Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Vocational Rehabilitation and Wage Earning Capacity with Karen Grossberg
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:06) Hello, welcome to Marci Talks Money and Life. I'm Money Marci. I am fortunate to know some wonderful people with incredible and interesting careers. My guest today is Karen Grossberg of VoCouncil LLC. Karen is a vocational rehabilitation counselor, a board certified vocational expert, and a psychotherapist. She is also a vocational expert for social security. As a vocational rehabilitation counselor, Karen works with injured workers to assist them in assessing their skills and returning to the workforce in a medically suitable position. She also offers forensic evaluations addressing various legal matters and provides expert witness testimony regarding wage earning capacity and cost of attendant care. Karen is a trained medical social worker and began her career in hospitals dealing with patients and families in crisis. Because of her education and training, she is able to understand the clinical, medical, and psychiatric presentation of clients and offer effective vocational rehabilitation services. Vocational opinions take into account clinical issues as well as an assessment of an individual's transferable skills in order to provide an objective analysis. Now, I don't know about you, but to me this sounds very specialized and very unique career. How did you end up doing this? Karen Grossberg (01:28) Morning, by the way, Marci, thank you for inviting me. Marci Grossman (01:30) ⁓ hi Karen. Everybody welcome Karen. Karen Grossberg (01:35) It's a kind of complicated path actually. When I originally started I got an MBA and was going into healthcare administration ultimately after I did a medical social work stint I had kids and was at home and after five months of being at home realizing I couldn't. I started back part time and a friend of mine told me about this vocational rehab gig and I started that in about 2001 and have built it from there. Marci Grossman (02:03) You make it sound like nothing but this is such a unique career. I've never heard of anyone else doing this I love talking to therapists in general just because so much baggage revolves around money one way or another but this really is putting it all together and as well as into the physical component of what you're able to do and the emotional of what you're emotionally able to do and all these other parts into it and eventually it comes to are you able to earn money? How much money can you earn? All of these kind of things. So putting the MBA and the financial aspects of what you learn there into all these other things is fascinating. Karen Grossberg (02:40) Thank you. There's really, there aren't a lot of vocational counselors. A lot of people work public sector, like with Department of Rehab Services and such. Aren't a lot of people, at least in Michigan, and even nationally, that do the forensic piece. It's a relatively newly evolving area that... It applies to, I do issues with regard to divorces and assessing if, there's a party that's either underemployed or somebody who has been out of the workforce for a long period of time. So there's a lot of relatively new applications of the career and it is a very specialized area for sure. Marci Grossman (03:16) Well, in regards to divorces, I recall after their divorce, or guess shortly before their divorce, he transitioned from a high paying field to a low paying field. And obviously that impacted their, well, what he could pay for, child support and other aspects. Would they call you in to say, hey he's not, because this was 25 years ago or more, they would call you in and say, hey, he's not making what he could be making. This is a personal choice and he needs to get back with the program. Karen Grossberg (03:50) Absolutely. people do that intentionally for spite and people do that because they just want a career change. However, when somebody is getting divorced and you're looking at number one child support and or potential spousal support, people do that, make those sorts of changes and it has implications long term for the other spouse. So I've been brought in to address issues, I would say that's an issue of underemployment. And so I can provide an opinion based on what's going on in the labor market, using labor market data and availability of employment. to determine what someone can earn if they have left an area of work for whatever reason and provide an opinion. Again, my opinion is whether they can earn this money. Obviously, it's an ultimate decision of the court or of arbitration or the process to determine. I can say that Mr. Smith is now working earning $12 an hour, whereas he had a position earning $40 an hour previously. I can say his capacity is now to earn based on the current income of that field to earn $42 an hour. And that's my opinion. It then goes up for negotiation and it often more times than not ends up in a settlement, which is the ideal thing is that people can come to a determination of what's a reasonable amount of money to allocate for those spousal support and or children's benefits as a part of divorce. So it's a useful tool that is based on data as opposed to just speculation if you just leave it up to attorneys to discuss. Marci Grossman (05:32) the attorneys, one or the other attorney would be contacting you to do the evaluation. Karen Grossberg (05:38) Right, and it's an evaluation and It's an objective evaluation, meaning I have no relationship with anybody here. And my job is purely to assess what, how much money somebody can earn given their training, education, experience, transferable skills, if they have medical or psychological impairments