Interagency group offers state employee training

Ashley Blowers
Contracts and Procurement

Presenter Amy Leneker (green sweater) presents a workshop prize to Jade Hudek,
while Dana Bowen, chair of the ICSEW Health and Wellness Subcommittee, looks on.

The Interagency Committee for State Employed Women (ICSEW) recently changed leadership and the group is moving in a new direction. 

The bi-monthly general meetings are now organized into two distinct parts. The morning session offers training for state employees, so far focused on personal and professional development. 

There’s no cost to attend and all are welcome! These trainings are open to all genders and all agencies. You can sign up through the Learning Management System (LMS) to receive state training credits. 

The second part of the meetings is spent working on ICSEW business, such as planning upcoming events and working on subcommittee projects. Anyone is welcome to attend the afternoon sessions as well, but not required to stay.

Learning about strengths

At the last meeting on March 26, Amy Leneker led a workshop on “Leading with Strengths,” using the Clifton Strengths personality profile. The theory behind this personality assessment is: Strength = Talent + Knowledge + Skills

We learned that while talent refers to innate ability, knowledge and skills can be taught. So innate ability is only one piece of the puzzle in finding success. 

During the training, we worked through a self-assessment of our top five strengths. We participated in a variety of hands-on, collaborative exercises to help us understand the value in each of our strengths, including how we can work with others who have seemingly contradicting strengths. 

For example, what if one of my strengths is discipline and I need to work with someone with positivity as a top strength? Productive collaboration could mean enjoying ourselves while we meet our identified goal.

We also learned the concept of balance. Any strength that goes unutilized can become a weakness; any strength used too much can also be a weakness. The goal is to find the sweet spot and try to stay within it.

The training offered many useful ways to work with a variety of people and allowed each participant to spend some time reflecting on what makes us unique and valuable as individuals. 

It was uplifting, inspirational, and a great resource for anyone working toward positive change.

If your team is interested in identifying top strengths and working through exercises to work together more effectively, you can check out the free High 5 Test. Contact me if you want to learn about the exercises shared in the ICSEW workshop.

Guests are always welcome at ICSEW. If you are interested in attending future training sessions and/or getting involved with the group, reach out to me (Ashley Blowers) for more information. 

In summary: The Interagency Committee for Sate Employed Women (ICSEW) now invites any state employee to participate in trainings offered at the group’s bi-monthly general meeting. You can even get credit through LMS. Ashley Blowers, WSDA’s ICSEW representative, describes a recent training session on the Insider blog. 

Even simple steps can reduce workplace waste

Kathy Davis 
Communications

George Tuttle, with the Natural
Resources Assessment Section, adds
unwanted food to the organics
recycling bin at work.

As we celebrate Earth Day 2019, do the planet a favor and take a step to reduce waste.

On average, every Washington State resident disposes of nearly four pounds of waste each day. Every year, about 5 million tons of municipal solid waste is disposed of.

Five Ways to Reduce Workplace Waste

1. Print on both sides. Set your printer default to print to two-sided printing. Use half as much paper! Even better, print only what you absolutely need in hard copy.
   
2. Bring your morning cup of coffee in a reusable mug and reduce those hard-to-recycle disposable paper cups.
   
3. Bring your own lunch (or breakfast or snacks) in reusable containers. You not only reduce packaging waste, but also save money. One survey found the average worker spent $37 a week on purchased lunch, adding up to $2,000 a year.
   
4. Keep reusable silverware, plates, cups and water bottles at your desk. Grab them when office snacks are served to reduce use of paper plates, and plastic forks and spoons. After washing your dishes, let air dry or dry with a cloth dishtowel from home to keep paper towels out of the trash bin.
   
5. Reuse and repurpose. Gently used office supplies, such as file folders and binders, can easily be reused. Larger items like furniture can be sent to state surplus to be redistributed. 

Why it matters

Where does our garbage go? To landfills mostly.

According to the Department of Ecology, 15 landfills in Washington and three in Oregon take Washington’s residential and commercial mixed waste.

“Many of the old local landfills, or ‘dumps,’ of the past have been closed or abandoned,” noted Gretchen Newman, an Ecology solid waste data analyst. This makes transporting waste more common, over longer distances.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of all waste disposed of in Washington ends up at the Roosevelt Regional Landfill in Central Washington. Another 23 percent travels out of state to Oregon landfills. Sixteen percent goes to the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill in King County, and the other 37 percent is distributed to other locations.

