Administration

Sakahara Leaves for Communications Post at C&C

By: Lynn Araki-Regan

Congratulations and best wishes to HDOT’s Public Information Officer Tim Sakahara who was recently appointed by Mayor Rick Blangiardi to serve as the City & County of Honolulu’s Communications Director.

Q: What was the highlight and/ or most memorable experience during your employment at HDOT?

Q: Could you describe your new position that you’ll be leaving HDOT to take on?

Tim: I will be joining Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration as his communications director. I am excited to continue serving the community, while also rejoining my former boss from Hawaii News Now. Mayor Blangiardi is a dynamic leader whom I respect and I want him to succeed. I realize there will be challenges ahead, but I am looking forward to working in a positive and transparent manner that will benefit the public.

Q: When did you first join HDOT and what was your initial impression of the organization?

Tim: I knew right away that there would never be a dull moment in my job. Just a few weeks after starting, there was a community meeting for a big project. There was the concern a former employee may show up at the meeting. An employee feared violence and even wrote a makeshift will as a precaution. I remember making sure a Sheriff’s deputy would be at the meeting just in case. Then I found out about an hour before the meeting’s start time that I would have to lead the presentation. I recall thinking this is nuts! Fortunately the meeting went well and there were no problems. After that there was one big event after another including an airport officer shooting a dog at HNL, an addict breaking the airport perimeter and then dying while being detained, two tragic fatal plane crashes, the Zipmobile malfunction, cruise ship shenanigans during the pandemic, and of course all things COVID-19.

Tim: I joined HDOT in January 2015 at the start of Governor David Ige’s first term. I quickly found the state worker stereotype was not accurate. I found people in all divisions who are extremely dedicated to their job and working hard to move the state forward. Emergencies can pop up at anytime and I was always impressed with how HDOT employees answered the call to duty.

Q: What might (someone) be surprised to know about you?

Tim: I do my best not to take anything personally. In this position, people often got angry with

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SAKAHARA continued from page 4 Administration

me over a department issue or initiative, but I realize they are often just looking to vent. I am a firm believer of treating people as you want to be treated.

Q: What do you do when you aren’t (working, volunteering)?

my funny/not funny humor. Dad jokes aside, I can occasionally be seen on the golf course or baseball field.

Tim: When I am not working or volunteering, I am trying to spend as much time with my family as possible. My kids are now 15 and 13 years old and I realize they will be off to college in the blink of an eye. I love making them laugh/cringe with

Q: Any parting thoughts?

Tim: I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the many dedicated employees who have helped me and the DIR-P office. Often when I called, it wasn’t for good news, yet you still answered and helped as much as possible. The work you do makes a positive difference and I am proud to have been alongside you and representing the department

HDOT to Transition to New Time & Leave System By: Rey Domingo

Thank you very much to employees who have been taking the training on the new Time & Leave that’s soon to be in Employee Self-Service in the Hawaii Information Portal (HIP)! You will be able to start using Time and Leave on either March 8 or March 17, depending on your pay group.

HIP’s new features will be available at http://execsso.hip.hawaii.gov/ using your hawaii.gov email address and password. For employees without a hawaii.gov email address and password, you may continue to use your employee ID and password that you’ve been using to access your pay statements.

Tutorials, guides, and a replay of training sessions are available on the HIP help page including: time-and-leave/

• For Supervisors: https://ags.hawaii.gov/ hip/for-supervisors/

Employees should know by now how to sign out for leave and request for salary exceptions in the pay period. If these do not apply in the period, no action is necessary from the employee. For supervisors, their training has included reviewing employee requests by the end of a period. In addition, supervisors will be asked to validate if they can ‘see’ all their employees and update the schedules of employees who are not on the standard 5 days a week/8-hour schedule.

Thank you again for your support and patience with the Time & Leave project!

Administration

Top 4 of the Easiest Diets to Lose Weight

By: Melanie Martin

With nearly 50 employees competing in HDOT’s Weight Loss Challenge, I thought this month’s wellness article should be about diets that help you lose weight easily. Here are a few I found that may be easy enough to try.

1. Intermittent Fasting- Although I am not entered in the weight loss challenge, I decided to try intermittent fasting to see if it works, and it does. I follow the 16/8 method, which limits my calorie intake to 8 hours per day. I fast between the hours of 8 p.m. and 12 p.m. and then I eat in moderation between 12:01 p.m. and 7:59 p.m. According to healthline (August 5, 2019), “Intermittent fasting has been linked to anti-aging effects, increased insulin sensitivity, improved brain health, reduced inflammation, and many other benefits.” If you have underlying health conditions, such as diabetes or bouts of low blood sugar, please consult your doctor before doing this.

2. Plant-Based Diets – I know, the first thing that comes to mind is, ”Do I need to eat like Bugs Bunny?” The answer is no. Eating plant-based foods may lead to losing weight and becoming healthier. However, it may be hard to cut off animal products “cold turkey” (no pun intended). Perhaps you may wish to consider becoming a flexitarian. A flexitarian eats mostly plant-based foods, but incorporates animal products such as red meat in moderation into their diets. 3. Low Carb Diets– I’m sure you heard of the Atkins Diet or going keto, which means that you lower your carbohydrate intake and eat more foods that are high in protein and fat. According to healthline, “[A} review of 53 studies including 68,128 participants found that low-carb diets resulted in significantly more weight loss than low-fat diets. What’s more, lowcarb diets appear to be quite effective at burning harmful belly fat.”

