HR Update - FY 26 Issue 05

Issue Date: April 22, 2026

In This Issue

• Changes Are Coming to this Newsletter!
• Updated Workflow for Requesting and Extending Acting Status SharePoint Site
• Leadership Corner: Three Rare Leadership Behaviors That Transform Teams
• Featured Training
• Employee Spotlight

Changes Are Coming to this Newsletter!

The Division of Personnel is committed to a set of priorities for 2026 to strengthen service and operational excellence with an emphasis on process improvement, technology use, strategic collaboration, and employee engagement. Accordingly, we’re excited to share that the HR newsletter will soon be getting a refresh!

To improve the flow of information and strengthen communication from DOP, we’ll be moving from a quarterly format to a monthly release. The updated newsletter will feature more structured sections, routine updates, and helpful reminders to keep you informed and make it easier to find what you need. We’re also looking for a new name to go with the new look, so please take a second to Vote on the New Name of the HR Update Newsletter. The winning name will be announced soon. Let’s make this next version of the newsletter our best yet.

Updated Workflow for Requesting and Extending Acting Status SharePoint Site

Acting status (acting in a higher range) allows an employee to temporarily perform the duties of a higher-level position when business needs arise, provided specific eligibility and duration requirements are met. A new internal SharePoint-based resource site was launched to improve consistency, timeliness, and transparency in Acting Status actions.

On the SharePoint site you can find the following information:

• Governing Authorities for Acting Status – Provides the Personnel Rules, Collective Bargaining Agreement, and Division of Personnel resources that cover an employee acting in a higher range.
• Roles and Responsibilities – Outlines the different roles involved in the workflow as well as the actions they are responsible for as part of the process.
• Acting Status Process Overview – This is a general overview of the requirements for the process overall.
• Quick Reference for Acting in a Higher Range by Unit – This provides a quick reference guide based on an employee’s bargaining unit for the specific requirements.
• Workflow for Acting Status Delegation – This gives all the resources for both the initial request and the extension request for both classified and exempt/partially exempt employees.
• Forms and Templates – List of all the forms and templates needed to officially move an employee to acting status.
• Acting Status Delegation SharePoint Form – This is the SharePoint form to submit the completed delegation memo and PARF through this form to workflow to the appropriate contacts in DOP and Payroll Services.

Please make sure to take some time to review the information on DOP Internal Online forms SharePoint site and reach out to your HRBP to understand the process for an employee acting in a higher range (acting status).

Leadership Corner: Three Rare Leadership Behaviors That Transform Teams

Adapted from “Great Leaders Share 3 Rare Behaviors. Most Bosses Skip All of Them,” by Marcel Schwantes (Inc., November 21, 2025). Prepared with the assistance of AI.

Welcome back to the “Leadership Corner,” your monthly space for practical, people centered insights to help you lead with clarity, compassion, and intention. This month, we’re taking a closer look at three uncommon, but deeply effective leadership behaviors highlighted by executive coach and author Marcel Schwantes. His message is simple: these behaviors aren’t complicated, but very few leaders consistently practice them.

And yet, when they do, trust rises, performance improves, and teams become more resilient.

Rethinking the Leadership Gap

Organizations continue to invest heavily in leadership programs, but many still struggle to build strong, sustainable pipelines of capable leaders. Schwantes notes that we often approach the challenge backward:

• We promote high performing individual contributors into leadership roles,
• Expect them to “figure it out,”
• And then express surprise when teams burn out or results vary widely.

Before more training is rolled out, it’s worth asking two fundamental questions
Are we choosing the right people to lead, and are we modeling the leadership behaviors we want them to learn?

1. Build Trust Through Genuine Caring

Great leaders take real interest in people, their work, goals, motivations, and long term growth. They create pathways for development through stretch assignments, internal moves, promotions, pay support, or even removing obstacles.

This isn’t soft leadership. It’s strategic human engagement.

When people know they matter, confidence rises, performance improves, and retention strengthens. As Schwantes highlights, intentional caring is one of the strongest drivers of long term success.

2. Lead With Empathy—Especially in Times of Change

Drawing from a largescale assessment of more than 15,000 leaders across industries, Schwantes emphasizes that empathy remains the strongest predictor of leadership performance.

Empathy shows up in small, daily actions:

• Listening without interruption
• Checking in beyond surface level questions
• Responding to someone’s lived reality, even when it differs from your own

Empathic leaders create psychological safety, which unlocks creativity, collaboration, and problem solving. In today’s climate of rapid change, hybrid work, burnout, and technological disruption, empathy is no longer optional. It’s essential.

3. Practice Radical Transparency

Transparency deepens trust and reduces the stress that thrives in environments of uncertainty. Schwantes points to organizations that openly share information normally reserved for senior leadership, sometimes even salary formulas.

While your workplace might not adopt transparency to that degree, the core idea still applies:
People perform better when they have clarity about what’s happening and why.

Transparent leaders remove fear, strengthen alignment, and encourage people to voice questions, even hard ones.

Bringing It Home: Know Your People

No leadership philosophy works without time invested in people. Learn who they are. Understand their motivators, stressors, strengths, and blind spots. Explore what energizes them, and what slows them down.

A grounding question for any leader:
How well do you really know the people you lead?

If you want to expand your leadership impact:

• Start by serving
• Shape meaningful roles
• Use people’s strengths wisely
• Champion their growth, even if it eventually leads them to a different team or a new opportunity

Investing in people this way doesn’t just build strong teams; it builds resilient culture and a future bench of leaders.

Featured Training

Recommended AspireAlaska Course: Living Your Leadership Values

This short, high-impact course complements the themes above by focusing on the character behind leadership actions. It brings together insights from several leadership experts and focuses on the following objectives:

• Principles of change leadership
• Practical decision-making tools
• Effective delegation strategies
• Improving team performance and productivity
• Understanding the value of authenticity
• Tools to express your true self at work

This course is an excellent next step for leaders ready to integrate values, behavior, and practice into their daily leadership approach.

Employee Spotlight

Public Service Recognition week is coming soon: May 3-9, 2026! Let us know by emailing Holly Cox at holly.cox@alaska.gov if you’d like us to highlight an HR employee or group accomplishment here next month!