Featured Job: Quality Assurance Specialist
Closing Date/Time: Mon. 01/02/17 4:30 PM
Salary: $35.21 – $44.63 Hourly, $73,236.80 – $92,830.40 Annually
Job Type: Term Limited Temporary, Full Time, 40 hrs/wk
Location: Chinook Building – 401 5th Ave, Seattle, Washington
Department: King County Department of Information Technology
Description: King County Information Technology – Business Solutions Services is looking for two QA Specialists to work closely with program managers, business analysts and developers to test agreed upon application functionality. These are both 24 month term-limited-temporary positions.
The QA Specialist will create and execute test cases to fully exercise all functionality. The QA Specialist is also responsible for developing test plans for projects of varying size, scope, and complexity in order to deliver high-quality systems on schedule. In addition, the QA Specialist will document and track all defects, as well as giving a final assessment of quality before product release.
Learn more about this position or view all available jobs.
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New Employee Orientation changing Jan. 1, 2017
King County’s New Employee Orientation (NEO) is getting a refresh beginning Jan. 1, 2017.
The changes to NEO will give a consistent positive experience to all new employees and will focus on King County’s values and what you can expect as a new employee.
If you need to register a new employee for NEO, this information is for you:
- NEO registration will be done through Eventbrite
- NEO will be held on every Monday starting Jan. 3, 2017
- If Monday is a holiday where offices are closed NEO will be held on Tuesday
- NEO will be all day (8 a.m. – 5 p.m.) except for non-benefitted employees who will leave at approximately 2:45 p.m.
- Employees will complete the first portion of their I-9 forms and bring to their HR the next day with required identification
- NEO will include obtaining ID badges as long as paperwork has been filed in advance with the King County ID Access Office.
You can find more information about the changes, agenda and how to sign up on this SharePoint site.
As with all changes, we encourage and welcome your feedback as we move forward. You can contact Meghan McKnight in Human Resources Division with any questions.
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Recognition of Emergency Medical Services program by the American Heart Association “warms the heart”
The American Heart Association recently presented its Ian G. Jacobs Award for International Group Collaboration to Advance Resuscitation Science to the Resuscitation Academy, which launched nine years ago to identify and disseminate best practices for treating cardiac arrest.
Mickey S. Eisenberg, Director of Medical Quality Improvement at King County EMS, accepted the award on behalf of the Resuscitation Academy.
“We hope to develop a road map and a set of tools that can be used by emergency medical systems in both high-resource and low-resource countries,” said Eisenberg. “We have the knowledge to increase cardiac arrest survival rates — we know how to do it. The main challenge is implementation.”
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King County Learning and Development delivers
Employee training is one of the career development areas County employees asked for more of in the 2015 Employee Engagement Survey. As part of the response to that request, Human Resources Division’s Learning and Development team provided more than 50 offerings of 26 classes to many of the County’s departments during the first ten months of 2016.
During that time, more than 500 County employees and community partners attended training opportunities, eight of which were in high demand and generated impressive wait lists. These trainings included:
- Difficult Conversations
- So, You Want to be a Supervisor?
- Value-Based Leadership 101
- Facilitating Effective Meetings
- Four Generations in the Workplace
- Introduction to Lean
- Basic Equity and Social Justice
- Stories that Engage
The KC eLearning site – www.KingCounty.gov/eLearning – has also had more than 12,000 visits to date this calendar year, where 1,646 employees accessed 2,572 eLearning resources. It can be accessed from a work or personal computer with an employee’s nine-digit PeopleSoft number. For those who cannot recall their password, it can be reset easily on the site. There is also a Quick Access Guide available, which provides an overview of the platform and it’s features.
The County’s eLearning resources include Skillsoft courses for Human Resources and Project Management certification exams, along with many other certification and self-improvement courses. The platform offers convenience to employees and managers, as the courses may be taken online, supporting both work schedules and learning and development goals – whether those goals be individually set or taken at the suggestion of a supervisor or mentor.
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Executive hosts first “Listening Session” to hear directly from employees
If you want to know what’s going on in any organization, you ask the people who are doing the work.
That’s why King County Executive Dow Constantine hosted his first Employee Listening Session – to hear from employees about the issues they are facing in their workplaces, and what the County can do to help them thrive and better serve their customers.
“Although I visit many King County work sites each month, I still don’t get as many opportunities as I would like to talk directly with individual employees, so I asked my staff to put together these listening sessions,” Executive Constantine told the small group gathered in his Chinook Building office. “I want to hear from you about what you’re working on, what’s working well, and where we could do better to help you succeed.”
The Executive’s Office worked with union leaders who nominated 11 employees from across the County to attend the first Employee Listening Session on Wednesday, December 7: Hossein Barahimi (Department of Transportation), Jason Canfield (Superior Court), Valerie Dreas (Assessments), Steve Ford (KCIT), Bob Goucher (Department of Natural Resources and Parks), Jennell Hicks (Department of Community and Human Services), Amy Lewis (Department of Public Defense), Lynn Mazer (Department of Judicial Administration), Keith Siebler (Public Health), Lois Watt (Department of Transportation), and Lisa Wray (Sheriff’s Office).
