Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Sara, for your testimony. Is there anybody else who would like to present to the committee? I didn't have a chance to sign up or I don't think anyone will close public comment and turn to item six, which is proposed March 2018 017 for a motion requesting a plan to implement an Infant at work pilot program for eligible King County employees and their infants. I'm pleased to sponsor this motion and glad to have Councilmember Caldwell's on board a leader on these issues. We've got a very good panel today, and I think Sam is going to do an initial introduction of the legislation because that her staff report. And then we'll turn to our panelists and will you introduce those? Sam, where would you like me to?
Speaker 4: Yes, I can. Super.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 3: Sam Porter, Council Central Staff. The legislation before you begins on page 25 of your packet proposed motion 2018 174.
Speaker 1: Would request the Executive to develop a plan to implement an infant's at.
Speaker 3: Work pilot program for eligible King County employees and their.
Speaker 1: Infants.
Speaker 3: This program would allow employees to temporarily bring their new infants to work in approved workplace environments based on the long term health benefits of breastfeeding newborns and allowing employees to return to work sooner than they may otherwise be able to. The Washington State Department of Health.
Speaker 1: Implemented an infant at.
Speaker 3: Work program in July of 2015.
Speaker 1: As of February of this year, the Department of Health has had 59 infants.
Speaker 3: Successfully participate in the program. Ten additional Washington state agencies either have policies in place or are piloting similar programs. This trend is reflected in public and private organizations across the country. Proposed Motion 2018 174. Specifically requests that the plan from the executive include a description of program eligibility requirements, a description of any workplace environment considerations.
Speaker 1: Such as safety guidelines, facility requirements, and recommended operational practices to ensure the adequate adequate care of the infant.
Speaker 3: Adequate hygiene in the workplace, and.
Speaker 1: Continued employee.
Speaker 3: Productivity along with policies and procedures.
Speaker 1: For events when an infant is disruptive to.
Speaker 3: The work environment for a prolonged period of time. And a timeline for implementing the pilot pilot program, including the duration.
Speaker 1: And beginning and end dates of the program and the scope of employee.
Speaker 3: Groups to participate. The motion requests.
Speaker 1: That the executive transmit the plan to council by August 15th of this year.
Speaker 3: Along with any legislation necessarily necessary to implement the pilot. The proposed motion requests that the program be developed in.
Speaker 1: Consultation with the King County Women's Advisory Board and using resources published by the Parenting in the Workplace Institute.
Speaker 3: That concludes.
Speaker 1: My remarks.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to answer any questions. Denise Pruitt, senior.
Speaker 1: Policy advisor from HRT, is available and the panelists. Mikayla Dorman of the Washington State.
Speaker 3: Department of Executive Services and Robin Vasquez of the Office of Financial Management.
Speaker 1: Are also available.
Speaker 0: Terrific. Thank you very much. And why don't we invite McKayla and Robin to come forward and make their presentation about how this has worked in their workplaces? Thank you both for joining us.
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
Speaker 3: My name is Mikayla Dolman. I am an assistant director at the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services.
Speaker 4: I'm Robyn Vasquez, and I'm a labor negotiator with the Office of Financial Management.
Speaker 3: So you should have the presentation in front of you. If you can't see the notes below. We did include a lot of notes and for time sake will go quickly over the slides. But there are more details about the different agencies because we wanted to represent all of the state of Washington in this. So you can look through that at your interest.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, we only got the slides.
Speaker 3: Okay. So I would say the when you have them later. Okay. Yeah. So they electronic version you can look through and then we'll we'll send that to you. So the information workplace policy is essentially we're allowed to bring our infants to work from six weeks to six months. And within this slide, it will show how agencies have differences between their policies. We also sent a copy of the Department of Enterprise Services policy. So that kind of outlines what our policy covers. And then differences are things like whether or not you can do it full time or part time, how many caregivers you have to have , whether or not the caregiver can be someone who reports to you, things like that. So each agency chose to make it a little bit different. But overall the policy represents in general how the state has approached it.
Speaker 4: So right now it looks like there are 12 agencies who have an infant at work program and all of them have adopted it. Since Department of Health was the first back in July of 2015, Michaela sent out a survey to state agencies and 17 responded, indicating that they don't have an infant at work program right now for various reasons. Either they haven't had time to pursue it because they've been focusing on other things. They don't think it aligns with their business needs or, you know, they have plans to pursue it, but they haven't gone that direction yet. New parents are allowed to telework, and of course, one agency can respond.
Speaker 0: I think that's a pretty good response rate.
