Workforce Activation

Operational Issues

UNDERSTANDING OPERATIONAL ISSUES

The operational issues associated with Public Health Workforce Activation under surge conditions are complex. They span labor relations issues with represented segments of the workforce, compensation and payroll management concerns, skill assessment and documentation and others.

It is essential to structure a Public Health Workforce Activation planning process that includes early involvement of key County constituents such as a Labor representatives as well as departmental Human Resource decision makers to address such issues as disclosure of the planned activities, confidentiality for staff, employee compensation and surge response expectation. This will ensure that operational issues are anticipated and addressed.

OPERATIONAL ISSUES

Labor Relations

It was very important at Public Health-Seattle & King County (Public Health) to involve the "representative" of the employee workforce in the early stages of the planning process. Side by side with the department Human Resource management, this representative was able to provide invaluable input that saved time and ensured that key considerations for labor relations were addressed from the start. These are ongoing discussions throughout the process.

Payroll and Accounting

The implementation of a Public Health Workforce Activation presents a myriad of payroll and accounting issues to be structured into the plan. As Public Health staff are re-assigned to new job classifications, new hours of employment and new responsibilities, clarification of compensation and expectations through a job card system must established in advanced and clearly communicated.

Call Out Contact Systems

A significant amount of the planning process included discussion about appropriate call out contact systems. It is essential to create:

1. A detailed contact database with multiple methods of reaching the staff person (work phone, cell phone, home phone, email address) also taking into consideration that a non-electronic system should exist in the event of a power outage.
2. Contact protocols like phone tree and confirmation of a central call system.
3. A list of specialized, purchasable contact management systems such as " Washington Secures."

Skills Documentation

Have a process in place on how to document the verification of self-reported skills. Often a well intentioned staff member may report having a knowledge base of a specific response task but a legal certification may be required to perform the function. It is essential to verify that the staff person fits the assigned job duty. Figuring out the process that would be used to verify the information obtained from the survey was a lesson learned for Public Health.

Skills and Assignment Tracking

Depending on the size of your health jurisdiction, developing a tracking system for documenting the skills and completed training may be simple or be very elaborate. As staff turn over takes place, this tracking system should be maintained and updated regularly. Public Health is connecting the employee information database to the database that tracks employee training. Public Health is using a Learning Management System (LMS) called SmartPH to track training, but there are a number of similar tracking products available.

Piloting the Staff Assessment Survey

Initially, a department-wide staff survey was planned in order to quickly develop Surge Response Team assignments. The importance of vetting this survey with a sample of Public Health employees was identified in order to establish if the survey results would produce the necessary information as well as use Public Health staff time efficiently.