary Shapiro:
I have a question here from the audience. Does SHRM have templates for policies to bring people back to work for workplace safety? I'm hearing what the CEO is saying about being careful with our words.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Yes, we do. So, I'd encourage everyone. We've actually set up a microsite within our site, but if you go to shrm.org, not to be a commercial, but we literally have templates. We have best-in-class, and they're updated literally daily because every day something comes out, and it's by state. So, we're learning that various states want to handle it differently, so we're strongly encouraging people to go to our website that we've stood up for navigating COVID-19. It's shrm.org/backtowork, and a front slash. I always get them confused. It's funny. The other day I told my daughter I use... I said, "You know what the pound sign is?" She looked at me like, "What are you talking about? It's so dated." I said, "Oh, the hashtag. I'm sorry."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
But the point is we've absolutely stood this up, and we are updating it constantly. So, you have the latest information from the public health, the epidemiology world, the CDC, the World Health Organization, as well as what employers are doing, and we do have... The Secretary alluded to this or specifically spoke to it. We actually have some companies that worked through this. So, it's not that all of us are doing this for the first time. We're learning from employers. You saw that Boeing announced a couple of weeks back bringing 27,000 people back to work in Washington State. So, we have been monitoring very closely what did they learn, so that all of the folks who are watching this... that are participating in this webinar can go to our website, and we'll tell you what they learned.

Gary Shapiro:
That's a great point. There's a another question, and I'm not saying I haven't heard about this. I'm not sure it's accurate, but it says the California governor just signed an executive order stating the employees who've been at work and contract COVID-19 will qualify for worker compensation benefits, and it'll be presumed that they contracted the virus at work. So, the liability's on the employer. How can employers in multiple states navigate these state-by-state executive orders, which is true for a lot of major companies? All of a sudden, every governor now is doing something different, and every state legislature. Do you foresee this type of executive order to be picked up by other states or federally?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I hope not. I mean, we oftentimes refer to - especially in the employment law - what starts in California on the West Coast makes its way across the country. I'm hoping this one stops right away. I don't know. This would be cutting-edge, and I'm sure my folks right now are already looking at it. They may be chatting, but I don't know what Governor Newsom has done in California, but I will tell you, and I would say this, to presume that someone contracted COVID virus at work just because they're an employee of yours is way over the top to me. One man's opinion.

Gary Shapiro:
Well, that's for sure, especially since there's been very few tests for COVID-19 out there. A lot of people were never tested, and then you get an antibody test four or five months later and someone says, "Oh, I got this here." It's absurd because it's several months intervening. It's difficult to figure out where you got it. My wife had COVID-19. She thinks she got it at work because she's a frontline doctor, and I'm pretty sure she did get it at work, but she was fine. She just lost her sense of smell. She tested positive for antibodies, and I'm hoping I have those antibodies too because I'm living with her.

Gary Shapiro:
I do have to point out, you did make a difference between COVID and the flu. There's a couple people who have filed comments not exactly agreeing with you. One of them says that if people have flu, show symptoms, then it's obviously very different. It's different in a thousand other ways. We know so little about it. There's some herd immunity. There's vaccines. There's all sorts of things, and it's definitely more horrible than the flu, but I understand your point was is that you were just using that as an example of where you get sick.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Yeah, and that's why I said... I mean, the fact of the matter is whatever it is. Name the condition. The fact of the matter is we know that people contract things at work. As long as human beings interact, they will have the risk of that, and that's the point of it.

Gary Shapiro:
But that does seem to go to the debate that's occurring. We're having Chris Christie on this next, and he wrote a rather controversial Washington Post commentary where he talked about let's get back to work type of thing, and now, clearly, there is a tension. Everyone's saying, "Let's get back to work." Not everyone, our federal leadership, some state governors. A lot of people are frustrated. There's demonstrations in state capitals. It's almost a little bit of a rural urban divide, a little bit of a political party divide, and it's dividing us where we were pretty much united on this before, and I'd like to know if you guys or you have a view on that. I mean, is it too soon? Is it too much? Is it all at once? Is it gradual? Is it regional?

