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The Asset Gap | Transformational Leadership Meets Benefits Strategy · Leadership From The Heart | Transformational Leadership Insights

• Romie Montpeirous: Welcome everyone back to another episode of Leadership from the Heart. Today I am joined by Dan Cosgrove, who helps organizations think differently about employee wellness, also preventative care, and the role benefits play in building a healthier, stronger team. So today we're going to be talking about what happens when employee well-being becomes part of a business strategy, not just another workplace perk. Dan, welcome to the show. How are you? Dan Cosgrove: I am great and thank you Romie Montpeirous: I am Dan Cosgrove: for having me. How are you doing? Romie Montpeirous: I am doing fantastic. Thank you for asking. So just to kick us off, we had a little bit of a conversation prior, but when did employee wellness become a business strategy rather than simply an HR benefit? Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. it really started becoming a business strategy when the CFOs and CEOs looked at it and they're just like, wow, this is our second biggest line item. This no longer should be something that we're just delegating to our HR resources that are already thin on time and resources, that are delegating this to third parties that have no fiduciary responsibility to help them save money. Like that's when people start catching on. And that's really been occurring over the last decade. simply as a direct result of well truthfully the Affordable Care Act. it was well intentioned. I think everybody thought it was well intentioned, but it was misnamed. It should have been called the Accessible Care Act. because we've we've yet to run into an employer or employee that has had their Romie Montpeirous: Can afford it. Dan Cosgrove: health care become more affordable as a result of it. And and that's why it's now risen to the second biggest line on for businesses to think about. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, and like God forbid they they don't continue to invest, right? Because then they're held to a whole different category of type of employer. Yeah. Yeah, please. Dan Cosgrove: yeah. a hundred percent. Yeah. And it's and depending upon like the size of an employer, if you're sub fifty or over fifty, if you're over fifty, you legally have to provide healthcare benefits. And if you don't, you're hit with a tax penalty A or B. Well, that in and itself scares enough people. But then you also have to be able to offer benefits in a competitive way, or else you're gonna lose talent to your your peers or your competing companies. Romie Montpeirous: Exactly. Dan Cosgrove: And and it's It's really tough right now if you're a business owner or a leader and you're just like, Man, we know January one's coming around the corner and they're looking at another twenty percent increase. It's just like I can't absorb that as a business owner. Like it's not humanly possible in order for us to s to sustainably stay open or profitable. But I feel horrible as a leader because oftentimes if you're a leader, you you care about your people. Like you know they're not employee number one or employee number one thousand. They're they actually have a name, they have a family. and Romie Montpeirous: A hundred percent. Dan Cosgrove: you don't want to pass those costs on to those employees. So you do everything you possibly can. But I I feel for a lot of these leaders because unfortunately they've been sold a framework over the last couple of decades that truthfully just now is not the same. And if they just knew how to look at the problem from a different angle, they'd have a breath of fresh air. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. So what are companies getting wrong about a play wellness right now? Dan Cosgrove: Hmm. well, for one, who the decision maker should be on it. again, the CEOs still make the ultimate final call, but they're they're delegating a lot of the responsibility and research to HR and the third-party benefits managers associated with those companies. Romie Montpeirous: Right. Dan Cosgrove: and that really is unfortunate because There's a few things. One, again, it goes Romie Montpeirous: Mm. Dan Cosgrove: back to fiduciary responsibility. A benefits manager does not have a fiduciary responsibility to save the client money. They just simply don't. So that's that's a conflict of interest too there. Then second, HR tends to not really have major, you know, ownership interest in the company, or if they're you know larger, they they may not have vested stock units. So they've been hired to maintain compliance and not really change the status quo. And in order to create any meaningful change in in terms of employee benefits, you have to be willing to disrupt or upset the Apple card. so that's where it comes down to the leaders. They have to be the champions. They have to recognize that this isn't acceptable. This is not acceptable. And we also need to recognize that. This is actually the biggest sales opportunity out there for any company. And that might sound weird, but I actually have an I have an ink article that that reframes this because I'm trying to make healthcare one of the most talked about topics at the executive level