NOVEMBER 5, 2021 SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUD

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P lease join us in congratulating Journeyman Lineman Allan Heer on being November’s Em-

ployee of the Month. You’ve probably heard the phrase—safety doesn’t happen by accident. Creating a culture of safety takes a lot of things, such as leadership, knowledge, and accountabil-ity, but perhaps most importantly, it takes dedicated individuals like Allan. Allan began his career with the Dis-trict on October 2, 2017, as a Journey-man Lineman at the Lynnwood office. In September 2018, Allan transferred to the Operations Center where he also be-gan teaching the Lineman Apprenticeship classes. In 2019, Allan began the first of three consecutive years as Safety Chair for his team. Allan is an active facilitator and mentor for District-wide management and employee Safety Meetings. And ac-cording to his colleagues, he’s also a true ambassador for safety and teamwork at the District. Allan was nominated for Employee of the Month by John Rover, Operations Superintendent, and Mike Black, Line Foreman. “It is Allan’s passion that line crews are prepared and safe every day and that they go home healthy to their loved ones every

Meet Allan HeerOur Employee of the Month for November

Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday! Studies suggest it can take several days for people to fully adjust their sleep schedule. Be extra good to yourself during the transition. Remember, fatigue can lead to accidents.

night,” said John. “He has been known to say on more than one occasion that he wants to leave this profession better than when he found it,” said Mike. “He doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the walk. Allan is a force for pos-

itive change in the District’s safety culture.” If you talk to people around the Dis-trict, you’ll hear stories of the time that Allan stepped up to help a colleague with a broken-down Jeep on vacation, or how

INSIDE:3 Redesigned Snopud.com

is Live!3 Help Us Honor Our Veterans4 AIM Team Finds Success

with Agile5 Considerations for Leading

a High-Functioning Hybrid Team

6 Customers Now Have Extra Time to Pay Bills

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Allan Heer, EOM ( continued from page 1 )

he went out of his way to mentor appren-tices and non-electric workers. Allan is known for being a person who steps up to help others. When challenges resulting from COVID made it im-possible for the Safety Team to continue their meetings in-person as they’d done in the past, Allan stepped up so that important informa-tion could continue to get to those who need it most. “COVID restrictions stretched the Safety Department thin and the Safety Chairs, especially Allan, have stepped up to the plate,” said John. “It is not uncom-mon for Allan to facilitate weekly and monthly meetings, sometimes more than six meetings in one day.” Allan goes above and beyond to make sure safety is relatable and engaging. He invests significant time in preparing for meetings and adds materials and addition-al resources to his presentations to make sure messages are meaningful to the crews. He’s known for finding new and innova-tive ways to keep the team engaged in the

meetings and the subject matter. “At the District we often say that there is nothing worth getting injured for and that there is nothing more important than the health and safety of each of our em-ployees,” said Paul Kiss, Operations Su-perintendent. “It’s because of the leader-

ship and commitment of people like Allan that we’re able to live up to our values. I want to thank Allan for all of the work he does ev-ery day so that the men and women of Team PUD can

go home to their families every night.” Allan’s dedication and work ethic ex-tends into every aspect of his job. “Allan brings to the job a tremendous work ethic and initiative,” said Mike. “No task is too big or too small. He is a person who leads by example and is respected widely by leadership and his peers.” Prior to coming to the District, Allan completed his Lineman apprenticeship with the Northwest Line JATC. He cred-its this experience for developing a robust skillset that has served him at the District. “During my time as an apprentice, I worked for different power line con-tractors in Washington, Oregon, Idaho,

as well as other areas,” said Allan. “This allowed me to learn from journeymen who came from various areas, each one brought a different work practice or skill-set of their own.” When asked what he liked most about working for the District, Allan replied, “I love everything about being a Journeyman Lineman. The variety of work that we en-counter keeps our job exciting. It can be mentally and physically challenging too – you can be up on a pole with your climb-ing tools and then wearing rubber boots down in a vault within a matter of hours. Not to mention that we get to work in a constantly changing environment with extreme weather at times. It’s very rare that two days are ever the same. I also like that we have the ability to make such a big difference in our community by respond-ing to power outages and winter storms.” Whether in the field or in the class-room, Allan is living the values of Team PUD every day and instilling those values into future generations of line workers. Please join us in congratulating Allan on being Employee of the Month and thanking him for his dedication to keep-ing Team PUD safe every day.

“It’s because of the leadership and commitment of

people like Allan that we’re able to live up

to our values.”

Where were you born and raised?I was born in Ephrata and lived in various communities throughout Central and East-ern Washington.