Gary Shapiro:
If you were the person in the White House, which you might be someday given watching your career, Johnny. I'm just telling you. If you had to press that and make those decisions, what would you be saying?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, I was on on a panel discussion with Dr. Tedros from the Director General of the World Health Organization last week, and he said two things that really stand up, and I think inform what I think about this. One, he said, "We've got to balance lives or factor in lives and livelihoods." So, yes, there're the health care considerations that have to be taken into consideration, but then he went on to say that... either he or someone else in the call, but the group was basically suggesting that the pandemic will kill, but starvation is going to kill a lot more that around the globe the impact of not factoring in that people need to eat. They need to work. Livelihoods are important and so are lives. So, trying to figure out how to balance that to get the economies globally back to work.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
One guy was saying that in the less and non-Westernized parts of the world, less developed parts of the world, what we're not thinking about is the wake effect of if America shuts down and then the UK and then Germany, et cetera, then a lot of that production, manufacturing, and what have you that was being done in less developed countries, and those less developed countries don't have the social nets that we have, the safety nets, those people could face starvation. So, this is in this big thing called the globe, this big family that we're all a part of. We've got to get people back to work.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Now, must we do it responsibly? Yes. Must we do it as reasonably, safely as we can? Yes, and we're doing that. That's what I'm saying. We have great learnings from companies that didn't close. As we're reopening, we're capturing best practices, and we're practicing. We don't know. Some of the things we're going to try will work and some won't, but the idea that we should not start moving... I was listening to this morning on... I guess it was MSNBC or one of the channels, and Tudor, the billionaire hedge fund guy, whatever, said, "If we do this for another year while we wait for a vaccine, literally, we will be into a second depression. I mean, like a real depression, not a recession, but a depression."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, balancing those two, I, therefore, if you ask me, I'm the president. I think we start moving smartly toward reopening.

Gary Shapiro:
I hear you. I mean, there is a tension there. On the one hand, the whole point was flatten the curve, not stop everyone from getting it, and it's clearly flattened the curve.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
That's right.

Gary Shapiro:
Other than New York, the hospital strain has not been overwhelming where in fact, there was an article in The New York Times yesterday that a lot of the hospitals that have been built by the federal government, most of them just aren't being used. I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars, basically, were spent building temporary structures and just a few hundred if not. People were used for thousands of beds. I got a lot of notes that the citing of the California workforce compensation. It is a law. It's a rebuttable presumption. For the first time in my life, I think I'm thinking I understand Elon Musk now. California's definitely its own thing. It's not very employer friendly. Let me put it that way.

Gary Shapiro:
There's a question here that's interesting because this affects a lot of people. Do you see an appetite for raising the minimum wage especially for health care workers, restaurant, retail and hotel workers or is that something you don't get involved in?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, we think employers and the market will respond to that. Here's the real challenge, and you talked about it when you talked with the Secretary. You have people effectively making $24, $25 an hour under the current COVID plan that's set to expire in July, but I just saw that certain members of the House and Senate have proposed post-July a plan that puts $2,000 per American making under $120,000 a year. So, a household married couple that could get $4,000 a month and then $2,000 per kid for each of up to three kids. I mean, do the math. That means a family of a husband, wife, three kids could get 10 grand a month under this proposed plan. We do have to revisit how this thing is all going to work out because someone's got to pay for it.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I was tickled the other day. I said, "Six months ago, or hell, four months ago, we were talking about the deficit, and now, we seem to be willing to do whatever." I'm not sure that I would agree that we need to be smart about getting people back to work is this short of it, Gary, because there are costs to people not working, and therefore, back to the specific question around minimum wage, that'll be interesting because in some ways, the reason I brought that up is we're paying people in some states as much as $24, $25 an hour between the federal and the state plan, which means for all those guys from $15 an hour... I mean, what's the new argument? For 20, 25? I don't know.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
I can tell you this. One thing I know is that most of these costs, almost all of them inevitably flow down. So, if Walmart's got to take these minimum wage up to meet and compete with the federal government and this plan or the future plan, believe me, the cost of your visit to the store are going to be... You will reflect that. Someone's got to pay for it.

