With paid family leave 2 years away, Minnesota DEED prepares behind the scenes

CATHY WURZER: You're going to be two years older, the US will have gone through a presidential election, we'll be gearing up for another midterm in January of 2026. That is when Minnesota's Paid Family and Medical Leave program is supposed to launch, along with a payroll tax to help fund it.

In the meantime, our next guest is in charge of working to set it all up. Greg Norfleet is the director of the Paid Family and Medical Leave program. He joined the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, also known as DEDE, about a month ago, and he's on the line. Mr. Norfleet, welcome.

GREG NORFLEET: Hi, Cathy. Thanks for having me on.

CATHY WURZER: So I know you're about a month into this new job. You're probably still trying to find the bathrooms. And I know this is not your first experience with such a huge program. You came from the agency that oversaw the Massachusetts paid family leave law. What lessons are you bringing to Minnesota that might make the rollout here a smooth one?

GREG NORFLEET: Great question. So each implementation of pay leave is going to build off of what's been built before. We're going to be the 14th state to go live. And when we launched in Massachusetts, we were number 8, and we were the second program to launch without an existing temporary disability program.

We've learned a lot in how to build one of these programs as kind of a community of practice. But I think outside of the nuts and bolts of implementation, the most important thing is what we've learned about our constituents. For claimants, we realized that we need to build with empathy.

Paid leave really happens at stressful moments during your life, whether it's welcoming a new child to your family or if you're dealing with a cancer diagnosis. The last thing that you want to be dealing with is complex forms and paperwork. So our priority in user experience is really making sure that you don't have to navigate around us.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Let me ask you a little bit more about that because I was doing some research for our conversation today. It depends on what state you're talking about. I know there were long wait times for benefits, confusion about the application process in Massachusetts. Connecticut had similar problems with pretty high denial rates.

Washington State's program is also plagued by months-long delays in getting benefits to folks. What's the common thread with problems in other states?

GREG NORFLEET: I guess it's-- I'm sorry. I'm taking a minute to think.

CATHY WURZER: Sure.

GREG NORFLEET: I think the challenge is that the program is so new in a lot of states, that it is kind of a matter of making sure that we're implementing the right thing. I think every state does get hit in the mouth to start, but it's really how you respond.

Each one of those states, even if they had difficulties out of the gate implementing a new big program that's different for employers, large and small, they've all gone through those challenges and been able to improve the experience over time. Within Massachusetts, we did have some challenges getting payments out the door to start, but within the first three months, we got that timeline down to over 80%-- or over 90% of people getting paid on time today.

CATHY WURZER: How can the state of Minnesota-- I'm going to use your phrase. How can the state of Minnesota keep from getting hit in the mouth early on and yet help those who need the benefits? I mean, you've seen this happen in other states. How are you going to try to mitigate that?

GREG NORFLEET: We're going to build off of the experiences that other states have had, as well as the experience that I've had going through with Massachusetts. We're going to be building with our constituents throughout the development process, making sure that we're testing our software as we go along.

So we'll be speaking with potential claimants, constituents, employers, health care providers, even private insurers and third-party administrators, to really learn what success means to them and how we can build a program that interacts with them in the way that they want to interact with the program.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you for bringing up software. What concerns do you have about cybersecurity, given there's going to be substantial private information gathered? There have been several high-profile hacks in state government and at state institutions.

GREG NORFLEET: I think at this point, it's still a little early to have a conversation about particular software decisions, but we definitely do value the security of any health care data or any information provided to us by claimants, employers, or health care providers.

CATHY WURZER: So getting back here to helping folks make this a more user-friendly program because you mentioned that in terms of helping folks navigate complex forms and paperwork that's seen in other states. How might you make it more user-friendly? I mean, what are some of the steps you might want to take right out of the gate?

GREG NORFLEET: I think it's most important that we build with and not for people. So we need to be out there talking with employers, talking with employees, and making sure that when we launch, it's not the first time that somebody has seen what we're putting out there. So it's testing early and often and really making sure that we're dealing with a diverse group of folks before January 1, 2026.

CATHY WURZER: What's your experience in Massachusetts with human resources, professionals, and departments at corporations and other smaller businesses? There have been-- there were complaints in other states that some of the HR folks just didn't know what the heck to do and couldn't give guidance to their employees. How do you rope them into and make sure they're part of the team?

GREG NORFLEET: Absolutely. And I think employers-- one of the biggest things that we learned from the Massachusetts experience is that employers are great allies, going through applications for benefits, and most employers want to help their employees navigate their major life events. It's a big change for those organizations, and we need to recognize them as allies in supporting their staff and building the program in a manner that minimizes their administrative burden.

And if we do that, and we engage employers in the right way, giving them the right sort of information to support their staff, it'll make the program stronger over time.

CATHY WURZER: I was going through the fiscal note for this program, and it says there will be eventually about what? 400 state employees running the program because it's going to be a big program, obviously. What positions do you have to fill first?

GREG NORFLEET: So out of the gate, we have a few positions posted. We do have a chief strategy officer that's going to be starting at the beginning of next month, as well as the public engagement manager. Our next big hire is our chief product officer, and this role is really important because it's looking at how our technology is going to evolve over time as we learn more about our constituents' needs.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I appreciate your time, Mr. Norfleet. Thank you, and best of luck.

GREG NORFLEET: Thank you so much.

CATHY WURZER: Greg Norfleet is the state's new director of the Paid Family and Medical Leave program. He came to Minnesota from Massachusetts. The Minnesota program is set to launch in January of 2026.