Participation and positive responses increase in 2019 employee survey

Patrick Capper
Deputy Director

The results are in! WSDA staff responded to the 2019 Employee Engagement Survey last October, and I am excited to share the results with you. 

Achieving a more representative sample of employee feedback was our primary goal. 

And I’m happy to announce that nearly 70 percent of our agency employees responded to the survey. That represents a big jump in participation compared to 2017 when 46 percent took the survey.  

Thanks to every one of you who took the time to complete this important survey. Your feedback really matters!

Even with the bump in participation, we saw increased positive responses to nearly all the survey questions. 

The biggest improvements in positive responses, with increases of 5 percent or more, were recorded for:

• Having the tools and resources to do our jobs effectively.
• Receiving performance feedback from supervisors.
• Being satisfied with our job.
• Willing to recommend the agency as a great place to work.
• Receiving clear information about agency changes. 

Only two areas went down slightly or remained flat. Those involved knowing how the agency measures success and receiving recognition for a job well done. 

The statements that received the highest positive responses (ranked always, almost always or usually) reveal that most employees have the support, clear expectations and adequate resources to be successful in their jobs. We also learned that most employees feel that their supervisors treat them with dignity and respect. See the “Successes” chart for details. 

The statements that received the lowest percentage of positive responses show that we have work to do to fully engage, inform, and support staff. While many of these improved, we will be working to bring these scores up even more in the next survey. See the “Improvement Opportunities” chart for details. 

Along with Associate Deputy Director Jason Ferrante, I have met with each of the assistant directors to review survey results for their individual divisions and discuss improvement plans. 

All levels of agency leadership will discuss these results and talk about next steps at a forum in Olympia on March 11. 

You can find several detailed documents reporting the 2019 survey results on the WSDA Performance and Planning Management Office’s intranet webpage. These include results of the agency-specific questions we added, as well divisional break-downs of the data.

As we develop initiatives to address the areas that need improvement, please watch your employee communication channels, such as this Insider blog and the weekly Connect, to stay up-to-date on developments.

Thanks again to everyone who took the survey, and to all WSDA employees who work every day to advance our mission. 

In summary: A big jump in agency participation was among the good news from results of the 2019 State Employee Engagement Survey. Deputy Director Patrick Capper unveils highlights from our survey results.

Agency’s safety, health, and risk services merged

Kathy Davis
Communications

From left, Jason Gambill, Ron
Hussung, and Robert Ambriz. 

Progress toward protecting WSDA workers’ safety and health is being waged on many fronts. The various specialty areas that advance safe, healthy workplaces, as well as protecting the agency from risks, have now been consolidated under one umbrella – Enterprise Risk Management Services (ERMS). 

Under the leadership of Ron Hussung, a mighty four-person team carries a broad range of responsibilities that serve all of WSDA. Each specialty is now designated as a separate program within ERMS, which is part of the Administrative Services Division. 

The biggest change is the addition of two new functions to the ERMS suite of services. 

Stacy Laney providing resource material
at the 2019 safety and wellness fair.

The Health and Wellness Program and Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) Program are now part of ERMS. Stacy Laney has served as WSDA’s wellness coordinator for 14 years and has a bachelor’s degree in community health education. In 2018, she also took on responsibility for the agency’s CTR efforts. 

Health and Wellness Program

Health and wellness promotion aims to increase healthy behaviors, reduce health care costs and absenteeism, and improve staff recruitment and retention. 

Among her responsibilities as wellness coordinator, Stacy supports the state’s SmartHealth incentive, diabetes prevention, smoking cessation programs, and blood/platelet donation drives. She works closely with the Natural Resources Building Wellness Committee and Health Care Authority’s Washington Wellness staff to offer workshops, activities and resources for employees. 

Commute Trip Reduction Program

Photo courtesy of Sound Transit.

The state’s CTR program aims to reduce air pollution, traffic congestion, and fuel consumption by encouraging employees to use alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles for their work commute. CTR promotes options such as buses, vanpools, carpools, biking, and walking. 

Through CTR, employees can get free transit passes and earn incentive payments for using commute trip alternatives for at least half of each month. 

Enterprise Risk Management Program

The concept of enterprise risk management may be the least understood, but has a profound impact for our agency. It involves identifying and minimizing risks that threaten WSDA’s mission and capital. 

