DWD Bulletin - May 03, 2013

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SECRETARY'S COLUMN Dear Colleagues: We are working on many fronts to empower people, address the skills gap and keep Wisconsin's economy moving forward. We hit the ground running when the Legislature approved Governor Walker's Wisconsin Fast Forward initiative with overwhelming bipartisan support in early March. As the Legislature acts on other workforce reforms in his budget, we are putting Wisconsin Fast Forward into action. Just this week, it was my pleasure to announce the appointment of Scott Jansen as Director of the new Office of Skills Development, authorized with the Wisconsin Fast Forward legislation. Scott begins his new position on Monday, May 6. His office will administer the new state-funded $15 million grant program to address the skills gap by helping employers train new and incumbent workers. We are pleased to welcome Scott to our team. He brings a combination of private-sector leadership, community engagement and talent development experience, most recently as the Greater Milwaukee Committee's Talent Dividend Director, to the new Office of Skills Development. Under his leadership, key tenets of Wisconsin Fast Forward will launch quickly and thrive in the months to come. As for the grant program, we recently submitted language to create administrative rules governing the program. The language will cover application, criteria for consideration and outcomes that will help gauge the grants' success in developing the workforce. Public hearings will be held this year as part of the rule-making process. Training grants could be made available for application by the end of 2013. In addition to the office and grant program, Wisconsin Fast Forward includes funding for a new, cutting-edge Labor Market Information System to track job vacancies and link unemployed workers to openings they are qualified to fill or to training to help them become qualified. We are now reviewing proposals recently submitted by potential vendors. At the same time, we are promoting a proven, successful training program already available to job seekers and employers. The adult apprenticeship training program is one of our best kept secrets, and we are working to change that with an outreach initiative that's moving into high gear. With public service announcements, videos on our website, billboards in metro areas and other materials, we are letting job seekers, employers and the public know apprenticeship offers a pathway to family-supporting jobs in the skilled trades. Apprenticeship training is available to youth, too, and I have been traveling the state highlighting that program as well. In particular, Second Chance Partners for Education, a certified Youth Apprenticeship program launched at Generac Power Systems in Waukesha, has been remarkably successful in engaging, educating and training high school students for good jobs in manufacturing and other sectors. Apprenticeship, both adult and youth programs, and the Wisconsin Fast Forward initiative represent the comprehensive, collaborative strategies we are pursing to empower and ensure a skilled workforce, now and for years to come.

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My thanks to all of you for your commitment and contributions in this effort.

Reggie Newson Secretary DWD In The News fox11online.com DWD promotes apprenticeship in Green Bay bizjournals.com GMC official to lead state's new Office of Skills Development wearegreenbay.com Apprenticeship program trains youth for manufacturing jobs news.wpr.org Utah Traveling Sales Crew Stands To Pay $55K For Violating WI Law jsonline.com Unemployment backlog nearly eliminated, Wisconsin official says Well Wisconsin Offers Financial Incentives! Did you know that the Well Wisconsin program is working with the state's health insurance providers to offer you financial incentives? You can earn cash for taking a health survey and getting basic health factors. Every adult on your state health insurance plan can participate, including your spouse or adult children who are 18 or older. All it takes is two easy steps: 1. Take a Wellness Assessment: This gives you your baseline measurements of common health factors such as cholesterol level and blood pressure. You can do this at your doctor's office or at one of the upcoming DWD Well Wisconsin events. 2. Complete your insurance provider's online Health Survey: This quick, easy survey will help you measure well-being factors, such as your stress level and family medical history. You can link to your provider's health survey from our website at wellwisconsin.wi.gov. A Wellness Assessment Event is scheduled in GEF-1 on June 3 and 4, 2013. Dean and Physician's Plus will be here on June 3; Group Health Cooperative and Unity will be here on June 4. If these dates don't work for you, check the Calendar of Wellness Assessment Events at wellwisconsin.wi.gov for other dates and locations. Staff in other cities can participate in events in their area by checking the calendar as well. To sign up for an event, visit http://wellwisconsin.wi.gov/My-Assessment. You can also do the Wellness Assessment with your own health care practitioner. Well Wisconsin is facilitated through your health insurance provider, and is subject to all federal and state privacy laws. Your health information will not be available to any State of Wisconsin manager or employee, and will only be seen by your insurance