that affect their work. All of those things are factored into my analysis. And then it's paired with data from the department of Labor and the data is very much vetted data that is obtained by the Department of Labor contacting employers across the region and I can pinpoint it to you know like in the Detroit metropolitan area there's a specific area that I can pinpoint wages based on that area and job type. so I can get a very targeted range of employment, range of, a of salaries and provide that in a report. So I can say that if somebody has 10 years of experience, I would place them between X dollar and X dollar an hour and that's what I provide to the... attorneys who ultimately use that as a tool. Marci Grossman (06:46) I imagine that that is a useful and stressful piece of information because people do for various reasons change their careers and sometimes to change your career you have to take a salary cut and the timing. So someone could innocently, not necessarily innocently, but intentionally for their own personal growth change a career and take a salary cut and eventually long term it would be something but if the timing is wrong you still owe it to the other party whatever the support is and whatever the arrangement so I can't imagine that's an easy decision for the judge or the arbiter or whoever that is to ultimately make that decision. Karen Grossberg (07:26) Also, sometimes I do a two-tiered analysis. In the scenario you're talking about, again, it's up to... what I'm asked to do and what questions I'm asked to answer. But it's not uncommon for me to look at a variety of transferable occupations. And if somebody has opted to change professions and they're earning less money, I can also from that project out how much they would be earning in three to five years or beyond. So I can give projections and wages so that when the trier of fact, whomever that is or whoever is doing the negotiations can say, okay, well yeah, you made a pivot in your career and you're now earning $15 an hour, but based on this opinion, it is expected that in three to five years, you're gonna be at the median wage and this is what the median wage is at three to five years. So sometimes if there's a negotiation, it could be a stepped negotiation where okay, today you're gonna pay this and in the future you're gonna pay a different number because it's expected you're gonna be earning more. Marci Grossman (08:25) It's just so fascinating to me. Of course, I'm a numbers person, so anytime you say projections, I get all excited. And you do this kind of evaluation not just for divorces, but for workers' comp and auto injuries and other life situations that happen that obviously someone gets derailed from their original track. Karen Grossberg (08:45) Correct. And also, I do attendant care. So that's another area that's especially with auto no fault is if somebody is head injured or spinal cord injury and needs attendant care long term, how do you project out those costs or how do you Marci Grossman (08:45) and Karen Grossberg (09:00) reimburse for those kinds of costs, especially if a family member is providing the service. That's just another area that I provide opinions on. Marci Grossman (09:08) Okay, so if a family member is providing the service for this they would come to someone similar to you maybe to determine what is the appropriate amount that they should be Paid for the service they're providing since they're not going to an external, whether that would be a nurse or just an attendant to provide those services Karen Grossberg (09:29) Correct. Marci Grossman (09:30) I guess the question is which side are you called in or could it be either side in any of these cases? Karen Grossberg (09:35) Well, I have the ability to be called in on any side of any case. I tend to be called on more often than not, at least on the comp side, on the defense team, primarily, and again, I'm not. is my opinion, but is primarily because I believe that people are better off emotionally, psychologically, fiscally, every way, working. So because of that, my opinion is very much work-oriented and I like to envision that most people have the capacity. So for that reason, plaintiffs side tends to not be so happy with my opinions. Marci Grossman (10:12) Okay, so they're not calling you in to say, hey, this is the limit of what this person can be earning or this is their limitations. You're called in from the other side of their ability rather than their limitations of what their opportunities might be. Karen Grossberg (10:29) Yes, exactly. Marci Grossman (10:30) And I bet some of the time they're surprised that, you know, they called you in to talk about abilities and you're like, yeah, well, that's just, this is their limitation. Because if you're evaluating it objectively, you're looking at the whole picture and having both sides of it, both as a therapist and the business background of an MBA, you've got a range of experience and knowledge to pull from that makes you unique. Karen Grossberg (10:55) well thank you, sometimes my opinion isn't what... whoever retained me hoped for, because I can't make someone skilled. I can't make somebody with a deficit not have a deficit. I can't make somebody who lives 300 miles away from a metropolitan area have 30,000 job opportunities. So there are facts in a case and the facts are what the facts are. So I can sometimes pull a rabbit out of the hat and other times it's, not so easy. So it's really, I am very honest with the people that retain me about my opinion and I give it the best shot possible but in some cases it's not reasonable. People aren't going to earn what they earned before an injury and they're not going to be able to have as many opportunities. So that's what I