From: Andrea Viel <aviel@anl.gov>
Date: Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:47 AM
To: "Papka, Michael E." <papka@anl.gov>, "Habib, Salman" <habib@anl.gov>, "Negri, Cristina" <negri@anl.gov>, "Foster, Ian T." <foster@anl.gov>, "Antonopoulos, Dionysios A." <dion@anl.gov>, "Taylor, Valerie E." <vtaylor@anl.gov>, "Hodge, Devin S." <DHodge@anl.gov>
Cc: Rick Stevens <stevens@anl.gov>
Subject: Need a list of names from you for a Focus Group on Caregivers - Short Fuse request

Hi,

Apologies for the quick turnaround on this.

We need to conduct focus groups on the topic of caregiving broadly (childcare/ederly, etc). While the subject has come up in our CELS leadership team meetings, I have also had inquiries and discussions with divisional leadership over the past couple of weeks and things have been raised to Paul as well. The focus group is a request by Paul to be conducted for each ALD and the HRMs have been asked to facilitate the focus groups in short order. I’d like to conduct a focus group on Monday, June 15, 2020 from 10 to 11 and would like to invite 25 folks to this focus group discussion so we at least get a solid 15 given the short fuse.

Will you please provide me with at least five names from your division/SS service group who you believe will have valuable input to this discussion (larger Divisions feel free to provide slightly more names). I’d like to send an invite for the focus group discussion today. The questions that I will share with them prior to the discussion are indicated below as an FYI for you:

Discussion questions:

Argonne has initiated a number of actions to help parents struggling with child care and/or elder care issues during the pandemic. Which of these actions have helped you and your family cope with work-life concerns related to childcare and/or elder care?

Which actions helped more? Which ones helped least?

What are some things that you've done yourself to help ease the childcare and/or elder care of any type of care concerns?

What else do you think Argonne can do to help?

What can managers do to help their teams?

Please do what you can to provide a diversity of participant names: career levels, roles (IC, PIs and group leaders), gender and ethnicity, those with caregiving challenges (not just children but potentially disabled and elder care) as well as those managing employees with caregiving challenges and those you specifically know might have had particular challenges during this difficult time.

The names you provide will receive an email explaining the aim.

If you have questions please let me or Christina Hanks (HR generalist for CELS). Thanks for your help! Please send your names by 5:00 pm today or sooner if you can. No need to “reply all” as I will compile the full list after receiving from you all and share out the names who will be invited to the focus group for your information.