2025-08-26 Merit Appeal Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board August 26, 2025 MS. SAKAMOTO: We got it down to 9. MS. TOKIHIRO: So, there’s nine sessions, but what we were getting feedback from departments was that because we’ve been promoting more from within and because of our vacancy rates, people who don’t have a lot of supervisory skills are being promoted into these supervisory positions. And so, we found an immediate need to carve out a section of that supervisory training. We’re calling those the “soft skills” to kind of give them—“This is your intro. to being a supervisor”—and, yes, we’d like to see everybody take the full supervisory training program, but we recognize that Jenny can only offer so many of those sessions per year—and we have an immediate need. So, she was able to carve out three sessions, it’s like—“Let’s get you started and then you can take the rest of the program.” And there’ve been a great benefit in that—and people that have taken that shortened—those initial three courses, then want to continue on and do the full program. But I really appreciate the way that her division has taken some—or taken my feedback and taken feedback from the departments and really been able to, kind of, pivot and go in a different direction based on what we’re trying to accomplish for our employees and based on our employee needs and department needs. So, they’re a great group. They work well together—all very creative, have a lot of ideas. And so, I really appreciate them and all of their hard work. CHR. CABANAS: And it shows. So, that’s really exemplary—really. Because then the employees will benefit, the departments will benefit—and when employees have that wealth of information, they not only share it, not only—it’s not only for themselves, but they can share it with their family members. They can also share it with members of the public as they interact with them. So, it’s—sometimes you have to tell a member of the public, “Oh, no, it can’t be done this way”—but through the conversation, you can also share other resources and help them along in other ways as well—so they don’t walk away like, “Oh I didn’t get anything”—they got something. So that helps. Every little bit helps, yeah. MS. SAKAMOTO: We go over that in customer service. CHR. CABANAS: Yes . Yes. MS. BOND: Yeah, one of the most frustrating things, I think, these days in general is that customer service is a non-existent thing. You call someplace and they’re like—and you ask them a question, they’ll “Well, that’s not my job.”—it’s like, then don’t say you’re “customer service” ‘cause it—the thing should be, “Well, that’s not my job but if you go over here, they might be able to help you”—that kind of thing. Page 11