Recruiting and retaining employees is a top priority for Washington state agencies. Hiring and retaining talented employees is essential for an agency’s well-being and for maintaining productivity, engagement, and public trust.

The State of Washington has adopted skills-based hiring to recruit and retain the most qualified employees to provide vital services to residents. This approach focuses on the full range of skills and experiences that job seekers bring, rather than placing an unnecessary emphasis on educational credentials where not legally required.

On this page you can find recommendations for all agencies regarding continuity of work during operational interruptions while ensuring accessibility and resiliency for all employees. It supports the work of state agencies to be resilient in the face of disasters and disruptions, including those that may impact the technology we use at work – both in office and remotely.

Ergonomic assessments are a very important part of the health and safety of our employees, regardless of if the telework situation is temporary or long term. On this page, you'll find the step by step process of performing a remote ergonomic evaluation.  We've also provided resources for both employees and supervisors to ensure employees are working safely and ergonomically in their remote environment. These resources include a remote ergonomic self-assessment, a remote ergonomic checklist, and a list of recommended equipment and tools an agency may want to issue to teleworking employees.

Since 2020, we have learned a great deal about our workforce and teleworking. What was previously thought to be impossible or at least impractical is now accomplished with regularity. Teleworking in some capacity has become a normal part of how we work as a state workforce. This transformation in how we work has also brought many questions: how do we ensure workers are working safely? How do we communicate effectively with one another? How can we maintain or even increase our productivity while teleworking?

We want to hear from you!

Please fill out the Workforce Data webpages survey to help us improve our content and user experience.

The Office of Financial Management - State Human Resources (OFM-SHR) administers the Statewide Engagement Survey and Statewide Exit Survey for a majority of the workforce. All survey responses from employees in these surveys are sent directly to OFM.

To protect the anonymity of the employee and create a safe environment for honest feedback, we have implemented multiple safeguards. Below is information on how the data is collected and specifics on the steps we have taken to protect engagement and exit survey data.

State employees can contact these local, state, or federal resources to help resolve personal or workplace issues. When possible, we encourage employees to resolve their unreported issue at the lowest possible level. To start, employees can contact their agency head, HR director, investigation team, or union council.

In June of 2020 we updated the Employee Affirmative Action and Demographic Data (EAADD) form. The form includes updated terms and definitions, improvements to the introductory language at the top, and data collection fields added during the previous update in January 2020. The Q&A below provide information about previous changes to the form and new information related to the June 2020 update.

BRGs are statewide, cross-agency employee-led networks dedicated to supporting and advocating for specific demographic groups. These groups model belonging, facilitate networking, and offer professional development opportunities while illuminating and addressing pertinent workplace issues affecting their members. 

The interactive report below may take a few seconds to load.