2025-08-26 Merit Appeal Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board August 26, 2025 And then, we have our Performance Appraisal Review—that’s a mandatory program for supervisors who have to do performance appraisals. And then, the other one that we’ve also included is our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Training for teams. So, that’s really effective when you have a group of people who always work together, go through that process, and get a better understanding of themselves and their team members—and, hopefully, be able to work together better. So, those are the standard ones that we always offer, that’s in our regular catalog. And then, we also help to bring in outside training. So, that includes working with EAP, which is our Employee Assistance Program. So, Nawai is actually our main coordinator for that. She brings them in—at least three times a year for each of the different topics. They help us do violence in the workplace prevention training for both employees and supervisors, and they also do reasonable suspicion training for supervisors who may have to do that assessment for those that might be under the influence while at work. So, that comes in—we do about, I guess, six of those total a year. In addition to that, now that we have Junko onboard, she’s helping us to coordinate a little bit more supplemental trainings. So, in addition to what I already provide, we’re bringing in outside trainers to help supplement the programs or the topics that we’re not able to bring in in-house. So, that includes—last year, we brought in Kuakahi Mediation Center to do a project management training—that was very popular, so we’ll probably bring that back. In addition to that, we worked with R&D to bring in grant writing and now we’re taking that on. So, grant writing will probably come in October of this year. So, we’re in the process of trying to secure funds for that through the Training Fund monies. She’s also working on bringing in Kuakahi to do facilitation training—that was “by request” from one of our operating departments, but we’ll probably offer a second session for the rest of the County in case they’re interested in attending that. And then, we also, last year—kind of spur of the moment, because we had access to the Training Fund monies—we did a Clerical Conference. So, that was something that they did—I don’t know how long ago—maybe 10 years ago prior to—they, kind of, cut it off at a certain point and then it got unfunded. And because now we had access to that money, we kind of asked Nawai, “Are you willing to do it?”—and she said, “Yes”—and we got it done within a short period of time. All of the participants who came really enjoyed it and they were hoping that we bring it back again this year. So, now, Junko is on board, she’ll probably schedule that for some time in the Spring. So, we’re hoping to keep some of these programs going as much as possible, but we’re looking to see what other kind of supplemental training we can also bring to the County. The next thing that—it kind of expands on what our regular training is—is the Employee Engagement Program. So, I already told you about the training that we do for supervisors, but we also have other programs tied into engagement. And the all—the whole goal is to then affect the retention, right—‘cause we don’t want to just bring in people into the County through our Page 6