Employee News - October 8, 2020

King County Employees sent this bulletin at 10/08/2020 02:15 PM PDT

A service of the King County Department of Human Resources

Highlights

Celebrating Latinx Heritage Month and supporting one another

The King County Latinx Affinity Group is hosting several events throughout the year to encourage employees during these challenging times, and celebrate Latinx Heritage Month, recognized as Sept. 15 – Oct. 15. Several of these events are planned in collaboration with Sound Transit Latinx in Transportation (LiT), and the Seattle Department of Transportation’s Latinx Caucus. They are intended to educate and empower community members to join together in supporting one another, the Latinx community, and other King County communities as well.

To learn more about these events and the Latinx Affinity Group overall, we connected with several members to hear about their experience as members and event organizers. Read more.

Paid Parental Leave supports new parents

We want every baby to get off to a strong, healthy start in life, and King County’s Paid Parental Leave Program is there to support employees welcoming new family members into their lives.

Eligible King County employees may receive up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave following the birth, adoption, or foster-to-adopt placement of a child, so they have more time to bond with a new child.

This supplemental benefit is available to both new mothers and fathers, and is calculated based on the employee’s existing leave accruals at the time of the qualifying event. Watch our short video, also below, to learn more.

Announcements

Supporting Disability Awareness Month through the 2020 Annual Giving Drive

Each year King County employees help hundreds of nonprofit organizations do vital work in our community and around the world by donating to the Annual Giving Drive.

The start of this year’s Giving Drive coincides with Disability Awareness Month, which King County celebrates each October. The following are four participating nonprofits whose work helps people with disabilities:

Alliance of People with disAbilities (9438) – To provide independent living resources and advocate for the well-being and assure full exercise of human rights of persons with disAbilities.
Center for Independence (9185) – Empowering people with disabilities to live independently in the community by providing peer support, IL skills training, advocacy, transition and information and referral.

Zoom: How to conduct meetings safely

When conducting virtual meetings, either between King County employees or with the public, it’s critical to follow best practices for cyber safety. Recently, there has been several episodes of public Zoom meetings featuring bad actors, including those who posted objectionable material for all to see.

To keep our customers safe, KCIT has created an At-Risk Meeting Notifier. This tool searches the public internet for Zoom meeting information and checks the meeting’s security settings. When we find a meeting that looks to be at high risk of being disrupted, we notify the host.

To avoid such incidents, KCIT security experts strongly recommend following these practices. Read more.

Want to get employee emergency notifications? Sign-up for KCInform

During an emergency having timely information on what is happening is critical. King County employees can sign-up for KCInform, the employee alert and warning system, to receive information on incidents that can affect their work and safety.

King County will conduct a test of KCInform at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, alongside the annual ShakeOut drill to test earthquake preparedness. KCInform is used to reach County employees during an emergency with timely information about infrastructure disruptions, facility impacts, changes in your department's business operations, and other critical impacts. Your King County desk phone and @kingcounty.gov email are already in the system. It is important to register your County-issued cell phone (if-applicable) and personal cell phone and email address to ensure you receive time-sensitive messages. This service is free and your personal contact information is secure and protected.

Visit the KCInform website to learn more, or watch our short video.

Reminder: Fall and winter mindfulness classes available

Balanced You continues to partner with Mindfulness Northwest to offer free mindfulness classes and workshops to King County employees, via both employee-specific and community classes. In alignment with social distancing recommendations, all in-person classes have temporarily shifted to online platforms. For the fall and winter, we have expanded our mindfulness class menu to include classes for employees involved in the COVID-19 response, classes for parents, classes for mindful eating, classes for emotional resilience, and more.

A sample of upcoming classes include:

Mindful Morning for King County Employees, Saturday, Oct. 10, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Register here.
Mindful Parents, Wednesday, Oct. 14, from 1-3 p.m., Register here.
Intro to Mindful Self-Compassion, Thursday, Oct. 22 from 1-3 p.m., Register here.

For the full mindfulness schedule and all registration links, visit this Balanced You blog post.

PeopleSoft HCM outage notice, October 9

To allow for system maintenance, the PeopleSoft system will not be available Friday, Oct. 9 from 3-9 p.m.

During this planned outage, the Business Resource Center (BRC) will apply maintenance.

This work will begin on Friday, Oct. 9 at 3 p.m. and is scheduled to be completed by 9 p.m.

The system will not be available for access by any County staff during this outage window. There will be a communication sent out to all County staff when the system becomes available.

We realize that this outage impacts all PeopleSoft users and we appreciate your understanding and support.

King County ePayment Storefront improves customer service

Crossposted from DES Express

All county customers can now make payments online through the ePayment Storefront system, which launched early this summer. This is an important and timely improvement, since most King County in-person services are shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations and thank you to employees from several divisions in the Department of Executive Services (DES) and other departments for their hard work and collaboration. Read more.

Art Showcase: Merging Communities and Social Justice, October 12

This event, hosted by King County, will feature local King County Afro Latino artists showcasing their artwork, talking about their community involvement, and explaining how art plays a crucial role in fighting for Social Justice.

Monday, Oct. 12, from noon to 1 p.m. Join via Zoom. Use passcode: 216492 – Register for this event here on Eventbrite.

For more information, contact Margarita Aguado at MAguado@kingcounty.gov or Maria Jimenez-Zepeda at Maria.Jimenez-Zepeda@kingcounty.gov. View the full list of events for Latinx Heritage Month here.

Reasonable Accommodations for WA State DOC Prisoners, October 15

The King County Superior Court and Community Committee presents a facilitated panel discussion on the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and how it functions within Washington’s Department of Corrections (DOC), in particular how Washington State prisoners interact with the ADA-mandated reasonable accommodation process and the DOC’s duties in providing reasonable accommodations to prisoners with disabilities.

Thursday, Oct. 15 from 12:15 – 1:30 p.m. Join via Zoom. Use passcode: 239752. To dial in, call 253-215-8782 and use ID# 91789390895.

King County Superior Court Judge David Whedbee will host the discussion between Assistant Attorney General Candie Dibble, who regularly represents the DOC in healthcare-related litigation; Risa Klemme, DOC’s statewide ADA Compliance Manager; and Heather McKimmie, a senior attorney at Disability Rights Washington and Director of the AVID Program, which focuses on advocacy for individuals with disabilities in Washington prisons, jails, and the Special Commitment Center.

The presentation will also recognize the 30th anniversary of the ADA as the speakers address how DOC has evolved its reasonable accommodation process in compliance with the ADA over the last 30 years, what the current cutting-edge ADA issues are, and how structural and institutional shortcomings may still need to remedied.

Training Spotlight courses from Learning and Development

Brain-based Time Management – Online – Facilitated by Mary Baker, this hands-on 3 hour class shows you how to support your brain so you can be more efficient with time, more effective in planning, and experience less stress and feeling overwhelmed. This class is $50 and takes place from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13. Register here.
Decision Making through North Seattle College – Online – Offered through North Seattle College this class is $89 and takes place from 1 - 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 14. Register here.
AWS Academy Cloud Foundations through North Seattle College – Online – Offered through North Seattle College this series is $699 and takes place over eight sessions on Tuesdays beginning Oct. 20 and ending Dec. 8. Register here.

More opportunities are available on our King County Eventbrite page. For more information, contact the Learning and Development Team at KCTraining@kingcounty.gov or visit Learning and Development at www.kingcounty.gov/learning.