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company. Your health insurance provider cannot change your coverage, premium, or out-ofpocket costs as a result of your Wellness Assessment or Health Survey outcomes. If you need additional information or have questions about Well Wisconsin, please contact Jeanne Benck, DWD Health and Safety Officer, (608) 267-3731. Quality Steering Committee Calendar Want to learn about the Madison B-cycle program? You can at a Brown Bag session scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, at GEF-1. Interested in developing a healthier lifestyle? You can get a good start with a Well Wisconsin assessment in the coming weeks. How about some fun at the ball park? A DWD night at the Mallards "Duck Pond" is in the works. You can learn about these and other DWD sponsored events in Madison and around the state by going to Quality Steer Committee Calendar of Events. These and other events are all part of the QST initiative to promote a positive work environment that helps achieve Strategic Plan goals of empowering and supporting Wisconsin's workforce. DWD Welcomes Young Visitors TAKE OUR DAUGHTERS AND SONS TO WORK DAY APRIL 25; THEME, WORK IN PROGRESS On Thursday, April 25, 2013, DWD staff welcomed many young visitors for the 21st annual Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. At GEF-1, the day began with breakfast in the cafeteria. On behalf of Secretary Newson, Nia Enemuoh-Trammell, Administrative Law Judge in the Worker's Compensation Division, welcomed all. About 50 young visitors were treated to breakfast, served by Good Day Caf operators Tom Jeray and his wife, Joann. Breakfast for the young visitors was compliments of the Quality Steering Team and proceeds from a recent Social Committee bake sale. The 2013 theme was Work In Progress, celebrating the more than 20 years that the Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Foundation has sponsored such events to educate and empower youth. The theme also represents the future, promise and talents of a new generation of workers. In keeping with the theme, GEF-1 visitor attended a career development presentation by Scott Fromader, Youth Education Consultant in the Division of Employment and Training. Special guests of the day also took part in mock trial, Cinderella v. Estate of Padre Mia Tremaine, involving staff from several divisions. Once again, the session with the Wisconsin Academy for Graduate Service Dogs proved to be a popular event. The students equally enjoyed a seminar on building a website. These presentations were among a number of activities organized by Nia Trammell and other members of her Planning Committee: Chytania Brown, Pati Brown, Siegrun Horst Kauti, Nancy Kargel and Maria Maize. Assisting the planning committee were the following QST Social Committee Liaisons: Sue Beran, Tammy Downing, Lori LeMahieu, Rosemary Valentine. In addition to Scott Fromader, Nia Trammell also thanked the following volunteers and contributors for welcoming the young visitors and making the day a success: Pamela Achterberg, Shelly Billings, Joe Brockman, Theola Carter, Bobby de la O, Joe Dottl, Susan Draper, Dane Fjelstad, Scott Fromader, J.D. Glick, Bruce Green, Claire Greene, Beth Johnson, Diane King, Ken Kluever, Diane Kraft, Charles Lawson, Ryan O'Connor, Mary

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Pronschinske, Kathleen Reed, Jenny Sanger, Roy Sass, Michelle Servi, Lorrie Simmons, Janine Smiley, Larry Studesville, Heather Thompson, Grant Westfall, Allyn Weinert, and Patti Young. DANE COUNTY JOB CENTER DAUGHTERS & SONS WORK DAY EVENT Nearly a dozen children attended a Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day event at the Dane County Job Center on Aberg Avenue in Madison. According to Katrece Ragland, Employment and Training Specialist, it was the first daughters and sons day event in years. Students participated in two workshop sessions, "Job Retention and Career Cruising." During a center tour, they met representatives of all the partner agencies and learned about the services the center provides the community. The students met members of the security department and observed operations in the Resource Room. They began the day with a continental breakfast. At the end of their visit, they enjoyed lunch with goodie bags. For Katrece, the highlight of the day was when her son, Joshua, turned to her and said, "Mom, I'm proud of you and I like what you do." A Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day photo album can be viewed as well. BITS BYTES THE AGE OF THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MESSAGE What attributes of a message attract your focus when you read a blog, news article or social media post? Do you find that if an article is interesting but somewhat verbose, you skim through it quickly for the most pertinent information? With so much information available today, our world is becoming dominated by micromessages. Think headlines, email subject lines, text messages, bullet points, tweets and Facebook status updates, and many other messages that compete for our attention. We are quite literally living in a world where the scarcest resource has become human attention. In his book Microstyle The Art of Writing Little, Dr. Christopher Johnson, a branding consultant, blogger and linguist, explains that our lives today are dominated by micromessages. New technologies like social media enable a new dynamic of communication. The web has removed economic, editorial and temporal barriers, and the distinction between broadcast and simple one-on-one communications is breaking down. Twitter, Facebook and many other social media sites can speak the news directly to you. These changes in communications are experienced not only in what we read, but also influence the way we write. To communicate effectively today, we must be brief, precise, and captivating, so that our message doesn't get lost in all the noise that surrounds us. Proponents of Twitter know that it is bound by a 140-character limit, which incidentally, is the same limit of a SMS (Short Message Service) text message. This has made Twitter immensely popular because it only allows "straight to the point" information.