Trash travels

To understand waste transport, take the case of Thurston County, where trash picked up from the curb or dumpster is trucked to the transfer station in Hawk’s Prairie. There, it is compacted into cubes and loaded into shipping containers that are then trucked to Centralia and put on a train.

Those garbage containers travel more than 200 miles by rail to the town of Roosevelt on the Columbia River. Then the shipping containers are moved from the train back onto trucks to make their final trip to the Roosevelt landfill.

That’s a lot of time, money, energy and resources dedicated to transporting waste. It’s an especially long and unnecessary trip for items that could be recycled like aluminum, glass, newspapers, cardboard, mixed paper, pop bottles and milk jugs.

What about recycling?

Recycling is one way we can all help divert waste from making that trip to the landfill.

George and Jen Jewell, Payroll Office,
discuss recyclable plastics.

We recycle less than 50 percent of our waste. What is recycled saves nearly 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equal to keeping 2.1 million cars off the road.

However, last year a major buyer of Washington State’s recyclables – China – stopped accepting low-grade plastics and unsorted paper. With this market closed, more recyclables are likely to go to landfills.

“Recycling doesn’t take care of all the problems,” Gretchen said. “The bigger problem is the products and waste we create from them in the first place.”

Refer to the list at the top of this story for ideas on how we can reduce waste at the source.

And remember to recycle as much as possible. Aluminum soda cans, plastic bottles, cardboard, food scraps and paper can be recycled. In fact, lots of stuff can! To find out where and how, visit 1800recycle.wa.gov database or call 1-800-732-9253.

It may not seem like much – one coffee cup or paper towel at a time – but it all adds up.

In summary: In Washington State, most disposed household and commercial waste ends up in landfills, often traveling long distances to get there. Taking a few simple steps can help reduce the amount of waste we create in the workplace. Happy Earth Day!

Be familiar with ethics rules as campaigns gear up

Patrick Capper
Deputy Director

As you know, Gov. Jay Inslee has announced he is running for the U.S. presidency. Since this is the first time in 40 years that an elected official from Washington State has run for president, it’s a good time to take a close look at the policies regarding political campaign activities. 

State employees have begun asking about what’s allowed and what’s not in relation to political campaign activities. All the directions presented below apply to any political activities, whether its for a candidate’s campaign for either primary or general election or a state ballot measure. Please keep this in mind as we head into a high-visibility election season. 

In a nutshell, our agency policy allows employees to:

• Express opinions on political subjects and candidates.
• Volunteer to take part in political campaign - only on personal time, using personal resources.
• Wear political campaign badges or buttons when not serving in an official capacity or meeting the public as a WSDA representative. 

The policy’s list of prohibited activities is longer. It includes:

• Using state time, equipment, supplies or facilities for any political purposes.
• Engaging in campaign activities on work time. 
• Displaying any campaign materials (signs, brochures, petitions) in work areas.
• Using official authority or influence or affect an election or nomination.

I encourage you to review the WSDA policy POL-HR-207 titled “Participating in Political Activities.” 

Some situations may fall into a grayer area and require clearer direction. The state Executive Ethics Board, Attorney General’s Office and Office of Financial Management have provided detailed information to help employees know how to proceed as specific situations arise. 

For instance, what is the correct way to respond if someone from a political campaign asks for agency information or submits a public disclosure request? 

In this case, a campaign representative is treated like any other member of the public who has the right to request public information. Provide only what is disclosable under the public records law. Work with our public records officer to make sure the request is formally documented, and process the request using only official state equipment on state work time. 

The most important thing to remember is to establish a very clear boundary between conducting your official job duties and any personal political activities you may choose to engage in. Letting these intersect in any way is illegal. 

Any work issued equipment – cell or desk phone, computer or tablet, even paper and printers – is considered a state resource and must not be used for any political purposes. Even office space and facilities are considered state resources. If you are engaging in any political activity, even on your personal cell phone, you must leave your work area and go to a public space. 

All public agencies are likely to come under heightened scrutiny during this campaign cycle. As public servants, we are obligated to follow all laws and rules that apply to us. Please be extra alert and cautious during this time. 

Refer to the Executive Ethics Board website for more information. If you have other specific questions, contact Julie Amell, WSDA Human Resources director. 

In summary: As Washington State and the nation starts to gear up for a high-visibility election season, this is a good time to take a close look at the policies for state employees regarding political campaign activities.

