Tips and etiquette for virtual meetings

Kathy Davis, Communications

Since WSDA got Microsoft Teams, holding online meetings has become even more common. More than a year into pandemic-era remote work and social distancing, we have had to get more comfortable with virtual meetings rather than gathering in person. 

The Insider offers some tips and etiquette advice to improve the virtual meeting experience.

Check your readiness

Spend a few minutes before the meeting start time making sure all systems are go. 

Check your internet speed. If your connection is slow, disconnect VPN and close out other programs. Be aware that others using your internet connection will slow your speed.

When you first join a meeting in Teams (before clicking “Join Now”), you can check your audio and video, including camera angle, lighting, backgrounds, etc. (See more tips below.)

If you will be sharing documents or your screen, have everything open and ready to share before the meeting. 

Mute and unmute

To reduce background noise, keep your audio on mute whenever you are not speaking. On the flip side – be sure to unmute when you do want to be heard! 

Practice being quick and agile with the mute/unmute button. Keep your curser poised and aim for a speedy, seamless reaction time. 

Video tips

Position your camera at eye level - not pointed too high or low - with your face framed in the center. 

Adjust lighting. Natural light from the side is best, but you can experiment by using floor lamps or ceiling lights so you don’t appear too dark or too bright. 

Notice what appears behind you. Make sure the background in your home is appropriate for work (e.g., clean and tidy). Teams allows you to blur your background, or add different backgrounds. You can find a set of WSDA-branded and agricultural themed backgrounds for your use here -  Z:\Logos\VideoConfBGs 

When using a background filter, be aware that body movement and hand gestures can cause distortion. Try to remain as still as you can. 

Avoid distracting, unprofessional background filters, including the non-work ones built in to Teams, such as cartoon settings and sci-fi landscapes. 

Personal appearance

You’re not being interviewed on national TV, but you are on the work clock. So dress and groom appropriately for work meetings. Stripes, loud prints and all white or black clothing can be distorted on video. 

Meeting etiquette

Virtual meetings rob us of the in-person cues that told us when we could jump in with a comment. To prevent talking over others:

• Follow a predetermined agenda and assign one meeting participant to present each item.
• As a host, maintain disciplined facilitation – call on participants to present, comment or ask questions.
• Use the raised-hand or chat feature to ask questions without interrupting. 
• Wait for an opening – when others have finished speaking – to unmute and speak. 
• Stay focused and engaged. Avoid doing other work, such as checking your phone or email during the meeting. Listen to the other participants.  

As much as possible, reduce at-home interruptions, such as children, pets and neighborhood noise. Prepare ahead of the meeting and be ready to mute audio and turn off your camera should the unexpected occur. And practice grace with other participants who may be juggling complex work and home situations. 

Finally, you may be hesitant or self-conscious about appearing on camera. There’s no agency policy or protocol that requires you to. 

But keep in mind, your coworkers know you and can relate to your situation. Seeing each other’s faces brings us closer together during this long period of separation. It also encourages participation. 

The more who use the Teams meeting features, the more natural and comfortable it will become for everyone. And the more you practice and experiment, the more confident you will feel. 

In summary: Since WSDA got Microsoft Teams, holding online meetings has become even more common. More than a year into pandemic-era remote work and social distancing, we have had to get more comfortable with virtual meetings rather than gathering in person. The Insider offers some tips and etiquette advice to improve the virtual meeting experience. 

Managing email in the new Outlook

 Kathy Davis, Communications

WSDA is in the process of adopting Microsoft 365, which is a set of cloud-based services and software such as Teams. 

As part of this change, WaTech moved our Outlook (or migrated, in IT language) to the 365 cloud environment. While your Outlook should mostly function the same, the biggest change affects how we manage our emails to meet public records retention requirements. 

Why this matters

We generate tens of thousands of new email public records every day. State law and agency policy requires that we keep (retain) public records for the correct period of time. While certain emails must be kept by law, others needn’t be and can be deleted. 

By keeping too much, we risk having to disclose more than necessary. When the agency receives a public records request, it must turn over all material associated with that request, including what we did not actually need to keep. Furthermore, all that unneeded clutter increases the agency’s costs for data storage and backup. 

By keeping too little, we risk violating public records law. You must comply with state and agency records retention schedules for your line of work. This is particularly important for inspections, investigations, licensing, rulemaking, legislation, personnel, policy, purchasing, contracting, budgeting, etc.

WSDA can be hit with monetary fines (as well as public embarrassment) when we cannot produce the records we should have kept. 

New tech, new process, new habits

All the email you create or receive in Outlook will be kept for seven years - WSDA’s default retention - unless you take action to assign a shorter retention period. 

To get rid of emails sooner, you must assign a different retention policy. Under “assign policy” in the top taskbar (or right-click on the message), you’ll find other retention policy options – one day, six months, one year, two years, and three years, as well as the default seven years. 

(The term “policy” is used by Microsoft 365 and not related to agency policies. It means the retention period, or how long an email is kept. You may also hear these referred to as retention labels or tags.) 

Lots of email messages are transitory, meaning they don’t support agency business or decisions. These include routine notices and reminders, informal conversations, voicemail, newsletters, listservs, and even all-staff messages. 

To delete an unneeded transitory email, you must assign a short-term retention, like the one-day delete. Hitting the X tab or the delete key will send it into your deleted items folder. 

You may not see them anymore when they move to the “recover deleted items” folder for 30 days. But even after they disappear from that folder, and your view, they are still available for disclosure and discovery for the seven-year default period – unless you’ve taken action to assign a shorter retention policy. 