Speaker 4: It's I would say that the conversation is shifting now that there are 12 agencies who have a program. So I think this is much more of a focus than it has been in the past. Even if agencies don't have one at present, I think employees are asking about it and executives are talking about whether or not what they have and what their position is on infants at work.
Speaker 3: So there were three main reasons why most agencies chose to implement the program. One is just the compelling parent benefits within the state at the current time, at least back in 2015 and 16, we didn't offer paid parental leave. You had a family medical leave that you could have your time, and that's protected, but it wasn't paid. You could use your own sick leave. Are you on vacation leave? But a lot of times, like for my first two kids, the program didn't exist. And so I would use up all my leave and then I'd come back. And then the day they got sick, they, I didn't have any sick leave to take care of them. So it was kind of a hardship on the parents. So we were trying to figure out what can we do to be more of an employer of choice. We know we can't compete with salary in the state. So what can we do to help people realize that we want to support them and to be able to hire a younger workforce that is of childbearing age? Because the other statistics show that we are kind of heavy on the post childbirth age group within the state workforce. The other is just infant health and well-being. There are a lot of research and statistics that the Department of Health really brought forward that demonstrates that that continued baby bonding, at least for the first six months, demonstrates that there's a better emotional connection for the parent. It shows that it's an easier transition for the parent coming back to work, and it shows that there's a connection to infant health when they're able to bond with their parent and continue breastfeeding for the first six months in life. There's also a shorter transition time that they were was a hypothesis that would happen. And I can say that I chose to participate in the program for my third child and I took four months off for my first two kids and then came back cold turkey full time. And then this third time around, I came back after two months because I had the opportunity to and if anything with the other two kids at home, it gave me more time to bond with my kid without two kids clinging to me.
Speaker 4: So and McKayla just Mikayla excuse me. Started to cover some of this, but there are benefits for the employer as well. Employees can choose to return to work sooner. I'm also a previous participant in the program and I returned to work sooner when this program was in place than I did with my first child. My second child it was in place and I came back after two months and I would not have if I hadn't had that opportunity. If it provides a recruitment advantage, it's a place where, like you said, you know, we can't always compete on salary, but we can offer other less financial benefits, but that are very enticing to our younger workforce. It allows us to avoid increased retention costs, or while it increases retention or avoids turnover costs, we don't have to hire someone new because a parent decides not to return to the workforce because they want to stay home longer and they don't have a chance to if they come back, it increases employee loyalty. I mean, some of this evidence is probably anecdotal, but I'm very grateful to my agency for creating and offering this program. And I think a lot of the people I've talked to who participated feel the same way. Supports the governor's goal five concept of being an employer of choice, just supporting families in the workplace. It's a morale booster. When I ceased participating, like when my son was close to aging out, I think my whole office was a little sad. Like my work unit was sad to find out that Malcolm wasn't going to be coming to work anymore. I come into my office, say, Where is he? They didn't want to talk to me. They wanted to see if the baby was around and I had put him at home. And then, of course, lower health care costs and less sick leave used for both the parent and the child.
Speaker 3: They were kind of when we surveyed the different agencies that do have a program, there were four general themes with little logistical challenge or challenges that we faced. The first one being logistics. One of the biggest things, and it was surprising, but the biggest concern that people had was about where do we put the poopie diapers? What are we going to do with the poopy diapers? And each agency has chose to address it differently. So what we chose to say is that, you know, we have bags that how you know that the dog bags that have a little bit of a scent to it, put the diaper in there, tie it up. It usually doesn't smell. So we're allowed to throw it in the workplace. Other parents choose to put it in their car. So there are different ways to handle it. The other big one was around if some agencies were very accommodating, it sounds like based off their presentation, we want to. The goal is to bring breastfeeding more public in the workplace. Not all agencies were as comfortable with that. And so the other logistical challenge is how do we breastfeed? We don't have enough pumping rooms available for all of the parents that may want to participate in reality, whether they bring their infant to work or not, that's still going to be an issue. What we chose to do was just take conference rooms and put lines on them and just have a sign up there that says Breastfeeding or pumping mother at work. But those were the two big logistical challenges, the cultural challenge that we faced where there were a lot of people who were concerned about will an infant be disruptive both to the parent and their colleagues? What we found is that with regards to the parent, most of the parents were more concerned than the rest of the staff on their infant being disruptive. So as soon as the infant made a noise, they would rush out and pull the baby away. Whereas the rest of the employees were saying, It's not that big a deal. We don't mind the noise. We don't mind the queen. If anything they were saying, it makes us happier to hear that cooing. What we did find and the Department of Health noticed this as well, is that there was some disruption with coworkers. Can you not hear me? Sorry. Okay. There was some disruption with coworkers wanting to come and take care of the baby. Hold the baby. And so it was the coworkers who were saying and the poor parent was saying, just let me. I need to get my work done. And so we had to create clear rules in our policy that you're not allowed to hold the baby unless you are a designated caregiver and the parent has to run off to a meeting where the infant isn't there. So that was kind of the biggest signal that we had to send is don't bother the parent when you're the coworker. The perception there was some concern, especially with the agencies that were bringing their children to work with public facing jobs. Is is our taxpayer is going to be concerned about is this an issue? I know when Department of Health first went live with this and the News did a segment on it, there were some concerns about it, in my opinion. I haven't heard anything that was insurmountable to where we were saying, no, it's it's so big of a concern because we were showing how the parents were actually working and effective on the job. The final point is around equity, and this is something that we're still working through right now, but the equity of for the most part , it's office jobs that are the easiest to have an infant in the workplace. And so in D.C., we have a lot of more blue collar to laborious jobs for like our we have a buildings and grounds crew and we have a custodial staff. What we've found is, and we'll cover this a little bit later, is that if a parent comes to us, we want to approach it with how can we make this work for you? So we're still trying to figure out how can we participate or how can we ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate in some way ? There are some agencies like the Department of Corrections who have chosen not to have a program, because what they found is that it's really only their headquarters staff who would be able to participate. And they didn't want to have a program when only one part of.