Call her “Dr. Buckley” now

Kathy Davis
Communications

The Insider begins a focus on professional development - employees who enhance their careers by going the extra mile to engage in endeavors outside “duties as required.” As they increase their professional expertise, their achievements benefit the work they do for WSDA and the state of Washington. 

Dr. Katie Buckley with wine grapes in the
background. 

One example is Katie Buckley, who works for the Pest Program. Katie recently completed her dissertation to earn a doctorate in entomology from Washington State University. 

Katie is an entomologist based in Yakima. She started working for WSDA three years ago. She primarily works on apple maggot, and grape and stone fruit surveys. 

The Pest Program uses surveys to trap and count the number of invasive, destructive pests that can threaten Washington’s agricultural crops. 

“Entomology was something I always wanted to do,” Katie said. 

You may now address her as “Dr. Buckley.” She started working toward her PhD in entomology at WSU in 2011. 

Helping Washington vineyards

Katie’s doctorate project aimed to determine if native plants, which require little or no irrigation, could be used to increase beneficial insect populations and enhance conservation biological control of wine-grape vineyard pests in Eastern Washington. 

Vineyard growers in New Zealand and California have had success in using cover crops and hedgerows to increase beneficial pests and promote sustainable management. However, in arid wine growing regions like those here east of the Cascades, cover crops can be hard to grow and expensive due to water costs. 

Katie’s project collected samples from four grape growing regions with some form of native habitat restoration. She used yellow sticky traps and leaf samples to monitor both beneficial and pest insects. These vineyards were compared to near-by conventional ones over a three-year period. 

Put simply, the project concluded that native plants used as cover crops or in patches could be valuable biological control strategies in arid areas. Katie’s full dissertation will be published on WSU’s website sometime this summer. 

Showing commitment

Sven-Erik Spichiger, Pest Program managing entomologist, suggested profiling Katie. 

“It’s always impressive when any employee takes steps to further their knowledge and education in the field they are working in,” Sven said. “It demonstrates a real commitment to the job of protecting Washington State's agricultural industries.”

Katie has already been getting lots of interest and inquiries about the results of her dissertation work. She’s considering writing a book about it.  

After years of working at both a fulltime job and getting an advanced degree, what will Katie do with all that extra time?

“I’m looking forward to having my evenings and weekends back,” she said. “I’m finally getting back to my hobbies and getting some exercise again.” 

In summary: What does professional development look like? It can take many forms. Katie Buckley, an entomologist with WSDA’s Pest Program, recently earned her PhD from WSU, researching the use of native plants to control pests in vineyards.

A new WSDA website coming your way

Hector Castro
Communications Director 

In a couple of weeks, the agency’s new public website goes live. The public should find this major revamp makes it easier for them to find the information they need. However, agency staff may feel challenged at first to find their program information and familiar pages. 

Developing a new WSDA website has been a year-long project intended to update the look and design of our site, make it mobile compatible, ADA compliant, easier for the public to navigate, and easier for our staff to manage.

The most significant change is the navigation. Our current website is organized primarily from our perspective, laid out by division and program names. The new website will be organized by general topics to help those who may not know (or care about) our organizational structure.

For example, on our current website, a visitor would find ‘animal feed’ information under the Food Safety and Consumers Services Division. But on the new website, that program’s information is under the Animal, Livestock and Pets category.

You’ll notice those types of navigation changes throughout the new site. 

The new website is scheduled to go public on April 22. We will announce it internally first to give agency staff the first look. Once it’s available, take time to explore the new site. Learn where your program information is located and how to get to it. Then, you can help customers and stakeholders to find what they want. 

Work in progress

Sue Welch, with the Plant Services Program, gets help from
Christian Rossi, Status Not Quo chief creative officer, at
training for web content editors.

Last week, many of your colleagues participated in training to learn the new system to update webpages and create new ones. 

Most of the content (page information) from the old site was simply moved over to the new one. Therefore, we expect that programs will spend time after the new-site launch updating many of their pages. 

The newly trained content editors and managers will also take state “Writing for the Web” training. As the look and technology of our website gets a modern upgrade, the language and structure of our online information will also transform over time as we adopt accepted practices that best serve web users. 

If you have comments, questions or feedback about WSDA’s new public website, you can email them to webfeedback@agr.wa.gov. 

In summary: The big reveal is coming! WSDA will soon launch a brand new external website. Look for big changes in how information is organized to help the public find what they need by topic rather than by our organizational structure.