What do you like to do in your spare time? I enjoy spending time with my

wife and kids traveling to Seahawks games in other cities and taking our Jeep to off-road destinations such as Utah and California. I also like to hunt upland birds in Eastern WA with my dog or just relax in my backyard around the fire pit.

Tell us about a significant event or one of the best or funni-est memories you have from working at the District?Being a Lineman here at the District means working a lot of hours with a lot of different people, and there are a lot of “dif-ferent” people here. I have too many funny stories for me to tell just one and some really funny moments that should nev-er be talked about!

Is there anything you would like to say to your co-workers about this honor?I was thrilled to hear I had received this honor. I would like to convey my sincere gratitude and overwhelming joy to my managers and co-workers who deemed me suitable for such a nomination.

EOM Q&A

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Our redesigned website successfully launched on Monday. The new site pro-vides a fresh look with pared-down main categories and tools that make it easier to find things on the site. “Our previous website had about 750 pages,” said Diana Kwong, co-project manager for the redesign. “With the help of many workgroups, we were able to pare that down to under 300 pages. Still a big site, but way more manageable!” “Bilberrry, our web design partner based in Seattle, provided clarity and creativity in redesigning the site with a cleaner look and better focus,” said Wendy Parris, co-project manager. “They provided an outsider point of view to help us move pages into fewer categories, making it easier to navigate and find content. And their idea of the ‘How Do I…’ tool was genius.” Bilberrry also rebuilt the site from scratch, using WordPress, a website appli-cation about 70% of websites use now. It employs newer technology that allows for things like a direct sign-in to MySnoPUD, built-in ADA compliance and a respon-sive site friendly to all modern devices. While Corporate Communications was responsible for content and design, none of this would have been possible

Redesigned Snopud.com is Live!

without expert guidance and support from the Information Technology Ser-vices division. IT project manager Cin-dy Dayley made sure technical questions were being handled and appropriate IT staff was kept in the loop or pulled into the project when needed. Jeremy Bab-cock was the IT genius who managed all the technical requirements and coor-dinated with Bilberrry on the site’s archi-tecture. And a big shout-out of appreci-ation to Andy Coughlan, John Willett, Angela Forbes and Alysia Johnson for their critical contributions. And, of course, without the unwavering support of sponsors Communications, Marketing and Business Readiness Director Julee

Cunningham and just-retired CIO Dean Galvez, the project would have been ten times the challenge. The core project team of Diana, Wen-dy, Cindy and Jeremy was small compared to most District teams for a project this size, but employee contribution was huge. Many workgroups reviewed the new site before launch to help clean up content. Several IT employees worked behind the scenes for key pieces of integration. Krys-ta Rasmussen produced a new video and shot new photos for the site. “I’ve been at the District through the launch of our first website in June 1996, so I have a long history with our website,” added Diana. “This is the fourth new look for the site in 25 years, but the last one was the longest at almost 13 years. This redesign has been particularly satisfying because of the shared teamwork with Bil-berrry and employees from all over the District to make this an improved cus-tomer experience. Wendy and I are grate-ful for all the eyeballs on the site prior to launch and the enthusiasm shown by employees for improving the site at every turn as well as the unswerving support by IT employees.” New website? Check! Up next: new Snoweb, our intranet!

This Veterans Day, we want to take a moment to honor our Team PUD veterans and their families. We will be featuring photos of veterans and their families in the November 12 issue of High-lights. We are asking you to help us show our appreciation to our veterans by sending in photos by noon on Monday, November 8, to districtdaily@snopud.com. Photos could be of you during your service, a photo of your family members who supported you while you were deployed, a family member who served and inspired you in your life, or any veteran that you want to honor. If possible, please include a brief description of the photo for in-clusion in Highlights.

Thank you for helping us to honor the men and women who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

Help Us Honor Our Veterans

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Demand for analytics has increased ex-ponentially at the District over the last five years. While Chris Britsch, Manager Data, Strategy and Analytics, knew that more requests for work and consulting from his team was a positive reflection of their good work, he also realized that to continue to perform at a high level they needed to rethink how they were manag-ing their workload. Enter, Agile. Last January, Chris approached Tra-cy Larkin, Project Manager, about work-ing with his team to transition to Agile for workflow and project management. As you may recall from an article earlier this year in Highlights, Agile is a project man-agement style that allows teams to take an incremental approach to change, create a strong sense of team ownership through collaboration, and produce continual im-provements that benefit customers and staff. In January, the team started receiving training to establish baseline knowledge of Agile. By June, they’d really hit their stride with the tool. “Transitioning to Agile allowed us to visualize our work in way that we hadn’t before,” said Chris. “Through Agile we were able to better understand what we needed to improve and measure our success getting there.”