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Microstyle The Art of Writing Little covers: How to create a message that is culturally engaging and represents the new mode of verbal communications. How to develop the skills to tap into your own verbal ingenuity. How to communicate your wealth of ideas in brief and efficient ways. When writing, whether it's a report, letter, memo or email, think micromessage as a way to get your ideas across effectively and efficiently. In a world of information overload, your readers will appreciate it. Deputy Employment and Training Administrator Gary Denis Retires Friends and colleagues gathered Monday, April 29, to wish a happy retirement to Gary Denis, who capped 25 years of state service as Deputy Administrator of the DWD Division of Employment and Training. In all, he spent 38 years in workforce development at state and local levels. Denis began his career with the state in December 1988 when he was hired to manage the Local Programs Section of what was then the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations. He advanced and served in a number of other positions, including Director of Workforce Training from 2007 until 2010 when he became DET Deputy Administrator. Prior to state service, Denis served as the Private Industry Council Director for Marathon County. He also held a number of positions with the St. Claire County Intergovernmental Grants Department in Illinois. He started out in 1975 as a Comprehensive Employment and Training Act Title 2 participant. "I was hired for a six month public service position, and it turned into a career," Denis said. About his career with the state, he said, "I feel strongly that the work our agency does is important work. Knowing that our services can make real differences in people's lives has helped me make decisions and helped me do the right thing." Among those wishing him well was JoAnna Richard, Deputy Administrator in the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. Said Richard, "Gary epitomizes what a public servant is, someone who cares deeply for services provided for individuals needing to secure a better life through employment. His quiet dedication and expertise has allowed Wisconsin to continue to meet the needs of business and job seekers, improving our state and our economy." DWD Update to Microsoft Office 2010 Prompts Shift to 'Leaner' Agency Letterhead DWD is in the process of deploying Microsoft Office 2010 and, along with it, an updated letterhead system that is easy to access and also compatible with the new software. Once Office 2010 is installed on your computer, new letterhead templates will be accessible and maintained through our agency's SharePoint site. If you develop and send letters as part

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of your work duties, you can visit the DWD SharePoint Portal for step-by-step instructions to access the new letterhead by division: http://cs-enterprise/letterhead/documents/LetterheadSync.doc. Following the initial setup, you can save the template on your Desktop or to your H: drive. You will note that the letterhead has fewer elements to provide a cleaner look. In addition, use of the SharePoint site to make the letterhead system widely available will save time and maintenance costs for our BITS team. This is in keeping with the DWD Strategic Plan goal to deliver services more efficiently and support increased transparency and accountability. Please note that existing letterhead being used under Microsoft Office 2003 will no longer be available when the migration to Microsoft Office 2010 is complete in the coming months. The transition has already begun in the Division of Unemployment Insurance. As with the existing letterhead and all correspondence, please consult the guidelines on written correspondence in the recently updated DWD Writing Style Manual. Again, the new DWD Letterhead will become available with Office 2010. For your convenience, there is a DWD Letterhead icon installed on all Office 2010 desktops. If you have questions about the letterhead system or Office 2010 in general, contact the Service Desk: (608) 266-7252. Payroll Notice Regarding Vacation & Compensatory Time Carryover Under certain circumstances, employees were able to carryover unused annual leave from calendar year 2012 into calendar year 2013. This carryover vacation must be used by June 30, 2013. If an employee is unable to use the carryover vacation by June 30, 2013, due to unusual or unforeseen circumstances, an extension until December 31, 2013, may be granted. This extension requires prior approval by the employee's supervisor, Division Administrator or designee, and the Secretary's Office. If you have unused vacation carryover from 2012 and want to request an extension, it is your responsibility to submit an extension request to your supervisor no later than June 3, 2013. The request must include the reasons why the carryover leave could not be used and a plan for using the time. Supervisors will review each request and forward a recommendation for approval or denial to their Division Administrator by June 7, 2013. Division Administrators will discuss requests for extensions with ASD Administrator Kathleen Reed, who will review them on behalf of the Secretary's Office. Approved carryover requests will be given to Pearl Searvogel, Payroll and Benefits Chief, no later then June 21, 2013. If you have compensatory time carryover from calendar year 2012, you must use it by May 31, 2013. An extension of unused compensatory time is not permitted. Cash payment will be made as soon as administratively possible for any carried over compensatory time that is not used by the May 31st deadline. Questions regarding the carryover provisions should be directed to , 608-266-7325.