Gary Shapiro:
So, let's talk a little bit about diversity, maybe not in the sense that a lot of people... the way people think about it. Let's talk about generational diversity because right now, we have five different generations in the workforce, and we see it a lot in the tech industry. Talk about the benefits that tech companies and others can gain from hiring across generations, and what can the tech industry do to support generational diversity in the workplace?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Well, I love that, and we've been talking about it at SHRM, tapping into untapped pools of talent. It included not just, as you said, the traditional race, gender, et cetera, but age, and the formerly incarcerated, disabled, and veterans. I mean, the people from the disabled community. So, what we've been saying is that this is an opportunity for the tech community and others. I think there are two observations specifically with respect to age. Folks are in the workplace now, a number of people, 60-plus because they need to be, and COVID has highlighted that if you've seen your 401(k) plan, in many instances, that's now a 201(k), as we say. I mean, it's been ugly these last couple of months.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
So, many of these folks relying on fixed incomes need to go back to work and actually continue to add value. We also see that there's some value, and we're hearing this from millennials and Generation Z in reverse mentoring. So, there's a lot that older workers can teach younger workers in the workplace: resilience, going through tough times, how it all works out. Many of these kids were only born in a generation when things went up. They've never had to deal with this. So, being able to go look at someone who says, "Let me tell you. Went through that, 2008. Went through 9/11. Y2K." I mean, all of these things, you give them perspective. That's one.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
The flip side is you can use your younger folks to provide reverse mentoring, if you will, to teach lay technology, and teach these non-digital natives how to be more productive for longer, and we're ignoring the fact. No one talks about this, but we talk about it a lot. Starting in the year 2000, the American birth rates went on a decline. We still - not withstanding the current 20.5 million people who filed for unemployment benefits last night - We're going to have less throughout the week. We're going to have a real birth rate problem in America. We have one, but the effects of it would be significant, so we're going to need people to remain in the workplace for a much longer period of time.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
We won't have the luxury. Just before this all, we were at three and a half percent of unemployment rate. We used to say 4% of Americans don't want to work anyway. So, we were begging people to come to work anyway. We're going to need older workers to be re-tooled, re-skilled, so that when this economy comes back, and it will post-COVID, when it does, we have people trained and able to come into the workplace. So, it's good. It's just smart. Do it now.

Gary Shapiro:
I hear you on that, but back to COVID. I mean, it does raise some questions about... You have a weird virus, which is killing people, mostly 95% of them are over 60. In a lot of states, actually, the average age of death is beyond the average life expectancy. In other words, it's really going after selecting... I mean, it does go after others with comorbidities, but it's really going after older people. I'm over 60, so I'm in that category. Are the people that should be last and back into the office or is that just going to naturally happen? How will that affect things in the long term and how about other people with other comorbidities? They're less likely to want to come to the office if they already have a vulnerable immune system, if they're grossly obese, if there is a history of cancer. All these comorbidities that are there, and we talk about why we have the most deaths in the U.S. Well, we do have a lot of obese people. We do have more people surviving cancer, thankfully. We have more people on kidney dialysis than any other country proportionately.

Gary Shapiro:
We're at all these extremes because we've done a great job keeping people alive, but now, these are the people that are most jeopardized, and will there be some type of challenge in bringing people back into the workforce as we get through this transition period?

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
And again, those words matter. We can bring people back to work. We don't necessarily have to bring them back to the workplace in the traditional sense. So, because of again all of the wonders of technology, we can still hire older workers, and they can work remotely. We can still hire people who have comorbidities, who have compromised immune systems. They just don't necessarily have to come into the workplace. So, it's not a workforce issue. In fact, if COVID has done nothing else for us, it has shown us that we can actually hire these people. I talked about disabled people with disabilities who are, as we say, people who are able to come into the work and show their abilities. They may do it remotely going forward. So, I think that's the biggest sell for us is that I think we're going to have the opportunity to cast our nets a lot more.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
People don't have to necessarily show up in the workplace. But here's something that I am concerned about because we've been big, big proponents of the fight against ageism. We shouldn't make generalizations. I mean, Gary, I'm looking at you. You're a young, healthy guy. You can be 62. I would hate for an employer to say, "Well, I want Gary to work here, and the job does require that you come into the workplace, but because he's over 60, he's at risk, so I'm going to hire the 40-year-old. That is what we have to be careful to is making assumptions. All 60-year-olds aren't compromised, and frankly, all 30-year-olds aren't healthy.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.:
Even if they look healthy, they're just not. You could probably take a couple of them on yourself, it looks like, right? So, we have to be really careful as a former employment lawyer with buying into stereotypes and taking groups of people and saying, "You're too old to come into the workplace. You're too sick to come into the workplace. You have a disability." We've been there, done that, and that the results are horrible. So, on an individualized basis, determine whether or not a person, A, has the skills that you need. Once you determine that, then say, "But can I allow that person to work remotely?" If so, you get the best of both worlds. They're adding to our economy, and you're getting the best talent.

Kara:
Great. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Very exciting and interesting conversations from both Secretary Scalia and Johnny. We appreciate everyone joining us, and lastly, I would just like to tell everyone that we are hosting the former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on May 22nd. You can go to our website, which is nvtc.org to register to attend this event on May 22nd. We hope to see you there. In the meantime, we'll close this webinar as we close all of our events here at NVTC. Please stay safe and stay healthy, and we hope to see you later this week at another one of our events. Thank you.

Gary Shapiro:
Thank you. Thanks-