Employee News

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Featured Job: Paramedic Intern

Salary: $21.02 Hourly

Location: Various Locations throughout King County, WA

Job Type: Career Service, Full Time, 40 hrs/week

Department: DPH – Public Health

Job Number: 2020NH11380

Division: Emergency Medical Svcs

Closing: 6/30/2020 11:59 PM Pacific

Learn more about this position or view all available positions.

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

PeopleSoft system is available now

The PeopleSoft system is available now. Thank you for your patience!

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

PeopleSoft Emergency Outage today starting at 10:30 a.m.

An emergency outage of the PeopleSoft system is required this morning. The outage will last for approximately one hour. We will send a follow up notice advising when the system is available.

Thank you for your patience.

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Phishing attempts around unemployment claims

State cybersecurity experts report recent phishing attempts that use official-looking messages allegedly from the state Employment Security Department to try and acquire employee account credentials. To the left is an example. Click here to view it larger.

As the state Office of Cybersecurity says: “Phishing emails are increasingly sophisticated and hard to detect. They may appear to be from people or organizations you know and trust. They may even contain information from previous emails threads so that it appears to be part of a continuing conversation.”

The state warns:

Be suspicious of any emails that urge you to take action and try to create a sense of urgency.
Never click on links or open attachments until you have verified the email is legitimate.

Call the sender by looking up their phone number independently.
Never call a phone number included in a suspicious email or reply to the sender.

Thank you for your help and cooperation. For help with security questions, technical issues or problems, contact the KCIT Helpdesk or call 206-263-4357 (3-HELP).

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Public Health publishes new COVID-19 key indicators dashboard

Crossposted from Public Health Insider

Our latest dashboard, Key Indicators of COVID-19 Activity in King County, Washington, provides a snapshot of several useful indicators, or metrics, related to COVID-19 activity in our community and the impact on our health and our hospitals. We talked to Dr. Jeff Duchin, Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County to learn more about what these indicators mean.

Why are these indicators useful?

JD: The key indicators provide an overview of how we are doing in several important areas: disease activity, testing (specifically, PCR testing), and healthcare system status. The information indicated by these key metrics along with other data and recommendations are provided by Public Health to policy makers when they make decisions about whether current activity restrictions, recommendations and precautions to prevent COVID-19 are adequate, need to be strengthened or might be carefully relaxed.

King County buildings open Monday, June 1

King County buildings will be open to employees on Monday, June 1. We will notify you if activities today alter this plan. All employees who are currently telecommuting should continue to do say per prior guidance. Our guidance remains the same for first responders and mission-critical employees for the Executive Branch.

The following entrances incurred some superficial damage during the weekend’s protests and will be closed tomorrow for repair work:

King County Courthouse – 3^rd Avenue Entrance – CLOSED. Access the building via 4^th Avenue Entrance or the tunnel from the Administration Building.
Administration Building – 5^th Avenue Entrance – CLOSED. Access the building via the 4^th Avenue Entrance or the tunnel from the Chinook Building.

King County Metro continues to provide service on a reduced schedule to slow the spread of COVID-19.

As a reminder, the City of Seattle curfew will remain in effect from 5 p.m. Sunday, May 31, until 5 a.m. Monday, June 1. A curfew is in effect in the City of Bellevue from 5:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.

As always, let safety be your guide when making commute decisions, and continue to follow Public Health guidance.

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Interactive webinar series for managers and supervisors, June 3

The Learning and Development Team within the Department of Human Resources is offering a live, interactive webinar series for managers and supervisors entitled Leading Remotely in Times of Uncertainty. The next webinar in this series, Staying Steady for Yourself and Your Team, will be held Wednesday, June 3.

This webinar will focus on how being a leader is a tough job during the best of times. In order to effectively lead a team, it is helpful to use self-care skills that can enable leaders to stay steady during the COVID-19 response- and beyond. By the end of this session, participants will be able to describe the importance of self-care as a leader, identify ways to support their team, and customize a plan of action to take back to their team.

Wednesday, June 3, from 9-11:30 a.m. Register here.

The webinar is free but space is limited. For more information, contact the Learning and Development Team at KCTraining@kingcounty.gov or visit www.kingcounty.gov/learning.

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Supporting each other and our community during COVID-19

With a guiding vision of “Making King County a welcoming community where every person can thrive,” King County employees are thinking about how best to support each other and our community through this pandemic. Though we are not all on the front lines, the actions we take are critical to the success of those who are.

Balanced You supports King County employees in living the “We Are One Team” value by providing tips on how you can do what you can, where you can to support the efforts of our front line workers to contain the virus and help those in our community who are most vulnerable. Visit the Balanced You blog for more information.

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Lilia Cabello Drain

Guidance for employees under City of Seattle curfew

Dear employee,

People in King County and across the country are demonstrating against racism, hate, and violence against black people and people of color in the United States, sparked by the killing in Minnesota of George Floyd, who died with a white police officer’s knee pressed to his neck.

Seattle Mayor Jenny A. Durkan has announced a 5 p.m. curfew effective today, Saturday, May 30, and Sunday, May 31.

Employees are advised that per the curfew, they should remain in their residence to the extent possible and should refrain from traveling in and through Seattle, unless they:

Need to commute to work during these hours
Are experiencing homelessness
Are in a medical emergency,
Are in a dangerous situation
Are first responders, health care workers, or working media roles.

Essential employees who must report should be prepared to provide the reason they need to be traveling in the city if asked by law enforcement.

We value and respect the peaceful expression of political views and people exercising their First Amendment rights. This is a challenging period in our nation’s history, and here in King County will continue to lead with racial justice in our work and stand together for a safe, diverse, welcoming community where every person can thrive.