said. Marci Grossman (11:46) I still think it's fascinating. But you also still do therapy that is outside of this range. And in your therapy practice, do you often have to kind of bring this knowledge base into it because people are expecting something from their spouse or from themselves in terms of income or how they relate to money that is beyond what they had realized? Karen Grossberg (12:09) actually very interesting because I'm doing therapy in part because I'm often evaluating people on the forensic side that have psychological problems and I have physicians that disable people because they have major depression, which I find fascinating because to me the worst thing is to disable somebody for depression because you're then relegating them to isolation and that is the worst thing to do with somebody with depression. It's better that they do something and have a schedule in most cases. But when I testify now, because I am doing psychotherapy and I do have a wide variety of diagnoses that I'm seeing, can't comment medically on somebody because I haven't evaluated them in that capacity, but I can comment on whether I think it's a reasonable thing to disable somebody because of their mental health status. On the other side, in therapy, it's very fascinating because I'm seeing quite a few people that are 20-somethings that are struggling to figure out their careers. So my background is really helpful because I can help with interviews, I can help with anxiety around interviews, how to figure out their next steps. So it's really... I'm using those, I call it my day work, to really affect my evening therapy sessions because it's been very useful in negotiating those sorts of issues that my patients are having. And there's a lot of them in terms of salary. How do you go into an interview and talk about salary? I mean, it's a very stressful topic for people. So I actually in some cases have gone to the Department of Labor and pulled wages and talked about it and how to approach those things because it is you know when you're about a 20-something Approaching money and talking about wages can be overwhelming So it has played a factor in in the work that I do as a therapist Marci Grossman (14:05) I think talking about wages is stressful for most people. And when you go and apply for jobs and sometimes they list the range and other times they don't list the range and then you go in for the interview and they're like, so how much do think you should make? And it's like, well, what do you feel this position is worth? You're hiring for this position. You shouldn't be putting that onto the person applying because there are so many things that they're not aware of in what offers you may or may not be making. Karen Grossberg (14:31) which is really helpful for anyone who's in therapy with me or who knows me because I can get the wages from the Department of Labor and based on what I know about them I can tell them what their wage range should be. So when they go in I've literally copied the page off of the Department of Labor website, the range, and marked where I believe they should be so if they're asked they can say they spoke to a board-certified vocational expert and this is where she places my wage. Marci Grossman (14:59) So is that something anyone can do, go to that website or is that something that not everyone has access to? Karen Grossberg (15:00) Bye! everyone can go to the Department of Labor. It's a published and updated site. The 2024 wages just became available. The only thing is it's a lagging indicator. So the 2024 wages just became available in the last few weeks. I just saw them for the first time in a report that I did. yes, you can go to the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics and pull up wages. narrow it by specific employment types and then you can narrow it by parts of the country and even down to like the Detroit metropolitan area. or whatever metropolitan or even if you're not in a metropolitan area there's other measures like in Michigan there's the remainder of the state. It's kind of like anything that doesn't fit into the other categories. Marci Grossman (15:53) That's fascinating because I didn't know about that. I have various places to gain resources. Robert Half puts out wage ranges and indeed the job sites list that, but I never thought of going to the Department of Labor. Karen Grossberg (16:08) Well the Department of Labor is data that's vetted. mean there are statisticians that are managing the sources. They go out and sample employers and update it again. At least the wages are updated annually. And because it's vetted and it's used for policy in the United States, theoretically it is probably the best, most reliable data that I can rely on to project what someone's going to earn. I don't know necessarily where other sources get a lot of other sources like Indeed might pull some of their data from the Department of Labor but I'm not entirely sometimes those sites use self reports and so then it's not vetted it's not reliable it's not generalizable. So it doesn't go through those standards because people that are in a report are going to be like either earning high or low and they're either angry or delighted. And so you're missing a whole lot of data there. So the US Department of Labor lists it. They tell you what the percentiles are. So it's more reasonably reliable and generalizable. Marci Grossman (17:19) Okay, so that goes against the 90 % of statistics are made up. actually, you know, their statistics are good. Karen Grossberg (17:27) Right, because they actually send surveys to employers. So it's done, and I don't know what their pattern is, but they have a methodology and an approach, and that's what they do continuously. Marci Grossman (17:38) So if someone listening was thinking, wow, this sounds like an interesting field and I'd like to go into it, what suggestions would you have for them? Karen Grossberg (17:47) Well, I would say that there aren't many of us that do what I do. So it's a very narrow field. there are programs that focus on vocational rehabilitation. Those programs don't necessarily focus on the forensic side. It focuses on helping people get back to work. You can go into social work and also... know, social workers have tremendous transferable skills to do vocational rehabilitation counseling. And there are other counseling areas that you can ultimately get, but it's, you have to pretty much get a master's degree in one of those areas. And that prepares you to be a vocational rehabilitation counselor if you take the appropriate certification exams. The forensic piece is a whole nother. skill set and preparation. mean, you need the vocational rehabilitation as the basis, of course, but no one really trains you on how to testify. That's kind of by fire, if I'm completely honest. And maneuvering the legal system takes years and years of experience to understand how to respond to that. So you have to find someone to mentor you, and that's challenging because there aren't many people that do this work. Marci Grossman (18:55) But is there need for more people to do this work? Is there opportunity for someone? Karen Grossberg (19:00) I mean there's always opportunity for somebody good, but I don't know that, I think there's a, at least in work comp, it's the number of people that are taking work comp is shrinking. So there's less and less work comp work, but like I said, it's developing in other areas. The forensic areas are developing, so. I think that I've gotten called to other states to do work, so obviously there aren't people in other states to do this. So there must be some shortfall somewhere. Marci Grossman (19:28) Okay. If you were to give yourself advice at whatever age it was when you started making this transition to this type of work, 20, what, 25, late 20s maybe, would you say go for it or run? Karen Grossberg (19:42) Hahaha Like I said, I fell into it. I was going to healthcare management, that's where I was heading. So it's not somewhere where I even could envision at that point what I was heading for. the forensic work is fascinating. and it's the part of VOC where I actually help someone get back to work is very rewarding when somebody who has a work-related injury who wants to go back to work and doesn't know what their next steps are. I find that that's... A very big issue is that people don't know, they've been in manufacturing, say, and they just don't know what other options they have available. So working with somebody to explore their options and helping them transition and then ultimately getting a job and moving on with their lives. I mean, that's rewarding. In the rare cases I get to do that, it's nice to see. So. I have no regrets for the path I've taken and I think that a lot of what I do is really interesting and challenging, which is nice. I mean, there's really not a dull day. Marci Grossman (20:43) From the outside it sounds interesting and challenging. I have known you for quite a few years and I've never fully understood the depth of everything that you do. I had to go really slowly on that introduction to make sure I pronounced all those words. There's a lot of big words in there. Karen Grossberg (20:59) Yeah, when people say, what do you do, it's really hard to explain. Marci Grossman (21:03) Well, I understand that a whole lot better now than I used to. It's still as fascinating as I thought it was, possibly even more fascinating, both from the forensic side, which as an accountant, it's basically an audit. And the building things on to taking those next steps and stuff, I think it's amazing what you do. both sides of it. Well, there's more than two sides, but all the various sides and especially the way they all fit together. and of course how it's related to money because that's what I talk about. Have you got any words of wisdom you would like to share before we wrap up? Karen Grossberg (21:25) Thank you. Yes. in terms of money specifically. I guess if anybody in their 20s or 30s is listening to this and looking for work and struggling, I would suggest to them that they stop pointing and clicking and try to connect with people. because pointing and clicking when everyone else is doing the same thing is not necessarily going to get them the outcome that they want. And I know, I feel deeply how hard it is to pick up a phone for a 20-something when they've lived by text and by Instagram and Twitter, but pick up the phone and call and network. It's just so valuable and so underutilized today. Marci Grossman (22:21) And there's a lot of networking opportunities out there, whether you start from finding a local group of like-minded or joining a group that is diversely minded, because the opportunities are there when you go outside your comfort zone, and seeing whose hand you can shake and what opportunities you can find or create. Karen Grossberg (22:45) Exactly. Use LinkedIn. Connect with somebody you're interested in. Ask to take them to coffee. I mean there's just a million and one things to do to get yourself noticed beyond pointing and clicking. Marci Grossman (22:58) That is great advice and this has been a really fascinating conversation. Karen, thank you so much for stopping by and chatting and explaining everything you do. I really appreciate this. Karen Grossberg (23:10) Thank you, I'm honored to be on your list. Thanks for including me. Marci Grossman (23:13) you are too kind. Everybody out there, thanks for stopping by. And remember, you got this. See ya.