Best practice

Pam Potwin, WSDA’s records manager, and our IT Office offer a pro tip for managing your emails. 

You can assign retention periods to folders you’ve created; but not to system folders, such as inbox, sent items, drafts, deleted items, etc. 

Create a folder for each of the retention periods and assign the matching retention policy to the whole folder. As you decide which retention period is appropriate for each message (based on the retention schedule), use the move-to-folder function (under the home tab or with a right click), or drag and drop into the appropriate folder. 

Emails in these folders are automatically assigned a retention policy and you’ll see the date they are set to expire, which means they are no longer retained.  

Note that the “expires by” date is based on the date of the email, but it may take another day or two from the date you move it to actually disappear. 

Vault vs. online archives

The Enterprise Vault is slated to go away, and emails no longer automatically vault after 30 days. 

WaTech has not yet moved all vault data. You may still see your “AGR 2 YR” and “AGR 6 MO” vault folders in your list of folders. Previously vaulted emails will automatically expire based on retention for the vault folders. Once those retention times are reached and migration is complete, these folders should go away.  

Both vault folders are also available under online archives, found near the bottom of the left column list. 

If you do not apply retention policies to individual emails, they will move to the online archive after two years. And, they will stay there for another five years to reach the seven-year default mark. 

A few more things 

You can assign a different, longer or shorter, retention period to any email as long as it has not yet expired (if it’s still showing, check the expires-by date at top). 

Subfolders act the same as the inbox. If you don’t assign a shorter retention period, emails moved into subfolders have a seven-year retention. 

Don’t forget your sent folder! Emails you send should be managed just like those you receive. Regularly assign retention periods to all sent messages, as well as those in drafts, junk and spam. 

Keep calm and 
happy spring!

Know the retention schedule for the work you do, and manage your email accordingly.

Finally, please practice patience as we all learn how to use these new functions. Our IT Office continues to work with WaTech and Microsoft through issues and changes as they emerge. 

In summary: WSDA is in the process of adopting Microsoft 365. As part of this change, WaTech moved our Outlook to the 365 cloud environment. While your Outlook should mostly function the same, the biggest change affects how we manage our email to meet public records retention requirements. Learn how to develop new email management habits and why it’s important. 

Human Resources Office announces staffing news

Lorna Mance, Human Resources Director

Like most of you, WSDA’s Human Resources Office has had a challenging year. Along with helping WSDA navigate COVID-19 requirements, furloughs and unemployment claims, and day-to-day personnel issues, a number of our staff have retired or left the agency to advance their careers. 

As a result, we’ve gotten the same crash course as other programs in covering vacant positions, and recruiting, hiring and onboarding new employees in a telework environment. We’re making progress, and I want to tell you about some HR staffing news. 

Welcome new staff

Jeremy Martin

Jeremy Martin, who started March 1, will support both the Plant Protection and Pesticide Management divisions as their HR consultant, His supervisor is Sam Young, labor relations and investigations manager, who has been with the agency since November 2020.

Jeremy has served as the HR business partner at the Department of Enterprise Services for the past two years. He previously spent six years as an HR generalist at Labor & Industries and Social and Health Services. In addition, he served for eight years in the U.S. Air Force. 

Jeremy is a diehard Seahawks fan. He also loves everything the great outdoors has to offer including camping, golfing, fishing, hunting, riding ATVs and snowboarding. Jeremy is also a dog person, and his best friend is Daisy, a golden lab. 

Nancy Jacobski also joined WSDA on March 1. She will support the Commodity Inspection Division as their HR consultant and Sam Young is also her supervisor..   

Nancy Jacobski

Nancy comes to us with 20 years of HR experience. That experience ranges from HR technician with the Alaska State Troopers, to class and compensation manager with the Washington Department of Children Youth and Families. She’s also worked for State Human Resources and the Personnel Resources Board. At The Evergreen State College, she handled recruitment, performance coaching, protected leave, and leave administration. 

She particularly enjoys performance coaching, training, rule and contract interpretation, and classification. And she loves researching HR gray areas until she finds solutions. This fall she’ll start pursuing a master’s degree in positive psychology, and she looks forward to applying what she learns to her work at WSDA. 

On the personal side, Nancy and her husband, Reggie, enjoy their two Rottweilers, Max and Maggie. She also loves writing, photography, videography, and playing her conga and bongo drums. 

Promoted to new role

Austin Miller, who has been with the agency’s HR Office since 2018, began in an HR consultant 3 (in-training) position on Feb. 16. He will support the Animal Services Division as their HR consultant. His supervisor is Leslie Louviere, classification and compensation manager. 

Austin Miller

Austin will also evolve and maintain our office’s data analytics and organizational charts, while he acquires the skills of a senior-level HR generalist.

As our processer and first point of contact for divisions, Austin has gained tremendous agency-specific historical knowledge. He has established positive working relationships with agency staff, and proven to be a hard worker and a valuable asset to our HR team. 

Austin is a native of Washington and he spends his free time with his fiancé, daughter and their two dogs. He loves the Miami Dolphins football team and all things Thor. 

Our goal as your Human Resources team is to provide the best service to WSDA. Please do not hesitate to contact us and offer feedback about your needs and how we can continually improve. 

In summary: Two new human resources consultants joined WSDA’s Human Resources Office this week, and one current staffer has been promoted to a consultant in-training position. As our HR fills vacancies and rounds out their team, learn more about these new consultants in this blog post by HR Director Lorna Mance.