4. Paleo Diet – The idea behind this diet is to eat like our paleolithic ancestors. Many studies have shown that the paleo diet can aid weight loss. According to healthline, “The paleo diet advocates eating whole foods, fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, and seeds. It restricts the consumption of processed foods, grains,, sugar and dairy, though some less restrictive versions allow for some dairy products like cheese.”

Whichever diet you choose to try, just remember to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. If you’re more of a couch potato, start small. Maybe walk outside for 10 minutes. If you’ve been exercising and hit a plateau (aka not losing any more weight), try high intensity training workouts, which are short, more intense workouts. When beginning any diet or exercise routine, please consult your doctor.

Administration

Security & Privacy in the Connected Home By: Darren Cantrill

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a smart home? You could monitor your entry doors with video doorbells, turn your lights on before you get home, or have a virtual assistant available to help with homework or to answer any question you may have.

The Internet of Things (IoT) movement is introducing these features into our homes by rapidly connecting these types of devices to the Internet and in doing so, can sometimes leave our security and privacy at risk. Let’s look at some of these concerns and how we can take certain steps to protect ourselves.

Virtual Assistants: Many people have an Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, or Microsoft Cortona (and sometimes a combination of many of these together). These devices analyze your past commands and try to anticipate your needs. Sometimes, in spooky and scary ways. These devices can also be linked to accounts to purchase goods or services; make changes in your house such as turning off alarms, turning on lights; be linked to other accounts that have access to your schedule and/or read your email.

Smart Home Devices: Many homeowners have video doorbells, smart light bulbs, smart electric plugs, security cameras, smart speakers and displays, all talking to each other while also sending data to the manufacturer. What? Did you just read that these IoT manufacturer’s gather data from their devices? They do, and it’s mainly to gather near real-time data on how their products are used, by location, by time, and how often. Now imagine if that information was compromised to a bad actor – how much damage could be done to you, your family, and to your security and privacy?

I don’t mean to scare you, but I do want to provide a few tips that you can follow to better protect yourself from compromise.

1. Devices become smart because they collect a lot of personal data – do your research! 2. If you don’t need to connect a smart device to the Internet, don’t. 3. Change all default usernames (if can) and passwords immediately upon configuring. 4. Isolate ALL IoT (Internet of Things) devices from other devices on your network by creating a separate WIFI network just for them. Use completely different IP addresses to ensure they can’t communicate with your computer and portable devices (except for one mobile device to manage them). 5. Always keep your device firmware and patches up to date. When researching and selecting which devices to purchase, ensure they offer auto-updates from the manufacturer. 6. Replace devices when they are no longer supported by the manufacturer, as patches will no longer be issued, which leaves your devices in a compromised state. 7. Know what data the device or app wants to access on your phone. 8. Use caution when using any social sharing features with these apps. 9. If possible, keep your work and personally connected devices separate.

While IoT devices are great to have around and can help with many tasks, don’t risk your security and privacy for convenience.

Administration

STP Receives 2nd Round of COVID-19 Transit Relief Funding

By: Pradip Pant & Tad Nakayama

On December 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 (CRRSAA) was signed into law. It provided funds to prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19. It included $900 billion in supplemental appropriations for COVID-19 relief, $14 billion of which was allocated to support the transit industry during the COVID-19 public health emergency. HDOT, through the Statewide Transportation Planning office, received $23,309,632. As a condition of the CRRSAA, priority will be given to support payroll and operating expenses. Similar to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the supplemental funding will be provided at a 100-percent federal share, with no local match required.

A total of $2,841,510 will be used to support the transit programs for Kahului, Maui (small urban area), and $20,305,252 is targeted for transit programs serving the islands of Kaua’i, Hawai’i, and Maui (rural areas). This Act also provides funding of $162,870 for private non-profit groups that meet the transportation needs of older adults and people with disabilities.

Learning Made Easy!

Have you ever wanted to learn something new? How to communicate more effectively with your coworkers or properly write a letter or email? Or how to sanitize your workspace and flatten the curve with social distancing during COVID-19?

Well, you now have the ability to do all that with the new Learning Management System (LMS) that the Department of Human Resource Development’s (DHRD) Learning and Development Division has recently launched for the HDOT. This new cloud-based LMS is Adobe Captivate Prime which focuses on the learner’s experience. It’s ideal for those who want effective and easy to access training with a click of a button.

To sign into the new LMS, simply open a browser (preferred: Edge of Chrome. Mozilla is okay) and then type on the address line:

captivateprime.adobe.com/primetimehawaii *Hint: Save as a favorite.

By: Juli Chun

of the training sessions are short, easy and informative. You even have your own Learner’s Dashboard that keeps a record of all the training that you have done as well as tracks your progress. This is a system that is responsive and described as one of the best for eLearning.

DHRD’s Personnel Program Manager Patricia (Patti) McDonald is conducting trainings on how to use the new LMS. She covers all the different ways that the departments can utilize it to train their personnel. The following classes are available this month (February):

DATE TIME SESSION 2/18/21 2 pm 0033 2/23/21 2 pm 0034 2/25/21 10 am 0035 2/25/21 2 pm 0036

Please register through your Division’s HR offices. We will update you on the March training classes and want to encourage you to take your learning experience to another level.