Speaker 1: The.
Speaker 3: Of an 8000 person agency could could participate. So just real quick of our experiences so far, and this is my child, so I just have to brag right there because that's him on my computer. Of the 11 agencies that currently have an infant's in the work place.
Speaker 0: Protocol working out of class.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm actually broke the screen to it, turned it and we couldn't figure out how to get it back. So I wouldn't recommend letting them touch the computer. But of the 11 agencies that have a current program right now, all of them indicated that they want to continue the program and they've found benefits from them. So there wasn't any agency that said, no, we're not going to pursue it. The 12th agency is only a 20 person agency and they just don't have anyone who is of the age to have children or and bring them into the workplace. So that's the only reason why they're no longer participating as of now. What was interesting is that, you know, the parents we talked about the parental benefits, but the coworkers, Robin mentioned it as well. The coworkers really noticed a benefit of there was bonding. People felt like they could have conversations with their coworkers that they wouldn't normally have and that strengthened relationships that even after the infant was no longer there, that they could say, we work better together because I got to know this person on a human level. So it's just an interesting additional benefit that we weren't expecting when we had the program.
Speaker 4: I think that people who have been skeptical of this program have been won over by it when it's been implemented in state agencies. So there are things that each of the agencies that has piloted or created a program has taken away. And one of those things is that communication is key. You want constant engagement between the supervisor and the employee. The supervisor should feel comfortable expressing concerns. If there are concerns or if it's not working. The employee, likewise, should feel comfortable expressing concerns. I know that there have been some employees who have opted out of the program earlier than the six months because they felt like they needed to in order to be able to get more work done. So communication is the thing that makes this whole program work. It's you can make it work if there's a will. And Kyla talked about some of the hurdles that have been faced, whether you're public facing or whether you have a job where there's travel or kind of a more hands on job, where it makes it more difficult. But there are adjustments that can be made to many jobs to make this program work or to allow someone to participate. It is probably the most stressful for the parent. I think I was more anxious when I was participating than any of my coworkers were, and most of my coworkers honestly had had kids, you know, and even if they were past the age where their kids were no longer small, if my baby first a little bit, nobody in the room was shocked by that. Right, because they all had dealt with having children. And so I was the one that was like, oh, I need to get up and go out of the room. But if you have, you know, parents are interested in making this work because they want to participate. So there's that incentive. Some parents don't want to participate. I've heard concerns from employees who said, I don't I don't want to feel like I'm obligated to participate in this just because we have it and just because I'm expecting a child, one person I know didn't want to participate because she wanted to take a longer leave time, like she wanted to be off for six months with her child. And she said, I don't intend to come back to work even though we have this program. And so it's not for everybody. It's, you know, it's all individual. It needs to be tailored. And that's kind of our last bullet point, that things change. It needs to be checked in on Revisited and it should be flexible. The employer would need to be flexible. The employee is expected to be flexible when participating.
Speaker 1: So that concludes the presentation.
Speaker 0: Excellent. Very, very helpful to open it up to members questions or comments. Councilmember Lambert has a question.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I have two questions and then a comment. So could you tell me, you know, we've really tried to make our pods a certain amount of square footage, so it's pretty tight. So how is that going to fit into the pods that we have? Just logistically, it's my first question. And the second one is when is the state pilot going to have their data so that we could look at that? When will that pilot have their data, their evaluation? The state?