at any company. Rather, they're one or ten people to ten thousand people. And so the way I try to look at this picture now. A lot of CEOs, CFOs, and CEOs, they love sales, right? They love that big sales opportunity to increase their total revenue as a company. Well, what if we turned it this around a different way? If you're a, I'll just make it up, a hundred-person company, and you can save $100,000 on optimizing your current employee benefits package, well, simultaneously still helping your employees actually get better benefits. Well, that's $100,000. And let's pretend you're operating on a 10% profit margin. Well, that means you just found the equivalent of a $1 million sales opportunity. And you didn't have to sell anybody external. You just had to educate yourself on what you could be doing differently with your own employee benefit strategy. So that's how we're trying to reframe it for leadership to understand that this is the biggest sales opportunity you have sitting out there as a company, period. Romie Montpeirous: Yes. Is that what you your company does? You wanna Dan Cosgrove: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what what does our company really do? one, we're a nonprofit. so we're called Better Benefits USA. so like the background on that, I actually run and operate a mental health company. So I've been through a lot of the challenges a lot of business owners and leaders might be experiencing right now. Like you really care about your people, you want to take care of them, but you also know that money does not grow on trees and you Romie Montpeirous: Right. Dan Cosgrove: need to be smart with how you spend it. So I went through that same challenge about four or five years ago and and ultimately found what I now talk about all the time. Like what we had been sold by healthcare companies and benefit managers for the past several decades has been a a modified truth, we'll just say. and and so there's there's a way to do it better. And in fact, I did it better with my own people, and and I got I'll just show the facts. Like I I had a mental health company. You only have 70% retention in that field. I've got 95% retention. And we're actually just 1% short of becoming one of Inc.'s best workplaces. So like we feel really good about it, but it shows like when you take care of your people, they can take care of the business. and so that that's like what I what I really like. It it alerted me that. All these other businesses out there need to learn what I had learned like five years ago. And so that's why I started a new nonprofit called Better Benefits USA. And what we're doing to kind of attack our very broken healthcare industry is we work off of a game share model. We only get paid if we save people money, which, on the contrary, like your current benefits of manager, they get paid a five to 10% commission on how much your insurance premiums are. So They're not really negotiating on your behalf to reduce your premiums because ultimately they're gonna make more money as a result of it. so that's just one of the several issues we see in our healthcare system. But that's what we are so focused on is like we think, or actually I believe, and our nonprofit believes, we live in the greatest country in the world. But our healthcare system has certainly let us down, and that's what we're trying to help all these companies out there fix. Romie Montpeirous: I didn't have said it better myself. So when like a leader like you, business owners, says our people are our biggest asset, Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: what would actually have to be true for someone to say that? Because you said that, you know, when you take care of your people, your people take care of the business. And I am a 1000% believer in that. but we Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: hear all the time, you know, really big corporations say, you know, our our people are our biggest asset. But what does that actually mean? Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. It means you actually care about what you're giving to them and you're actually putting your prioritization of like if it's not in your top three priorities in terms of attracting and retaining talent, then your people aren't your biggest asset. Like it needs to always be at least in the top three. And I you can quickly tell if it's really in their top three. Like they might put it on paper, but if you again do not have a CFO, COO, or CEO actually championing the change and efforts required in terms of employee benefits inside their four walls. It's not a top three priority and their people are not their most important asset. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, because there's a link between people doing well and the business doing well, isn't there? Dan Cosgrove: Hundred percent. absolutely. I mean, just think about the level of disengagement you see across employees in America at their companies. They don't feel like they are a part of the actual collective effort by that company. They just feel like they're somebody punching the clock, getting to five o'clock, getting home, and running through it like a hamster will nine to five, five days a week. So they're not really fully engaged. And when you don't have people fully engaged. You don't get great results. and like for the for the companies that truly want to excel, whether you're publicly traded or privately held or a nonprofit organization, the companies that truly excel have passionate people that care about what they're doing and they have a clear purpose and you know vision towards like what that company wants to accomplish. I don't care what the industry is. If you don't have passion with the people there, you're gonna get nowhere. And the only way you give them passion is if you show that you care about them first as an individual. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. A hundred percent. So we saw like wellness become part of the new standard, I don't know, maybe about ten years ago was when there was like a big boom in like unlimited PTO and you know, it Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Yep. Romie Montpeirous: was I think Google was like the first one to come out with like, you know, ping pong tables and stuff like that. Why Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: do you think that founders and senior leaders why do you think that they like underestimate the wellness and even the post COVID comeback to the office, Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: you know, why why do they overlook these things as tools that, you know, I think if if you're if you're able to work remote, it is the greatest thing you can offer. Obviously we still have to be productive, but why Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: do you think they over overlook or underestimate these types of things? Dan Cosgrove: Because truthfully, a lot of companies are focused on the bottom line. And it's a lot harder to quantify the actual financial implications for a company to create a better employee benefit. I now like I love the ping pong example you gave there. Like that's a a low cost investment. but like unlimited PTO. Why do people do unlimited PTO? There's actually a financial incentive to it. So by creating unlimited PTO, if people leave the company, which every company has turnover, right? If people Romie Montpeirous: Mm-hmm. Dan Cosgrove: leave the company, they haven't banked any holidays or vacation days. So there's nothing that the company actually has to pay out as an accrued liability. That's Romie Montpeirous: Get that. Dan Cosgrove: Why a lot of companies move to unlimited PTO. It is actually a financial incentive, but of course they frame it in a different way to their employees. Romie Montpeirous: Sure. Dan Cosgrove: So again, if you restructure the financial incentive, I mean a lot of my therapists, they actually work from home. And you know, I could give them a net pay increase, but we all know if I give them a net pay increase, they're they're gonna lose 30% of that to taxes. But using various tax codes, and this is why I wish all these remote groups would know this. Using various tax codes, I mean, you could do, you know, an allowable amount for a home office refresh every Romie Montpeirous: Mm, mm-hmm. Dan Cosgrove: every year if you wanted to, and and that's a a tax-free reimbursement. You could actually pay for their, you know, internet like utility type things because they can't effectively work from home without a working internet and power. So like all those things, you give somebody an extra hundred bucks a month in their pocket, and that's not taxable. So like Again, if if people simply understood the tax codes, which I don't blame them, taxes are not a sexy topic and most people just fear that day in April. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: But i if you really get into the weeds, the tax code is written in the favor of businesses and employees. We're just all fearful of that 5% in April. That's it. so the the key to can't kind of answer your question is you have to find a way to make it financially worth the while of the company. If not, they're already thin on margins. So it's hard for them to make any additional investment when most companies are getting crushed by healthcare expenses and other employee benefits related costs. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, and you know, like I've worked for really big companies and I I would say that I use maybe fifteen to twenty percent of the benefits that they're paying for. You know? Dan Cosgrove: yeah, very common. Romie Montpeirous: Okay, very common. And so, you know, it is there obviously now you've got me thinking, you know, now I'm like, wow, well what if they did an assessment and I'm sure they have, right? But what are people actually using? Where do Where can we maximize and make that optimal for them? And where do we not Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: so much need a benefit to what people aren't using, but if they wanted to, they could kind of a thing. Where where do you see that and how how did you make those types of changes? Dan Cosgrove: Made those types of changes, but I also look for something of what is a benefit that's currently not being touched that really pushes the status quo. So like I'll I'll give you a primary example here. I shared like those utility things and other things like that. But you're familiar with like a section 125, right? Like HSAs, FSAs, those types plans. Romie Montpeirous: Yes, yes. Dan Cosgrove: Yep. So those have been around