Organizing and Managing Work The team has used a variety of the tools in Agile to work on a data modeling, ware-

AIM Team Finds Success with Agile

“With Agile methodology, I feel

more connected to the progress of

work.”

housing, and reporting project. Utilizing the Agile approach has helped the team or-ganize and manage their work. “I am lucky to be a part of the amaz-ing AIM team for this project,” said Bri Zaretzke, Information Governance and Compliance Program Manager. “When Tracy was assigned to help us as a Proj-ect Manager, she brought a refreshing and much needed new tactic using DevOps. This is helping us streamline and not get overwhelmed. It also allowed us to pull work from a backlog when we finish tasks.

I am so excited to bring the Agile method using DevOps to all of my future work. It allows us as a group to or-ganize, implement and work more strategically.”

Though change always comes with its own set of challenges, many team members started to recognize that Agile made their work more efficient and coordinated. “With Agile methodology, I feel more connected to the progress of work,” said Nicole Basanta, Senior Business Ana-lyst. “When a team has consistent daily dialogue and a shared task board, there are fewer blind spots. I can better plan for work items that I see coming my way. There is a learning curve and adjustment period when you’re new to Agile. At first, it feels like you might be spending more time planning, creating, and updating a task

board instead of getting the actual work done. For me, the transparency and group focus is definitely worth that effort.”

Removing Barriers to Team Collabora-tion The Agile framework has changed the way that the AIM team works together. Week-ly department meetings have given way to daily standups and a more transparent mechanism for seeing how different items are progressing. Monthly Retrospectives allow time to reflect on the latest projects and see what worked, what didn’t work, themes, and problems in the process. “Retrospectives have been key to em-powering the team to share what’s going well, and what’s not going well in the pro-cess,” said Tracy. “We have seen immense growth in the way that the team operates.” Agile has also allowed the team to rally together to support each other as they nav-igate problems on their individual projects. “It used to be that we were stovepiped – this is my skill, this is your skill,” said Chris. “Now we see team members who drop what they’re doing to work together when someone is stuck on a problem. In Agile, this is called a swarm, and it has allowed us to solve problems in an hour that would have taken a week for someone to solve on their own.”

Tools to Manage More Effectively According to Chris, the transition to Agile has not been about changing the team, it’s been about being able to manage in a way that allows him to serve his team better moving forward. “I now have more data to proactively manage my team,” said Chris. “I can see po-tential issues before they become problems, and I can help my team address them be-fore they have an impact on business.” To find out if Agile project manage-ment might be a helpful tool for your team, contact Tracy Larkin.

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At the beginning of 2020, remote work was considered by many companies to be a concept to consider at some point in the fu-ture, rather than a reality. However, due to COVID-19, many of us have been thrown into a new way of work in record time that wasn’t anticipated or planned for. Now that we have been doing this for over 18 months, it’s important to take a little time to think more strategically and carefully about how to manage and lead this new kind of workforce – the hybrid team. The PNW Chapter of the Association for Change Manage-ment Professionals (ACMP) recently held a virtual Coffee Chat discussing “Leading a Hybrid Team.” This session was led by Su-san Garriety of Point B Consulting who provided some practical tips as well as 3 key dimensions to consider when managing and leading a hybrid team in what is now being termed the “next nor-mal.” According to Garriety, the three key dimensions to carefully consider for an effective hybrid work model are the where, when, and how:• Where – Establish team consensus (within corporate policy)

on what is considered an acceptable remote work location. For example, is a vacation home or coffee shop acceptable, or do you expect your team mem-bers to work from their primary residence when working remotely? If you as a manager endorse re-mote work, then try to practice it at least a couple of days a week. This will make choosing to work remotely feel more accepted and supported by your team.

• When – Ensure that you set some basic time of work “guard-rails” for your team. When are they expected to be available? People have different work rhythms, but by making your expectations clear on expected availability, some misunder-standings and confusion can be easily avoided. Also be aware of “when” you are hitting the send button on an email. Lead by example and if you are telling your team to not work on weekends, don’t email them on weekends. Draft it if you must and send it on Monday morning instead!

