Quarterly Town Hall – November 2021


December 6, 2021

On November 18, we held our quarterly town hall with Margaret. Thank you to all who attended and provided their feedback to some of the discussion questions we had. These town hall meetings are intended to give front line employees a chance to hear from executive leadership and help shape the activities we do as a department.

New to this meeting, we started a division spotlight. Each meeting one of Commerce’s offices or division will take some time to present and help everyone else get to know that division. This time, DOPL Division Director Mark Steinagel gave us a rundown of what they do in DOPL.

Did you know, DOPL has 120 employees and oversees licensing for approximately 60 industries. Mark also talked about the Controlled Substance Database. This informational database tracks all controlled substances distributed in the state. The database helps healthcare providers know what other controlled substances a patient is taking before they prescribe them a new one.

Also during the town hall, Margaret talked about our ongoing “One Commerce” initiative. This is an initiative that we’ve started to help bring our department together As part of that effort, we will being rolling out some actions to help achieve better unity among divisions. Specifically, we’re looking at:

  • Staff on boarding
  • Internal newsletter
  • Employee classification study

Additionally, Margaret asked for feedback from attendees on the idea of holding monthly Brown Bag lunches. The interactive poll showed that the majority of individuals had no preference on whether brown bag discussions had topics related to their work.

When asked what topics would be of interest, there was a wide range, but included service efforts, information on finances, and cats (who doesn’t love cats!)

Work is still being done on the logistics of these brown bag lunch meetings as well as regular meetings with co-workers in different divisions. Watch for more information on those meetings so that you can get involved and meet up with fellow co-workers.

And, please plan to attend the next quarterly town hall meeting, which will be held in March. Calendar appointments will be send out so you can save the date.