CalGovHR President's Response to COVID-19

A Letter from Our President

March 16, 2020​

On behalf of CalGovHR, I first want to express the Board’s sincerest gratitude to the many attendees and agencies that have attended last week’s Annual Conference & Expo in Sonoma Valley.  Despite the constantly evolving COVID-19 situation, many of our attendees worked remotely while engaging in professional development throughout the Conference (including a special legal updates by Boucher Law to discuss immediate action steps to address COVID-19 issues in the workplace), and collectively, we continued to provide invaluable services to our agencies and employees during such a difficult time.  We hope to return to Sonoma Valley stronger than ever at the 2021 Conference & Expo, which is scheduled to take place between March 10 – 12, 2021.As a completely volunteer-run, not-for-profit organization, CalGovHR pledges to support our public agency constituents by immediately implementing the following initiatives:

Leading HR Through COVID-19 Webinar Series

We will be launching a Leading HR Through COVID-19 Webinar Series, which will be conducted by attorneys and experts from Boucher Law, RTGR Law, and Shaw HR Consulting to discuss the rapidly evolving matters related to COVID-19 issues and how they impact the workplace.  Initially, we will be offering the first three topics in the series as follows:

• Addressing Union Meet-and-Confer Issues Due to COVID-19 Presented By: Christopher Boucher, Esq., Boucher Law

• Workers’ Compensation Issues for Employees Exposed to COVID-19 Presented By: Thomas A. Richard, Esq., RTGR Law

• Mental Health and Disability Compliance Issues Related to COVID-19 Presented By: Rachel Shaw, Shaw HR Consulting

As the situation continues to evolve, we will be scheduling additional webinar sessions as needed.  Each webinar session is intended to be 45 minutes to one hour in length, and will address the latest information as we learn about them.  If you have any topic suggestions for us to develop additional series, please email us at info@CalGovHR.org.  Although we regret not being able to respond to every email sent, we will review every suggestion and develop training sessions as needed to assist you in responding to COVID-19 issues at work.Due to the unique nature of this unprecedented pandemic, we will not be sending email announcements to announce the date and time of the webinars, as they may be scheduled with short notice.  Please follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter in order to stay up-to-date with new webinar session announcements.

In adhering to our three decades of legacy in providing leadership to California public sector and nonprofit HR, the Leading HR Through COVID-19 Webinar Series will be offered to all public agency and nonprofit organization attendees at no cost.  We will post a link to each webinar on LinkedIn and Twitter, and you can simply sign on at the designated times to participate in the live interactive sessions.  In addition, the webinar sessions will be recorded to the extent feasible, and we will provide playback links using the same social media platforms for those who cannot make the live webinars.

Lastly, CalGovHR is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with HireStory, a nationally renowned recruitment video production company to help organizations enhance their talent brand to better attract candidates, to explore the option of using live streaming technology to provide high quality, production grade live training sessions in the future.  This will provide alternative methods for our constituents to participate in our exceptional training opportunities, and further allow us to meet our mission of serving the needs of public sector and nonprofit HR professionals throughout the state of California.

During these difficult times, it is more important than ever to remember HR’s important role in serving our employees and the communities of which we live and work in.  While this is a global pandemic, your hard work and diligence at the local level will provide the much critically needed leadership and response to lead us through all of this together.  I am humbled to serve as your President, and to continue ongoing dialogues with the many HR heroes that are working hard to support their agencies.  Remember, you can’t spell “hero” without HR – thank you for all that you do!

UPDATE (3/21/20): Click here to access our new COVID-19 Response page, with links to review the recorded training sessions which are now available on demand at no cost.

Sincerely,

Gene Boucher, President