for a couple decades now. Well, a lot of people don't know this, but there's an optimized section one twenty five out there. And what I mean by this optimize 125 is you can actually provide to every employee now what's called preventative care programs. That kind of talks about like that wellness part initiative. So these preventative care programs are designed just to do exactly as they suggest, like help people avoid those major medical bills before they become medical bills. That's the whole idea behind it. And so you know, this started under the Affordable Care Act Amendment back in 2016. They found that they needed to incentivize employees and employers to more proactively manage their health so that you'd have less chronic conditions. Because as it stands today, we spend 4 trillion plus a year on chronic care conditions in the United States. So, like when you think about from a macroeconomic standpoint, by the way, our American economy increases its government deficit by about $2 trillion a year. We spend $4 trillion a year on chronic care conditions. Which is very out of whack when you can compare that to the rest of the developed countries in the world. So if we simply had a better preventative healthcare system in place, you'd have less chronic conditions. Now I'm not saying like overnight we're gonna reduce our chronic conditions, but imagine Romie Montpeirous: Sure, sure. Dan Cosgrove: in a decade or two decades we can have the amount of chronic conditions, because two thirds of Americans right now have at least one chronic condition. That's how sick our our society is. So two thirds of America have at least one chronic condition. Well, if we can have chronic condition costs by $2 trillion, we just found a way to slowly pay our way out of our debt as a country. That's the major unlock here from a macroeconomic perspective. Well, now let's let's take it back to the leaders at these respective companies. They understand now why this these rules are in place. Well, why not offer this plan to your employees? Because in addition to it providing Basically, the Netflix model of healthcare. So whether you see one doctor or a hundred doctors, you're still paying the same amount each month. You now have free healthcare for the entire family. 24-7, 365, no matter where they're traveling. So that's Romie Montpeirous: Mm-hmm. Dan Cosgrove: a great way to stop a major medical issue before it becomes something big. Well, again, there's also a financial incentive to it. The average employee, because when you properly structure a section 125 with other tax codes, so there's if everybody wanted to talk compliance, they're gonna have to schedule additional time with me because it really does sound too good to be true. But Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: when you properly structure these plans, the average employee will actually see a two to four percent net pay increase. So their taxable income comes down, but their net pay goes up. No different. well well, and in the same fashion, the benefit for the employer, not only are they creating a better benefits package to their employee. And giving those employees a two to four percent net pay increase. Well, since the employees reducing their taxable income, the employees reducing their FICA obligations or their taxable income. So there are ways to go out there and actually provide your employees better benefits and simultaneously save your company about 500 bucks a year per employee. So again, I know some people are gonna be like, no way in hell can you do that. I will just tell them, go ahead and give us a call. We'll gladly talk about the compliance element of it. But that's Where we like to challenge leadership because to them they're just like, this feels so uncomfortable. Like, how do Romie Montpeirous: Hmm. Dan Cosgrove: I bring this to my employees? And what I tell them is, would you rather bring an opportunity that's going to increase somebody's pay, give them better access to healthcare benefits, or would you rather just push the same narrative every single year saying, hey, we can't control healthcare expenses, we're all gonna have to collectively absorb this 20% increase? The choice is yours. Would you wanna deal with the The lack of comfort in trying to learn something new in order to create breakthrough, or would you rather stick with the status quo? And unfortunately, a lot of people like to stick with the status quo. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, like, so I know you talked about disruption earlier. This feels like a Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: major disruption. This this feels like Dan Cosgrove: It is. Romie Montpeirous: and so why do you think in a less than conspiracy theory, why why won't c I can go there, but I don't you know for the public we won't. Maybe we'll do it offline. But Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: I mean common sense with common sense, dude, like you know, what is actually stopping us from doing what we know is Dan Cosgrove: the fear of change. Simple as that. again, like w I saw this when I was at I used to work at PNG and Berkshire Hathaway and Nike and loved all of my experiences working for all those wonderful companies. truthfully I saw a lot of leaders at these respective companies that they got to where they got not by taking massive swings. They got to where they got by Just keeping the ball in play, you know, hitting singles, not going Romie Montpeirous: I see. Dan Cosgrove: for the home run. And again, it goes back to nobody's ever been fired with sticking with the status quo. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: So when you have something that is as disruptive as things that I'm talking about, like for the clients that we have helped, start trailing 12 months alone, we're saving them about 50% of their healthcare costs. We're we're saving them two to three thousand dollars a year per employee. So again, if if you think about that at a hundred person company, that's $300,000 saved. Again, on a 3% or a 10% profit margin, that's $3 million that like of a sales opportunity sitting out there. So again, Romie Montpeirous: Sure. Dan Cosgrove: it it takes time. And even though this has been going on for 10 years, in terms of an employee benefit, that's a really short time frame. like ask people how long it took for them to finally add an HSA into their employee benefit strategy when those became available in 2003. And ask companies how long it took for them to add a 401k into their employee benefit strategy when technically those became legally available in 1979. So it every major what I call say revolutionary employee benefit that emerges takes time for widespread adoption. And everybody else is just sitting there, just you know, twiddling their thumb saying, well, if this group's not gonna do it, then I'm not gonna do it. It's like, well, somebody's eventually gonna have to take the initiative and say, All right, I'm I'm fed up. with what's going on in our healthcare system, I want to be a part of the solution, not just complaining about all the problems. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, and the more companies that do, then the more momentum will grow and then, you know, it'll Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Romie Montpeirous: get to where it's trendy and then now trendy becomes the new, you know, the new normal and and then your business takes off, you know what I mean? Like but at the same time, like right now we could be doing something right now. You know what I mean? Like that's that's where I always go. that that like you said, it's a win win win. for everyone involved. So it's it's amazing that there are all these solutions Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: out there and we're slow to move at them because it's changed, like you said. Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: It it's it's change and it's where do you find your facts? Like, you know, there's this there's this group called the IRS, you know. everybody is fearful. It goes back to yeah, yeah. Romie Montpeirous: It's a tiny group. It's a tiny group. Dan Cosgrove: It goes back to taxes though, right? And and fear Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, it does. Dan Cosgrove: of things. so everybody will say, Well, what does the IRS think of it? What what the hell do you think the IRS is gonna think of these plans that reduce the amount of t collectible tax revenue? Of course they're gonna hate it. But what people don't understand is the IRS cannot write a law. A law can only be created by Congress. And what I always tell people is show me any Democrat or Republican that thinks it's their best interest to get reelected by making healthcare even worse in America. And everybody just goes silent when they're just like so I it's it's trying to help people understand and get through that fear. Because yeah, of Course, you're always gonna have opposition. The IRS's clear job is to collect more tax revenue. That is their job. Their job is not to solve the healthcare problem here in America. That is a different area. so yeah, it's it's all about helping people again get comfortable with the uncomfortable ideas out there because you have to again. push the narrative, push the status quo. If you're not an open-minded thinker and you're just going to say, hey, push this to my benefits manager, let them figure it out, well, how do insurance companies make money? They make money off of you increasing your premium every single year. Their goal is not to help you save money. It just isn't. And and it's unfortunately it's it's the messenger. They're the the ones currently managing a lot of the information that gets into those executive boardrooms. Romie Montpeirous: Right. And to your point, like in in instead of learning, instead of investing in someone that's that can learn the same way you did, right? And having that person come work for for for the company for big companies. And then that person's sole job is to make sure that like next year's benefits are as effective and, you know, useful as possible. we kind of just like you said, just follow the so if I'm a person, let's say I'm on the job on the job hunt. How would I distinguish a company that genuinely cares for the well being of their employees versus one that just simply looks good as a benefit package? Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. truthfully, look at kind of how they do their interviews. like for instance, with our group, you know, I'm sure everybody's gone through those those case interviews and all those fun things where people are trying to test how strategic of a thinker you are. Great. Those those are great. Like, sure, you want to hire smart people. But you also pardon my language, you don't want to hire assholes. And you can quickly tell in interviews if if an asshole's interviewing you as well. so like Romie Montpeirous: True. Dan Cosgrove: at a PNG, we we called it the airport test. And so that's what we do at our company all the time. The airport test has nothing to do with like your intellect. Like, if you're applying to a job, we can already quickly tell just from a resume alone if if you have enough intelligence, right? So for us, the bigger test is are you a cultural fit? And why we call it the airport test is because You know, back in the PNG days, you travel all the time to see clients and everything like that. Well, the real question would be is if you were stuck, you know, in a flight delay or your flight got canceled and you're there with your coworker, would you rather grab a drink or a coffee with them or would you want to kill them? Because ultimately Romie Montpeirous: Ha ha ha. Dan Cosgrove: that's the cultural fit we're talking about here. So like that's that's what I would be looking for. is if the groups interviewing me are just looking at it from like, show me a case study. Tell me how many ping pong balls fit on an airplane that's a 747 with no seats, cool. Hire a really smart person. But when you hire really smart people that has no have no emotional intelligence, you're not beating building a culture. You're just building an engine of, you know, what have you done for me lately? And that's not how you keep a sustainable company. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Yeah. One hundred percent. That's a good takeaway. Like you're you're and that's what I tell people all the time. I started a program of helping people interview. And Dan Cosgrove: Mm-hmm. Romie Montpeirous: I'm like d it's not just pick you, it's also do you want to pick them? Like it's not just one way anymore, guys. Like you should know like your well being matters so much and you have to know if you can, you know, work for the person that you're interviewing with because leadership can really take you to some dark places if it's not a good leader and you know, so don't just let them interview you, interview them as well. So that's a good takeaway. I like the airport test. Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Well well, y you know another thing that I think needs to be reframed for the modern day employer. we do this at our mental health company all the time. we really only have like three rules. So the first rule is use good judgment in all that you do. So that pretty much gives people a lot of ownership and Romie Montpeirous: huh. Dan Cosgrove: autonomy. The second one is if you're because we're treating patients, if your patient wants to be seen in person, you're gonna be in office to see them in person. If not, you can work from home and do virtual from there. So again, more flexibility in the work. And then third is just if you're a full-time person working for us, we expect that you're seeing at least 25 patients a week. Like that is our full-time requirement. if if you don't want to see 25, that's fine. You can still work for us just on a part-time basis. So by keeping it really simple and not having a 50 page employee handbook of all these are the rules and responsibilities that you Romie Montpeirous: Hmm. Dan Cosgrove: must have, it actually makes it more digestible, but it's also treating your employees oftentimes. highly educated people as adults and not like some kids that you have to, you know, lecture all the time. And and unfortunately Romie Montpeirous: Yes. Dan Cosgrove: we see this too much in our in our current business climate because you you did have one bad apple screw something up ten years ago. You now Romie Montpeirous: Yep. Dan Cosgrove: actually have to have a policy in place. And you have to like it's just like, no guys, like we're getting it wrong. Trust people to be naturally good humans and you're gonna naturally get more good humans. So yeah. Romie Montpeirous: Couldn't agree more. I am very against the blake blanket statement, blanket policies. Like, can we just have the tough conversation with the one person that's screwing it up for everybody? You know, like let's Dan Cosgrove: Yeah, right. Romie Montpeirous: have some courage. Let's have some courage, you know. So yeah, I agree with that. I love those three rules by the way, because it makes it so simple. Now leading them is w if they make a mistake, did you use your best judgment? No. Okay, great, done. Like at least you know, Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: right? Like Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Yeah, right? And let's let's learn from it. Like we'll we'll do maybe a three structure out policy. Like if you make that mistake Romie Montpeirous: So simple, you know. Yeah, like something. Dan Cosgrove: and you don't learn from it and you make it again, okay, let's evaluate. Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: Then we have a problem. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So Dan, in your opinion, could you have like a high performing team that does not sacrifice well being? Obviously we know, right? But I think like the people wanna know. What does it look like a high performing team that doesn't sacrifice well being? Dan Cosgrove: I mean, you can look no further than our mental health company. probably probably the highest performing around a therapist in Massachusetts alone, maybe nationwide. And truly they have a four-day work week. Because again, their their expectation is twenty five like patients, that's basically twenty-five hours a week. So even at five hours of admin time, that's really like they're working 30 hours a week. Most people are working forty hours and getting less profitability or productivity or whatever number they look at. out of those same employees. Because when you give people a clear objective of what they should focus on and not just a requirement of, hey, I want you sitting in that seat for the next eight hours Romie Montpeirous: Mm-hmm. Dan Cosgrove: for the these five days, again, it's it's all about engagement. don't pay people based on hours. Pay them on the outputs that they produce. And if they Romie Montpeirous: Sir. Dan Cosgrove: can do that in two hours a day, so be it. They have found a way to hack the system and create the results. Because At the end of the day, you should be looking at the results, not the hours put in. Romie Montpeirous: They should look at the results, not the Couldn't have said it better myself. Couldn't have said it better myself. Very aligned in that. So if we're we've been talking about like retention and high performance. And like Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Romie Montpeirous: if in an organization taking care of their employees is good for the business, why do they still see it so much as like an expense and something I don't want to say negative because I don't want to s I don't want to say that, but kind of is. I can expense is not necessarily negative, but it is taking away from the profit, right? Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. It's harder to quantify. And especially employee benefits, because we haven't been able to make employee benefits a sexy topic for those business owners, it continues to be put in the parking lot for the HR and the third party benefits managers to manage. And I love people in HR, but math is not their major. And so how we're trying to attack this is because again, like e even what I mentioned with that PTO example, it really started catching on when people started f figuring out the financial incentive as the employer of, you don't have Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: to pay out vacation days now when people leave. That's Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: that's the importance. Like you unfortunately need to create the financial incentive for the employers to actually care about it. And leading that through HR doesn't win the game. You have to lead that through the executives at the top. so that's that's kind of like the biggest challenge I'd say for leaders out there is truthfully audit your own employee benefits, see what those costs are, just look at what your like two-year run rate has been. And then really ask yourself the question: Have you seriously looked at anything new? because we just had, for instance, a grocery store. you know, grocery stores historically have lower income employees. and and they're a massive grocery store, so they legally have to provide health insurance or else they're hit with the tax penalty. But they were unaware of this, that tax penalties only apply to if you don't offer health insurance to the employee. A tax penalty does not apply if you do not offer insurance to the plus ones. Romie Montpeirous: Right. Dan Cosgrove: So oftentimes employers are just like, well, we really want to take care of our people. So we also want to cover them, you know, at least 50% on the plus ones for their spouses or their kids. And when we looked at it, especially again for lower income employers, that's the worst mistake you could make. Because healthcare subsidies still exist. People think they went away. No, the enhanced subsidies went away. But people that are living paycheck to paycheck. Oftentimes, if the employer would not have been offering health insurance as coverage for their plus ones, those kids probably would have qualified for free health insurance via chip in their state marketplace. So Romie Montpeirous: Right. Right. Dan Cosgrove: they would have had free health insurance, $0 co-pays, $0 deductibles, $0 max Romie Montpeirous: Right. Dan Cosgrove: max out of pockets. And in fact, that would have been a better benefit that your employee probably would have liked more than you saying, hey, out of the kindness of our own heart, we're going to cover 50% of whatever you have to pay. What? So again, it's you most people when they hear that, I I had that with another massive client today, they their brain exploded. They're just like, why the hell have I never done this? And it's like, well, simple. Your benefits manager gets paid based on how many belly buttons are on the plan. We get paid based on how much we save you. So Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: if like because nobody gets paid from, you know, chip programs if you're a broker, like you don't. Romie Montpeirous: Yeah, of course, yeah. Dan Cosgrove: And and I don't want to get paid by them. Like I just want to get paid by how much I save the client. So then that way I'm sitting on the same side of the table. So like Romie Montpeirous: also wanna do the right thing. Like, yeah. Dan Cosgrove: Yep. Yep. So again, it's it's truly taking an open mind, approaching things from an entirely different angle, and purposely saying, like, yeah, I'm gonna take a contrarian point of view, and some people are gonna hate it. So be it. Romie Montpeirous: Mm-hmm. Dan Cosgrove: Wake me up next year when you see another 20% increase. 