Edgemoor Holds Tasty D&I Event

Edgemoor held a delicious and diverse cook-off this week. Employees at the skilled nursing facility entered dishes from around the world into the first-ever “Taste of Edgemoor.”

Dishes were judged on taste, aroma, presentation and healthiness. Entries included Mexican stew, Japanese beef curry, Toscano sausage spinach soup, Filipino sinigang soup, Norwegian meatballs, kale vegetable soup, and Korean japchae—a dish of stir-fried glass noodles and vegetables.

Medical Records Manager Hernan Amezcua won the cooking competition with a family recipe—his dad’s birria with beef and pork ribs. While Amezcua has been enjoying the dish his entire life, he only recently got his hands on the recipe after asking for the secret details for some 30 years!

The winning dish will be served as the lunch special to both residents and employees on Cinco de Mayo.

D&I Champion Lani Ngo said the event brought together employees and was fun.

“We truly represented and celebrated diversity and inclusion with food,” she said.

How does your department celebrate diversity and inclusion? Tell us in the comment section below.

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PerkSpot: Cirque du Soleil Tickets

This deal will have you doing backflips! Get Cirque du Soleil tickets for up to 38% off.

To find your tickets, search for “Volta by Cirque du Soleil” on PerkSpot.

The big top will be at the Del Mar Fairgrounds for performances through May 5.

PerkSpot offers benefits and discounts through more than 400 service providers and retailers. Go to SDCounty.PerkSpot.com and shop. If you are new, click on “Create an Account” to register.

APACE Serves Up Lunch

Members of the Asian Pacific Alliance of County Employees (APACE) recently served meals to 260 seniors at the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center in downtown San Diego. The employee resource group members volunteered with Serving Seniors, a nonprofit which serves low-income and food-insecure seniors. They plated food, delivered trays, talked to the seniors and hosted a fun raffle for participants.

APACE holds volunteer events with community partners throughout the year. To learn more about APACE, visit them on InSite.

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This story came to us from an employee’s suggestion. Suggest a Story

InTouch - Who We Are

It’s important to know our customers. And since we need to serve our fellow employees every bit as well as we do the public, we also need to know our colleagues. You know many individually. But as a group, who are we, what do we look like?

Our County team is around 17,000 strong, and as you’d expect with that many people, we’re a varied bunch.

Sometimes it might seem like a lot of employees have been here a long time, and of course, many have. But the numbers show that’s not the whole story. Last year, 1,451 employees joined the County from the outside (welcome!). Everything is new to them – from their daily duties to understanding our culture.

Roughly another 2,000 existing employees were promoted (congratulations!). That’s almost 3,500 people in new positions. That’s a lot of learning, a lot of people who need help getting into their roles so they can be successful. 

In fact, nearly 6,000 of us have been here under five years! If you’ve been around for a while and are ever tempted to think something is common knowledge, remind yourself how new many of our colleagues are. Help them along. If you’re new, don’t be afraid to ask about things. We know there’s a lot to pick up. 

A handful are really in it for the long haul. Fourteen employees have been here 40 years or more, with our longest-serving worker at 47 years!

Our workers range from 20 to 83 years old, with an average age of 44. The average for the national workforce is about 42. So we’re a touch older, but not much.  

You can expect some of the next generation to come from those who are now student workers. We had 391 last year. Our District Attorney’s Office had the highest number of any department: 93.

We tilt pretty heavily female. Our workforce is 59 percent women, and it’s been that way for a while. County jobs don’t mirror those of society at large. We have a lot of positions in fields that tend to disproportionately draw women.

Our largest age group is 27-40 years old, approximately the range we know as millennials, aka Gen Y. They make up about 41 percent of our workforce. They’ve nosed ahead of the next group, those 41-56, roughly Gen Xers, who are just over 39 percent. Then Boomers, 57-73, still make up about 15 percent. The incoming Gen Z, people up to age 26, are already 5 percent. We still have a few Silent Generation members, 74 years old and up, on the job. We’ve talked pretty extensively about some of the differences, but it’s really exciting to get to work with people across five generations. We can learn so much from each other.

Racial/ethnic identities can get quite complex, but at a high level, here’s how we break down and how that compares to the San Diego region at the last census: 0.6 percent American Indian/Native American (compared to 0.5 percent in San Diego overall). Nearly 19 percent Asian or Pacific Islander (vs. 12 percent locally). Almost 8 percent black/African American (to 4.6 percent of San Diegans). 32.6 percent Hispanic/Latino (vs. 28.3 percent of residents). And just over 40 percent are white (vs. 54.5 percent regionally).  

