Fall Town Halls spur great discussions

By Jordan Achs

WYDOT Director Luke Reiner hosted a series of seven Town Hall meetings with the force throughout the month of October.

Town Halls are a way for leadership to communicate with employees, not only about important reminders, updates and changes but also to listen to concerns, ideas and other feedback.

“I appreciated all of the great discussions we had at each meeting,” Reiner said in a November staff call email to all employees. “Thank you to everyone for participating; I think they are crucial for transparency and communication.” Frequently discussed topics at the meetings included: • Employee retention strategies • Employee recruitment • Other Human Resources updates and reminders • WYDOT success stories • Legislative updates • Training opportunities

Meetings also featured updates from the Wyoming Transportation Department Employee Association about membership benefits.

Town Halls were hosted in person with a virtual option for those who could not travel to the meetings. Rough attendance numbers counted more than 700 total attendees in person and more than 300 on the online meetings.

“Thank you to the District Engineers and other program leaders for prioritizing attendance despite busy schedules this time of year,” Reiner said in an October staff call email to all employees.

A recap video, a copy of the PowerPoint slide deck and other Town Hall information can be found on the WYDOT employee website. n

WYDOT Director Luke Reiner talks to a crowd from District 4 during the Town Hall in Gillette.

Employee Safety

Bump caps

By Jordan Striff, Employee Safety

Three significant injuries requiring advanced medical care or that resulted in lost days have taken place throughout WYDOT in the past year alone. These injuries were caused by employees striking objects that were above their heads in a controlled environment. These employees were working under vehicles and struck their heads on stationary objects when standing up or believing they were clear of the hazard. Two employees required stitches/staples to suture their wounds. All three of these injuries were OSHA recordables and lost time injury incidents.

Due to these injuries, WYDOT Procurement now offers bump caps that can be placed under almost any style of ball cap. These bump caps are lightweight (2.6oz), breathable, and low-cost. The Procurement order number is ES0067.

Employee Safety encourages all employees that are exposed to hazards that can cause potential head injuries to discuss the use of bump caps in their daily safety briefings and to include them as a hazard mitigation tool in their JSAs.

Bump caps do not protect against falling objects and they are not intended to replace hardhats in any way. Hard hats must still be worn according to SEMM Policy 19-07 and OSHA 1926.100(a). Bump caps should be considered in controlled environments such as mechanics shops, POEs, and low-risk environments in the field. n

WY Lead launches leadership to the next level

By Christi Weinzierl, Training Services

Existing WYDOT supervisors and others with leadership experience have a unique opportunity to enhance and build upon their previous leadership knowledge and experiences in 2023. WYDOT’s internal leadership academy, WY Lead, was developed with input from senior leadership, a leadership development program planning team, and a curriculum review team.

It addresses three agency needs: • A fully-staffed and highly-skilled workforce, • Strong external relationships and agency credibility, and • The maintenance of adequate revenue.

It also focuses on six organizational and leadership topics: • Organizational awareness, • Leadership mindset, • Performance and accountability, • Empower and delegate, • Innovate and initiate, and • Agency advocacy.

WY Lead participants can look forward to taking a close look at transportation issues and their impact to gain a wider perspective of WYDOT.

Workplace positivity will be promoted through: • Leadership mindsets, • Mindfulness, • Emotional intelligence, and • Positive responses to leadership challenges.

Future leaders will learn to meet the demands from above while providing resources and meeting the needs of those who manage employees below by: • Learning the differences between leadership and management practices,

• Describing how frontline supervisors and 2nd line managers handle employee performance and accountability issues differently, and • Exploring the elements of effective leadership coaching and mentoring. Strength assessment along with exploring the levels of delegation and succession planning will empower future leaders to entrust the right tasks to the right people. Members of the cohort will develop their personal initiative and learn innovation strategies and will collaborate to complete a project addressing agency strategy. A deep study of WYDOT’s guiding principles and Wyoming’s Code of the West will enhance effective engagement with the public, as well as other agency members. Experiential learning opportunities, self-directed learning via Google Classroom, and a mentorship experience with an executive staff member throughout the WY Lead program culminate in the participant’s completion of a Leadership Development Plan. WY Lead participants will attend three in-person meetings at various locations and points in the program, as well as six virtual meetings over the course of six months. Homework assignments, including project work and meetings with champions/mentors will play an integral part in achieving WY Lead’s learning goals. The monthly time commitment is about twelve hours for WY Lead participants. Do you desire to take your leadership knowledge and experience to the next level as part of our March-September 2023 WY Training@ Lead Cohort? Complete and submit your WY Lead application, including a recommendation, by Jan. 13, 2023. A syllabus, schedule and application are available on the Training Services page under the WYDOT Leadership Academy tab. Applicants will be Check out these upcoming training opportunities from WYDOT-U, the Transportation Learning Network (TLN) and the WELL.aGlance notified of their status by the WY Lead Selection Committee by March 1, 2023. Get ready to lead! n

Training@aGlance

Check out these upcoming training opportunities from WYDOT-U, the Transportation Learning Network (TLN) and the WELL.

In December: Start Date Development Stage Class Description Class Hours Location

12/7/2022 Leading Others TLN – Improving Project Communication: Within and Outside of the Project Team

12/13/2022 Leading Others 12/15/2022 Technical 12/19/2022 New Employee TLN – Leading Strong Teams TLN – Longitudinal Joints Google and WELL Training

Coming in January: Date Development Stage Class Description Class Hours Location

1/17/2023 New Employee Google and WELL Training

1/24/2023 Leading Self 1/26/2022 Leading Others Myers Briggs (MBTI) and Teams TLN – Leading Across Generations 9:00 am-10:30 am VILT

12:00 pm-3:00 pm VILT 8:30 am-10:00 am VILT 8:30 am-11:30 am Various

8:30 am-11:30 am Various 8:30 am-4:30 pm Cheyenne 1:00 pm-3:00 pm VILT Visit the Training Services intranet page f m e inf mation.