Property damage and injury claims resulting from work-
related vehicle crashes add up to big costs for the agency

For instance, just as most people have insurance coverage for homes and vehicles, WSDA carries multiple insurance policies to protect our assets, such as vehicles and property, as well as protecting against cyber liability and covering employees who may travel abroad. 

Ron manages this program, which also maintains an inventory of potential risks to WSDA. 

Ergonomics Program

Ergonomics considers such things as equipment, positions, and movements to protect employees from the pain or injury of repetitive work. Safety officers, Jason Gambill (Western Washington) and Robert Ambriz (Eastern Washington) are both trained to conduct ergonomic assessments and recommend adjustments or equipment purchases to prevent suffering. 

Workplace ergonomic assessments can reduce or prevent the
pain of repetitive task motions and positions. 

Return to Work/Stay at Work Program

When a worker is injured on the job, both the employee and the department benefit by returning the person to work as soon as a doctor gives the OK. This could mean modifying the worker’s original job duties or placing them in a temporary position. The goal is to get employees back to their full position when they have recovered. Jason manages this program. 

Internal Emergency Management Program

This program plans, prepares for and responds to emergencies that could put our employees or workplaces at risk. These include workplace violence, weather disruptions, natural disasters such as earthquake or flood, and fires. 

Ron, Jason and Robert support this program. They plan to hire a new emergency management specialist to assist. 

To learn more about this program, read the Insider blog post from November 2019. 

Safety Program

Agency employees are probably most familiar with the work of the WSDA Safety Program. Ron, Robert and Jason work diligently to keep employees safe on the job. They have initiated many new activities and projects in recent years to improve safety. 

For instance, they have boosted two-way communication with agency employees, creating a quarterly newsletter, promoting and responding to the annual safety survey, collaborating with WSDA divisions and programs, and regularly showing up at work environments across the state. 

To access extensive resources from the Safety Program, visit their webpage on our intranet. 

Workplace risk comes in many forms, such as on-the-job injuries, emergencies, poor health, and liability. To keep WSDA employees as productive as possible, the Enterprise Risk Management Services team works to reduce and manage these risks for the whole agency. 

In summary: A small, dedicated team carries out a broad range of responsibilities with the goal of keeping WSDA employees safe and healthy, as well as protecting the agency itself from potential risks. Meet the newly consolidated Enterprise Risk Management Services.

Ken Knittle leaves fond memories with WSDA colleagues

Kathy Davis
Communications

WSDA lost a long-term and well-liked employee recently. Ken Knittle, a food safety officer for nearly 20 years, passed away in his sleep on Jan. 5. 

Ken Knittle

Ken was known for his quirky sense of humor, his dairy expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm for birdwatching, love of family, and his steady work. 

“I will miss working with him and just being able to call and ask him how to do anything dairy related,” said Kim King, who worked with Ken in the Southwest Region.

WSDA’s Food Safety Program hired Ken in March 2002. He started as a food safety officer 1 and promoted over the years to an FSO 3. 

In March, the program was prepared to present Ken with the pin and certificate recognizing him for 30 years of state service. He came to WSDA from state Correctional Industries, where he had been the dairy herd manager at the Monroe facility.

“He lit up when talking about his wife, Laurie,” another coworker, Edwin Ojukwu, remembers. “When we rode together, he would invite me into his house to say hello to her. Over the years, I met his brother, sister and his in-laws at his home.”

Ken was also an accomplished and well-regarded member of the state’s birding community. He founded “Washington Birder,” a state online bird-listing repository. He once held a record lifetime list of 175 birds spotted in each county in Washington State. 

His birding fame was featured in the news media, such as a 2011 Seattle Times story about “extreme sport” birdwatching. 

Wil Satak was Ken’s supervisor. “I will miss his deep knowledge on bird watching, his terrible corny jokes, his upbeat can-do attitude, saying ‘Sheesh’ when things got crazy, his wife’s cookies at every regional meeting, and his ready smile which he gave freely to everyone he met,” Wil said. 

In summary: Ken Knittle, a food safety specialist with WSDA for nearly 20 years, passed away on Jan. 5. Known for his humor, birding expertise, and dedication to his job, Ken will be missed by his colleagues.