'Cause once the pain gets bad enough, that's when people eventually Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. There you go. Dan Cosgrove: listen. And some people right now they're just like, I'm too busy celebrating Romie Montpeirous: Not painful. Dan Cosgrove: my recent million dollar sale. So like I I can absorb this cost increase this year. So yeah. Romie Montpeirous: Right. Yeah. Final question. What do you think the workplace will expect from employers five or ten years from now that still feels optional today? Ha ha ha Dan Cosgrove: our current benefit. Our current benefit right now. These section 125s are absolutely insane. And again, because it still feels new because it's only 10 years old, a lot of people are are starting to learn about it and the employees aren't joined. Because I mean, how many employees do you see say no, I don't want to pay increase and I don't want better healthcare benefits? so more people are catching on. So this is going to start spreading like wildfire. And as a result of that, you're going to now it like we're still kind of, you know, in that adoption curve. We're still in the Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: early adopters. You're soon gonna see, probably in the next five years, it kind of be the main. And then by 10 years from now, you're gonna have the laggers. And if those laggers still haven't accepted, they're probably gonna be closing down pretty soon because no, no employee is gonna wanna work for a group that is paying them less and giving them worse benefits. and Romie Montpeirous: Yeah. Dan Cosgrove: is also just not proactive in trying to. they're basically gonna become the the dinosaurs or the the kodaks of the modern day times. So like I truthful the benefits that we spend a lot of our time educating employers on that feel new and different right now are going to be the mainstream things in the next five to ten years. Romie Montpeirous: wait. I can't wait to see it. Yeah. where can people find you? Dan Cosgrove: Yeah, so best places probably are well, LinkedIn, you can always find me personally. It's Dan Cosgrove secret I put an emoji, a family emoji in front of it because you know there's so much spammy LinkedIn messages now. so I can quickly tell somebody's o automating their message if they do an emoji Dan and a message. So you can find me Dan Cosgrove there or better benefits USA dot org. so better benefits USA dot org, they can just drop a line and either myself or somebody on my team will reach out to them and have a conversation. Romie Montpeirous: Awesome. And we'll have the the links in the show notes, guys, so that you don't have to remember. But then if there was anything you would lead the audience with today, what golden nugget would you do? Would you leave? Dan Cosgrove: Man, the golden nugget is care. Care requires effort. And care also requires going into uncomfortable places and challenging previous beliefs that you've had for twenty years and maybe challenging previous relationships that you've held for twenty years as well. That's what real care is when you care about your employees more than your own ego or your own personal relationships that could be jeopardized as a result of terminating a relationship that has made your friend money but hasn't helped your people. So I would just say care, care enough to challenge the status quo. Romie Montpeirous: Care. Care is an action. Thank you, Dan, Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for you know, I'd say exposing, but I think disrupting it keeps coming to mind the industry and caring about people, like you said, more than the ego and helping organizations see where they can also win, right, by taking care of their employees. I think this is so important. This wasn't even on my radar of things that are important in leadership, but I'm so happy we have crossed paths because now I like now I care. You know what I mean? Now I care a lot more. And I think that's Dan Cosgrove: Yeah. Romie Montpeirous: wonderful. And I'm really grateful for that. No, dude, I am. I'm really grateful for this conversation. So thank you so much. Dan Cosgrove: I'm grateful that you gave us the platform and and really do appreciate it. Romie Montpeirous: of course. And guys that ends this week's episode of Leadership from the Heart. Please be sure to check out Dan's links. Go follow him on LinkedIn. definitely check his, you know, nonprofit out if, you know, you think it could help you. You know, I'm a big fan of like, you know, not holding back. I'm not a gatekeeper. Go check them out, learn and do better for yourself. Do better for your employees and everyone around you. And until next time, we'll see each other on another episode of Leadership from the Heart. Thank you so much.