Speaker 3: So there is no statewide pilot that we're doing. Each agency has approached this on their own. Some agencies have chosen to do a pilot. Other agencies have just launched into it. So DHS is one of the agencies that launched into it. Department of Health has been doing it the longest a year longer than any other agency. They had that first year pilot, so they probably have the best data that you could connect with to get from because they have, I think. What did they say? Over 30 participants so far.
Speaker 4: But 59 infants.
Speaker 3: 59. Yeah. So. But which what type of data are you looking for? I guess would be just.
Speaker 1: What were the lessons learned? You know, and he gave us some high level ideas. But there would be others, too, that, you know, the noise factor in the building, waking the baby up, you know, all kinds of different factors, including the fact that, you know, depending on which building you work in, there's a lot of germs and lots of people that the baby may not be, you know, accustomed to yet. And so that that's a concern for the baby. And then you mentioned several times that our salaries are not commiserate with the outside sector. And I believe probably before the recession that was true. So after the recession, I'm not sure that that is actually true anymore. So I would like to know, Kathleen, just on that as a separate issue. Sure. Thank you.
Speaker 4: To your first question, you know, you're asking about how it would fit into a smaller space. One of the components of most of the programs is a risk assessment and an assessment of the workstation. Where are you going to put the area where the baby will be laying or sleeping? Will the equipment fit? You know, are are the bookshelves secured so that in the event of an earthquake, they won't fall? I went through a security inspection, like, are the cords secured or put up away from the walkway? So that's again, that's part of the tailoring process. You look at the workspace for each individual employee who wants to participate to make sure that the workspace will work. And in some cases, people have been reassigned temporarily to other workspaces. For instance, if they're in a cube and you have a free office, you could assign them to the office. But people have made it work in cubicles as well.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Other questions, comments. Councilmember Cole WELLS Thank you.
Speaker 1: Mr. Chair. I'm very pleased to be sponsoring this legislation along with the Chair, and I'd like to bring out a couple of points. One is that. I. I will never forget the experience of visiting Google and seeing their dog friendly workplace. And there were dogs everywhere and it didn't there was not a limit to six months of age puppy. It could be any age. And they had toys, their dogs, dog paraphernalia all over the workplace. And I think it's certainly worthwhile for us to explore as a pilot project, not just a carte blanche, but a pilot project. I would like to see some evaluation included in here, so I don't see it when I'm just scanning through it and as I did before. But I think it's a pilot project. We should request a require that the executive that and evaluation component for that pilot project. And the other thing that really strikes me is and it was touched on here but I don't know that it was touched on sufficiently is the savings and the impact. Mr. Chair, is that all right? It's so everyone involved as the chair of the Women's Advisory Board come up.
Speaker 0: There and.
Speaker 1: Speak in public testimony. But I don't know that everybody was here. Yeah, but she not only Sarah Commander, she not only chairs the Women's Advisory Board. And their top priority, as I understand it, over the last year has been on child care. Yes. But she also has very personal experience. And Sarah, you just touched on it toward the end of your testimony, but I'd really appreciate if you could tell firsthand what it's like. And your husband is the prosecuting attorney. You're an attorney with the attorney general's office. That's correct, Tony. That's correct. That's correct. So they the two of you, I'm assuming, make pretty good salaries in between the two of you at the courts. Is this standard even more in many cases than college tuition? Would you please just kind of reiterate or maybe flesh out a bit what you've mentioned during your testimony?
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And as I mentioned during my testimony, I'm chair of the King County Women's Advisory Board. And we've been focusing on this critical topic of affordable and flexible childcare for the last 16 months. One of the reasons why we're wholeheartedly in support of it is that work program is that all of the experts that we've listened to and the research and data that we've reviewed showed that the costs of infant care in King County is staggeringly high and that there is a critical shortage of particularly infant care in King County. And I can personally say, you know, I work as an assistant attorney general in the attorney general's office and my husband's a prosecutor. We really can't afford full time care for two kids in King County. It's a real stretch for us.
Speaker 4: Because of our.
Speaker 3: Student loans and also our mortgage payments. And so we have my mother in law and also my mother watch our kids one day a week. And so we pay for three days of care at the Seattle Infant Development Center. And full time infant care at that center is 20 $300 per month. You can double that. And so I think it's it's very significant to know that.
Speaker 4: That's that's a huge impact for.
Speaker 3: A lot of people. And a lot of women, when thinking about returning to the work force, are having to make really tough decisions about maybe whether they can get into, you know, care center for infant care because the waiting lists are so long. I'm constantly looks are constantly reaching out to me, asking, where does your infant.
