LEAP4MCG: A New Approach to Hiring People with Disabilities

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020 inspired Montgomery County Government’s Occupational Medical Services (OMS) Division to swiftly mobilize and develop new, critical services to address the challenges of COVID-19, while maintaining business continuity and fast, efficient service delivery. The new services proved vital to ensuring the health and safety of employees, as well as residents visiting County facilities, throughout the pandemic. As part of this process transformation, OMS provided central leadership in the following new service initiatives: • Development and communication of rapidly changing COVID-19 policies to over 9,000 employees and 500 supervisors based on evolving Federal, State, and Local mandates. • Support to over 40 COVID-19 Department Points of Contact (POCs). • Critical updates to County department managers and HR staff in over 20 virtual events. • Ongoing collaboration with Infectious Disease Control, local hospitals, County DHHS, CDC, and State of MD Health Department. • Key oversight and content input for 13 new systems and online forms related to COVID-19 employee protocols. • Daily updating of County public-facing dashboards with employee COVID-19 case numbers. Introducing internal process changes, such as establishing two employee hotlines and reviewing employee Health Status Reports 24/7, which ensured employees’ timely return to work.