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LIRC Has a New Commissioner and Chairperson The Labor and Industry Review Commission has a new member, Bill Jordahl. Having been appointed by Governor Walker and confirmed by the Senate, Bill began serving as a commissioner on April 18, 2013. Bill has a variety of experience with state government. He served as Governor Tommy Thompson's Policy Director and legislative liaison to the Senate during the Governor's first term in office. He was a special assistant to two secretaries of the Department of Transportation, Ron Fiedler and Chuck Thompson. During this time (1990-1995) he also attended law school at the University of Wisconsin, receiving a J.D. in 1995. He then went to work for Wisconsin Power and Light, which became Alliant Energy two years later when it merged with several Iowa-based utilities. At WP&L-Alliant he at varying times was manager of Federal Government Affairs, led special team projects developing regulatory filings for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission dockets, and for the last 12 years was Alliant Energy's Manager of Government Affairs in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In this role he represented Alliant Energy's interests before the state legislatures and executive agencies of the two states. Bill fills the seat of former Commissioner Ann Crump, whose term recently expired. In addition to having a new member join it, the commission voted to make Laurie R. McCallum the Chairperson of the commission. Patty Mesdjian inducted into the Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame Patty Mesdjian was inducted into the Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 20th. Patty was the UW Soccer captain in 1988, when the Badgers advanced to the NCAA semifinals. On the club side, she played for the Madison 56ers until 1991, and then was with Madison United from 1993 to 2008. Patty coached with the 56ers and Magic SC and was the girls coach at Madison West High School from 1988 to '94, winning WIAA state titles in 1988 and '91 and finishing second in 1992. She was named the WSCA Coach of the Year in 1991.

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month A celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Asia-Pacific encompasses all of the Asian continent and the Pacific Islands. Like most commemorative months, Asian-Pacific Heritage Month originated in a congressional bill. In 1992, the official designation of May as Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month was signed into law. On Tuesday May 21st the DWD will celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage month with a sampling of food from across Asian cultures and a lunchtime presentation by Madison Attorney Yer Vang on Hmong history and culture. Follow the link below to learn more about Asian Pacific Heritage month. http://asianpacificheritage.gov/index.html

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Bryan Palmer - Employment & Training Specialist, Milwaukee Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I found the information you provided very helpful. Take care. Submitted by Laneice McGee - Employment & Training Specialist Lead, Milwaukee Heather Nilsen, Laneice McGee, and Frank Tamel - Employment and Training Specialists, Milwaukee Please accept and convey my thanks to Laneice (McGee) for hosting such a great meeting yesterday. The two of you and Frank (Tamel) gave me very useful information and a much needed and appreciated "shot in the arm" to bolster my flagging spirits as I continue my job search. I look forward to seeing you all again. Submitted by Amy Hansmann - Employment and Training Specialist Lead, Milwaukee Anna Lane - UI Adjudicator, Madison A claimant called to say how wonderful Anna Lane was in helping her with her unemployment claim. She said Anna's kindness and patience was much appreciated and that she was very helpful with her in going over issues on her claim. She said it's rare to have such a kind and patient person to listen and help on the phone. Submitted by Christine Swoboda - Adjudication Supervisor, Madison

Editor's Notes
Thank you for taking the time to read the Bulletin. It is our hope that the information found here will be of value to our readers. Most Bulletin stories come from employees, which is how we like it. Please feel free to make a submission in the future. Send a retirement announcement, a thank you note, story and/or photo of something you'd like to share with other employees. Check out the Bulletin story submission guidelines and then be sure to submit a story idea for the Bulletin.

Last Revised: May 03, 2013

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