February 2012
A lot has happened in the last five months as the Office of the State’s Human Resources Director gets off the ground. As part of the Office of Financial Management (OFM), we will continue to serve as leaders and partners in managing the state’s workforce, especially during this critical transformative time in state government.
We established our mission, which is to provide leadership, guidance, and a sound human resource foundation to maximize state government’s ability to serve the people of Washington.
We have transformed our office into three teams to support this mission:
HR Planning and Strategy team, led by Ginny Dale, will work with agencies to develop approaches to attract and retain our talent. Ultimately, a statewide workforce plan will be developed to address workforce challenges we are facing as an employer. Priorities will include modifications to our governance structure and an emphasis on learning and development for our human resource community.
HR Framework team, led by Sandi Stewart, will provide the basic infrastructure for our civil service system and the day-to-day processes in support of our classification structure, compensation plans, employee appeal rights and processes, and rule making.
HR Accountability and Performance Management team, led by Katie Gerard, will lead the way in bringing consistency where needed and transparency to agencies’ HR practices. HR data and information analysis, including consistent coding and definition of terms, will support our efforts to assess the state of our workforce and inform the decisions about our employees.
We will continue a close alliance with the Department of Enterprise Services to partner in shared activities and the OFM Labor Relations Office in addressing some of the workforce management needs.
See our operational plan for the 11-13 biennium to learn more about the work in progress for the next two years.
Thanks to those of you who participated in the feedback process in the last couple of months led by Coraggio Group. We are already in the process of revamping our governance structure and communication loops based on your input and ideas.
Washington State workforce challenges reflect what’s happening across our nation. The economic challenges have forced agencies to make adjustments in order to deliver core business services. Most agencies are stepping up efforts to focus on succession and workforce planning, employee engagement and retention strategies. Together we can work on these issues, learn from each other and learn from others outside government.
In the coming months you will hear more about our efforts to use the LEAN methodology to streamline classification processes, employee engagement activities, and the use of technology tools to reduce the administrative burden on agencies. As always, our website, www.hr.wa.gov, is the main source of information for all our activities. Stay tuned!