A passion for public service was a consistent theme among the employees at the event who all shared a strong commitment to serving their customers and zeal for their work.
Career advancement was a key topic of discussion, with attendees urging the Executive to look at how the County can ensure maximum transparency and objectivity on hiring panels, and to encourage County recruiters to value training and certifications alongside experience when evaluating job applications.
The attendees also advocated for managers to facilitate greater self-direction for employees wherever appropriate, which can lead to more innovation and problem-solving.
Another issue that was raised was support for military veterans, with one attendee advocating for King County to continue its Veterans Program and its focus on hiring and assisting local veterans.
The Employee Listening Sessions are part of the Executive’s commitment to connecting more frequently with employees – both in person at site visits and events like this one, and electronically through video and email messages.
The Executive’s team has taken the suggestions from the employees who attended the session and will work to address the concerns that the group voiced. The Executive plans to host more Employee Listening Sessions in 2017.
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Reminder: Win a book of poetry; further the conversation about equity and social justice, deadline December 30
Enter to win one of these 6 awesome books.
This year an Equity and Social Justice (ESJ) project team in DNRP organized a series of four literary readings called “Reflecting on Race and Racism through Spoken Word, Story, and Conversation” that was open to all King County employees. The purpose was to provide a forum for employees to discuss issues of race and racism to help reject stereotypes, practice empathy, and come to a greater understanding of the roots of inequity and injustice.
The ESJ literary project is also the reason behind this book giveaway open to all employees. To be eligible to receive one of six books by the poets featured in the reading series, simply respond to one of the following prompts:
- The most important thing I learned …
- What I hope to see in future events …
- I didn’t attend any of the events, but I would’ve if …
Send your entries to Rowena Johnson with the subject line ESJ Book Drawing (King County employees only). Deadline for entering is December 30, 2016. All responses will be included in a random drawing, with winners announced in January 2017. Titles to be given away are
- Aux Arcs by Shin Yu Pai
- Adamantine by Shin Yu Pai
- Digging for Roots by Kiana Davis
- Diglossic in the Second America by Quenton Baker
- This Glittering Republic by Quenton Baker
- Where Bullet Breaks by Casandra Lopez
If you are not among the winners, you can still get easy access to the books. A set will be available for checkout from the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program library.
Turning to books is always a good move. As Sherman Alexie says, “I firmly believe in the power of stories to change the world, and I firmly believe in the power of one story to change one life at a time.”
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Kudos to KC Roads for tackling snow and ice head on!
With winter weather on the way, we say thank you to everyone who is helping keep our roads safe!
Kudos to King County Road Services for maintaining 1,500 miles of road and 181 bridges in unincorporated King County. By making sure there is no ice on our roadways you are helping transit operators, commuters and all who travel during this busy season stay safe and sound.
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KCIT Training wants to help you get the knowledge and skills you need to get the most out of SharePoint
Due to the overwhelming response to our initial SharePoint course offerings, we’ve added more Basic and Intermediate classes to the schedule. Openings are currently available but they will fill up fast so enroll now to reserve your spot!
SharePoint Basic Training: In Basic training you’ll get familiar with site navigation, learn best practices and discover how SharePoint is configured for King County. To facilitate continued learning students also get exclusive access to post training support from the instructor.
SharePoint Intermediate Training: In Intermediate Training, we’ll build upon what you learned in Basic, learn more about Library settings, Custom Columns, Metadata and file structure. Creating Custom lists and management of metadata.
Click here for available Basic and Intermediate Training registration dates.
Students if you don’t see a class that works for you, please let us know! We’ll do our best to accommodate your request, and managers, we will work with you to identify and develop learning opportunities for your project or workgroup. Give us a call at 206-263-1335.
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Social Media Spotlight: King County Employees Twitter
King County employees provide more than 2 million residents with excellence and equity in the essential services
Follow King County Employees on Twitter today!
Click here to view all King County social media pages.
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Featured Job: Best Starts for Kids Prenatal to 5 Years Policy & Program Manager
Closing Date/Time: Sun. 12/18/16 11:59 PM
Salary: $78,634.82 – $99,674.22 Annually
Job Type: Career Service
Location: Chinook Building, Downtown Seattle, Washington
Department: Department of Public Health–Administrative Services
Description: The BSK Policy & Program Manager will provide high-level project management to BSK implementation activities with an emphasis on developing strong partnerships with other County departments and community stakeholders to create opportunities for collaboration and alignment for BSK. This position will also conduct policy analysis and develop recommendations on policies impacting children and youth in King County, with an emphasis on prenatal to 5 year olds.
Learn more about this position or view all available jobs.
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