• How – One of the trickier aspects of hybrid work is meetings. As we return to the office in some capacity, there will often be times when people are in a room together for a meeting and are also joined by remote team members. How you run these

Considerations for Leading a High-Functioning Hybrid Team

Jen Mullen, BR&T Curriculum Development & Design Specialist at the District, attended this ACMP Coffee Chat and crafted this ar-ticle to assist all employees at the District as we navigate our “next normal.” This is just one of many tools that BR&T has for managers and employees as they adjust to 2022 and beyond. Contact Jen for training ideas or HR if you would like assistance with specific concerns.

meetings is imperative to having a successful hybrid team and it is also important to set expectations with your team for their participation. Treat remote team members as equal participants by making sure they get the opportunity for equal

airtime. Call on them directly if appropriate. Dis-courage your team from having side conversations in meetings as these can be distracting for every-one and also make remote staff feel like they are missing something. Then there are the cameras – not everyone loves being on camera, but this is es-

pecially important for remote workers to be successful within their hybrid team. Set the standard that for team meetings it is expected that those joining remotely have their camera turned on. After all, you would never accept people joining an in-per-son meeting with a bag over their head. Seeing everyone’s faces makes the meeting feel more collaborative and inclusive.

Essentially Garriety’s recommendations are premised on man-agers having open communication with all of their team mem-bers. Having discussions and reaching consensus (when possible) on hybrid team policies is key and then most importantly, clearly communicating these expectations to the entire team. This “next normal” is a challenging time, but also offers an opportunity to work in a new and more flexible way which is exciting. A little planning and communication will go a long way in creating a high-functioning hybrid team.

“A little planning and

communication will go a long

way..”

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Customers Now Have Extra Time to Pay BillsThe District gives customers 15 days from the time a bill is issued to when it’s due. Most of the time that win-dow is sufficient, but at times, when bills are issued before weekends or holidays, especially the Thanksgiv-ing four-day weekend, customers can be left with just a couple of days to pay their bill to beat the due date. For many customers, especially those who pay by check, this created a poor customer experience and left them feeling we weren’t giving them enough time to pay their bill. “With longer mail times or de-

It’s that befuddling time of year again! Daylight saving time is ending and it’s time to turn back the clocks. This year’s time change happens Sunday at 2 a.m., shifting us back to 1 a.m. This means preparing yourself for less sunlight in the morning hours. On Nov. 7, the sun will set at 4:42 in Seattle, and days will continue to get shorter as we march toward the Dec. 21 winter solstice. Washington state lawmakers over-whelmingly approved legislation to “ditch the switch” in 2019 and stay on daylight saving time. As in 19 other states, the

One Hour of Free Sleep Coming on Sunday!

2 22benefitsbenefits

Open Enrollment is Underway!

Remember, all enrollment changes MUST be made in Benefit Central prior to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17. Changes made during Open Enrollment are effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Unless you have a change or want an HSA or FSA in 2022, no action is required. Please see the Open Enrollment page in Benefit Central if you’d like more information.

change awaits federal approval. On the bright side, one handy thing about falling back is that it serves as a reminder for several important safety chores: • Check and replace the batteries

in your smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms.

• Prepare a winter emergency kit for your car.

• Check to see if your fire ex-tinguishers need recharging/replacing.

Stay safe, everyone!

lays, this created some tight turn-arounds for customers,” said Cathy Pat-terson, Senior Customer and Energy Services Program Manager. “We have heard about this for some time from customers and realized this was some-thing that needed to be fixed, especially heading into Connect Up.” Now all customers will have a little extra time to pay their bills. The Cus-tomer Self-Service Team recently went live with bill due date extensions, giv-ing customers an extra six days to pay their bill. From print to due date, Dis-trict customers will now have 21 days,

instead of 15. Within MySnoPUD, the District’s customer self-service portal, custom-ers who are signed up for autopay will have their payment automatically trig-gered to be taken out on the new due date.

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PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

BIRTHDAYS

The Highlights Team: Kellie Stickney 425-783-8444

Aaron Swaney 425-783-1776

Wendy Parris 425-783-1713

Julee Cunningham 425-783-1779

highlights@snopud.com

QUICKPOLL

This week’s QuickPoll: Where do you eat most meals?

244 people had voted by press time

If we shake out all of the crumbs from all of the keyboards in the world, we can end world hunger. –Matthew Dolkart

Nov. 5 David CrossNov. 6 Kevin Baggett Lisa Murr Travis OlsonNov. 8 Bob Anderson Sarah MayoNov. 9 Jacob Lindell Melissa Miner Amber TolandNov. 10 Sean Barton Mark Deisher Tony MacDonald Dwane Small Michael St. ClairNov. 11 Stephanie Felver Kim Fenney Cressa Johnson William Rife

The World War I armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In 1938, Armistice Day was officially made a legal holiday. In 1954, Armistice Day was updated by Congress to be known as Veterans Day, since the United States had participated in two other large wars (World War II and the Korean War), and this would allow veterans of all wars to be honored.

At right, 1917 recruitment poster by James Montgomery Flagg