Almost 2,000 of our County employees are sworn officers. That includes Sheriff’s personnel, Probation officers, District Attorney investigators.

In recent years we’ve worked harder to get veterans of the armed forces to join us, and they now make up 6.6 percent of our employees. We thank them for their service and for continuing to serve the public with us.

That’s a quick snapshot of our employees as a whole and some indication of the diversity within our County team. But only some indication. We’re diverse in all kinds of ways we don’t gather statistics for: where we’re from, the culture our families shared with us, our beliefs, our challenges, our passions, and the whole gamut of life experiences. We fall into many different categories that make each of us unique and interesting. And when we bring our individual talents and backgrounds together, it makes exciting teams!

Looking at these numbers is fun but also has a purpose. I share them to help us better understand our fellow employees, so we might serve each other, and in turn the public, better. Because regardless of all these other groups we may be a part of, it’s the qualities we bring to our jobs that really define us at the County. Respectful, attentive, compassionate, hardworking public servants – that's who we are. 

Your County Connection for April 2019

On this episode of County Connection, see how you can “cultivate” your own green thumb with some help from a Master Gardener, meet some friends that might “bug” you, and see how the County is making it “rain” for some lucky local non-profits.

Employees Encouraged to Donate Blood

500 pints.

That’s the goal for this year’s County Blood Drive, which takes place every April. (Heart will be filled every Monday in April)

The 35th annual County Blood Drive kicks off Wed., April 3. Donating blood is safe, costs nothing and could save a life.

Bloodmobiles will be at 22 County worksites across the county throughout April. You can make an appointment, or just walk in.

If you can donate blood, do it. If for any reason you can’t roll up your sleeve, try to get a family member or friend to take your place since the blood drive is also open to the public. All blood types are needed.

The drive is one of the largest for the San Diego Blood Bank. Last year, County employees donated 441 pints of blood.

The blood drive supports the Live Well San Diego vision of healthy, safe and thriving residents and communities.

3 Ways to Champion Ethics at Work

More than 30 departments and organizations participated in the Ethics Awareness Month Information Fair at the County Operations Center Thursday.

If you did not make it to the fair, there are still opportunities for you to champion ethics in the workplace. Employees can participate in the following ways:

• Take the Ethics 101 online training. Head over to LMS and search for “Ethics 101.” The video is just eight minutes long.

• Request that the Office of Ethics and Compliance conduct an on-site ethics training or speak at an upcoming department meeting.

• Check out the "Ethics In-a-Box” training resources for managers/supervisors.

If you have a question about what is ethical in the meanwhile, don’t wait to get answers. The first place employees can turn if they have a concern about possible unethical, illegal or unsafe activity is their supervisor. If an employee isn’t comfortable going to a supervisor or other manager, or if their concern relates to a supervisor or manager, they can call OEC or the County’s Ethics Hotline at 866-549-0004. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is operated by a third party. Employees can report concerns anonymously and can also do so online.

Here are some more photos of today’s event:

Root for CECO and the Padres!

Don’t miss the County Employees’ Charitable Organization’s annual baseball “fun-raiser” on Saturday, April 20 when the Padres take on the Cincinnati Reds at Petco Park.

This deal is a triple play—you get a discounted Field Reserve level ticket; the Padres are giving away a fleece poncho to each ticketholder at the game; and a portion of every ticket sold goes directly back to CECO, which has served as the charitable arm of the County of San Diego since 1956.

CECO is hoping to get 100 employees on the day. Join in the fun! Tickets are available to employees and their family and friends for $46.50. Don’t strike out on this deal. Head over to the online box office now. Ticket sales close at 11:59 p.m., April 13.

For more information, please contact Detra Williams.

Employee Basketball Tourney Is a Slam Dunk

County workers got into the spirit of March Madness this weekend with Employee Wellness’s second-annual intramural basketball tournament. The friendly competition at the Spring Valley Teen Center/Gym promoted camaraderie, teamwork and physical activity.

The men’s winner was “Silver Stars” with teammates Christian Franco, Cameron Hubbard, Jacob McCartney, Eric Lamaster, Marcus Levine, Lance Mendiola, Jonathan Panganiban and Richard Pele—all deputies with the Sheriff’s Department.

The women’s winner was team “Rock the Rim” with teammates Jessica Dieckmann and Janine Fuertes from Environmental Health, and Marissa Rivera from Housing and Community Development.