Speaker 1: Go to day.
Speaker 3: Care? How can I get on a waiting list? I haven't gotten called back. It's such a source of stress for mothers. And then there are oftentimes requests forced to return to the workforce with substandard care or forced to stay home because they simply can't get into infant care. So these kinds of decisions, particularly for women, but also for men, are really agonizing decisions. And a program like this would be so critical in terms of addressing the high cost of care, but and also ensuring, as you were both mentioning, that infants have that opportunity to bond with the parents and that women such as myself can continue breastfeeding in the workplace, which has shown to have huge developmental benefits long term. So that's a little bit about, you know, my story and why I think this program is so critical.
Speaker 0: Thank us, former Co Wells and Sarah, I, I want to emphasize the point that she, I think was touching on there a little bit, but on Monday we recognized Equal Pay Day. Right. And the fact that I think women are about $0.78, maybe that might be a little high on the dollar for men. And I think when you look at the studies, one of the things that they show is. Firms have a key driver for that disparity is the child bearing issue and the fact that that takes working women oftentimes out of the workforce. To me, one of the benefits of this program is I think it helps. And I think the state data shows, or at least, you know, the hundred 50%, but it keeps folks women in the workforce. And we're talking about women here. But this pilot project wouldn't be limited to just women. We want to see some dads do it. One of the things that I'm I think most interested in the data from our 12 weeks of paid leave program is that our male employees at the county are taking it at the same rate as our female employees. That's right, Councilmember Gossett. Right. And the same relationship to our overall employment stats. Now, I don't know if we would see that with the babies to work in part because of maybe the breastfeeding issue is a little bit different there. But this doesn't discriminate based on gender and perhaps we can get the guys working a little harder too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 0: The waiting list is an interesting point. I remember when we were looking years ago, but it can be six months or sometimes close to a year on a wait list for childcare.
Speaker 4: You're thinking about getting pregnant. Get on the list now.
Speaker 0: Right. Right. And so a program like this would help with some flexibility. The legislation itself comes from a go well, as it calls it takes an hour and make a pun here, a baby step in terms of suggesting that the executive look at the issue and develop a pilot program in developing the pilot program. The thinking behind the legislation was that the executive can consider all of the issues here that have been presented in terms of which departments, how to implement what the policies would be and the guidelines and the scale and size of at least a starter program. And as well, with respect to our representative workforce, obviously there could be some negotiations that might be required there. So I want to understand the Women's Advisory Board, which is the entity charged with advising the executive and council and has been working on these issues, is supportive of the legislation?
Speaker 3: Yes, we are very supportive of the legislation.
Speaker 0: And I know you're coming forward with some comprehensive recommendations on child care.
Speaker 3: So we are coming forward with comprehensive recommendations, but we believe that's a step in the right direction and we will likely be recommending additional child care as well, obviously, because it's important for women to have options and we need to have flexibility around these issues. But we are supportive and it will likely be one of our recommendations to pilot an Infant at work program.
Speaker 0: Great. All right. Jasmine, Raquel Wells, would you like to put it before us if we're ready?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I propose motion number 2018 174.
Speaker 0: All right, that's about for us, I think I would say I do want to speak any further to it. All right. Anybody else? I do agree that we should have to the extent the executive does propose a pilot in response to the motion, some assessment built into it, and perhaps we could drop that at the council on any other amendments if they are necessary. Any further discussion on this item? Asked the clerk to call the room.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bell. Do I? Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Gossett. All right. Councilmember Caldwell. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott. Councilmember of the Grove. Councilmember one right there. Mr. Chair. Hi, Mr. Chair. On the bonus, eight eyes, no no's, one excuse.
Speaker 0: All right, well, put that on the regular calendar in the ordinary course. So we have some time. And I want to thank the panelists for coming. Thank my staffer Liz Elliott and Sam and our central staff for putting together a good package of information. And there is for folks interested, some more information from the Parenting in the Workplace Institute, which I asked Liz to share with all members. And I'll just make one more comment. I think those of us who have young kids here on the dais, I've seen each of us in my short time here bring our kids to work for various reasons. You know, maybe childcare didn't work that day. Maybe he or she was sick. And I concur that it's brought some joy to the floor and smell, isn't it? And it's been a benefit to the kids, our colleagues and our coworkers. I think. So. We'll see if we can't make some work here. All right. Thank you all. All right. Now we are going to turn to the next item on the agenda, which is a substantial piece of work that the county has been engaged in with our partners in our workforce who are represented by labor unions for a
A MOTION requesting a plan to implement an infants at work pilot program for eligible King County employees and their infants.