Salary: $105,000.00 - $111,936.00 Annually
Location : Thurston County - Olympia, WA
Job Type: Full Time - Permanent
Job Number: 2026-DIR-COM-002
Department: Dept. of Enterprise Services
Division: Director's Office - Communications Program
Opening Date: 09/18/2026
Closing Date: 10/5/2026 11:59 PM Pacific

Description
Employee & Executive Communications Manager
WMS BAND 1
NOTE: The hiring authority reserves the right to offer the position at any time after the required posting period, and during the recruitment process. It is to the applicant's advantage to apply as early as possible.

The position's assigned duty workstation is located at: 1500 Jefferson St. Olympia, WA.

This position is eligible for hybrid work with most daily work remote but must be able to come to the Olympia location on an as needed basis. This position requires the incumbent to be available on evenings and weekends to support the communication, and executive operation needs of the agency. This need is typically higher during the month leading up to and during Legislative session.

About the Opportunity:Communications is responsible for ensuring that DES is connecting with its audiences to achieve its strategic goals, assess and minimize risk, build and protect the agency's public reputation and brand, and help agency customers easily understand, access, and connect with DES services.
Communications is a critical component of successful policy and government relations work, providing aligned messaging to support agency budget and legislative requests and stakeholder management for high-risk, sensitive, and politically charged issues. Work includes strategic communication planning, media relations, crisis and emergency response, agency brand, graphic design, digital platforms including website and social media, internal communications, public outreach, and all internal and external communication activities. Communications is responsible for creating communication plans to carry out federal, state, and agency law, rule, and policy implementations.

The Employee and Executive Communications Manager (EECM) reports directly to the Communications Director and is a trusted and confidential advisor on matters related to the employee and executive operation communication activities of the agency to the communications director, division staff and leadership, and by extension the agency cabinet. This position manages the Employee and Executive Communications team that plans, implements, and measures communications for employees and executive operations. This position is a member of the Communications leadership team and helps inform communications policy. The EECM manages communication activities and strategies that effectively support agency strategic and public policy goals and enhance employee culture. It ensures that DES' messages are meeting its audiences in the right way at the right time; it manages the agency's communication strategies for employee communications and executive operations.

This role is responsible for recommending, coordinating, approving, and supplying communication strategies and activities for internal and external communication planning. This position monitors and measures the effectiveness of the activities under its direction, including employee, executive, and legislative and budget communications. The EECM gauges potential issues and areas of interest among key interested parties, and ensures communications aligns with agency mission, vision, values, and goals. This position provides round-the-clock (particularly during Legislative Session) support on issues of high public interest and must frequently safeguard confidential and high-risk or sensitive information in the course of its duties. The selected candidate will possess a deep understanding of the Washington policy landscape, including meaningful experience working with public policy or government relations, and a general understanding of the Washington state legislative process.
This position is essential in ensuring consistent communication and public information that supports the agency's mission of strengthening the business of government for a sustainable and just future.
For more information about this position, email the recruiter: Rachel Vaughan by emailing [email protected] and request the full job description.
Duties

Responsibilities associated with this position include:
Employee and executive communications

• Manages agency employee communication strategies, including executive leadership messaging.

• Ensures agency director, cabinet, and senior leaders (or anyone testifying on DES' behalf to the Legislature) are adequately prepared and staffed for speaking engagements.
  • Prepare talking points, speeches, presentations, supporting narratives and materials.
  • Participate in practice sessions for legislative hearings, committee meetings, and informal meetings.
• Curates tools and training to preserve leadership tone, voice, and communication standards.
• Guides executive to employee communication strategies.
• Manages routine employee communication tactics including:
  • cascading communication plans and leadership toolkits
  • agency all-staff meetings
  • insideDES intranet
  • weekly internal newsletter DES News
• Manages major employee information campaigns.
• Partners and develops relationships with key staff across the agency.
• Makes sure content upholds brand standards.

Executive operations - budget and legislative session

• Partners with Executive Operations, Government Relations, and Finance to create a comprehensive legislative communications plan with key strategies throughout the entire legislative and budget cycle.
• Partners with leadership and divisions to monitor agency efforts, associated risks, and issues management tied to agency reputation, public policy, budget and legislative requests.
• Advises on key stakeholder interest and reaction to proposed activities.
• Coaches and advises leadership and spokespeople on how to effectively communicate and advance agency priorities.
• Measures and assesses outcomes to adjust strategies, update best practices and guidance, and achieve goals.
• Provides tools and resources to other Communication teams to ensure aligned strategies and messaging.
• Develops and manages complex public information activities.
• Advises staff and topic experts at all levels to develop and deliver communication strategies and materials.

Executive operations - agency authorizing environment outreach and engagement

• Assists Government Relations in audience management of authorizers, including the Legislature, Governor's Office, Lieutenant Governor's Office, Office of Financial Management, and authorizing committees like the State Capitol Committee and Capitol Campus Design Advisory Group.

• Manages audience and issue profiles and anticipates communication needs by audience and risk.
• Manages inventory of vetted materials, including periodic reviews for accuracy and effectiveness.
• Supports Executive Operations and Government Relations in inquiry response and bill implementation.
• Manages legislative report communications strategy.

Lead Employee and Executive Communications team

• Supervises and directs work of Employee and Executive Communications team.
• Provides daily management, leadership, decision-making, coaching, issue escalation and resolution.
• Sets and measures team performance standards, connected to division and agency strategic goals.
• Manages and develops employee performance.

Leadership

• Contributes as member of Communications leadership team.

• Contributes to agency and statewide efforts.
• Assesses impacts and provides analysis.
• Informs Communications policy development.
• Provides cross-coverage for leadership absences.

Qualifications

Required Qualification/Experience/Education/ Competencies
To qualify for this position, you must have a total of five (5) years of any combination of qualifying education or qualifying experience. Experience may substitute year for year of higher education. Please note that supervisory experience does not count towards the required five (5) years of professional communication experience.

Here are ways to meet the qualifications for this position:
(OPTION 1)
Five (5) years of professional experience in communications, public information, journalism, public relations, marketing, or closely related field;
AND
Two (2) years of supervisory experience.

(OPTION 2)
Bachelor's degree with major study in English, communications, public information, journalism, public relations, advertising, marketing, or a closely related field;
AND
One year of professional experience in communications, public information, journalism, public relations, marketing, or closely related field;
AND
Three (2) years of supervisory experience.

(OPTION 3)
I meet with qualifications other than the above listed

In addition to meeting with one of the above options, qualified candidates must possess the following professional experience:

• Leading or supervising others.
• Providing expert strategic advice to leaders and peers.
• Developing and carrying out effective communication and outreach plans, including outreach and engagement, media relations, and public education.
• Providing clear direction, performance expectations, timely feedback, and coaching.
• Deciding and measuring effective tactics using performance data.
• Ability to lead through a highly complex process of communication strategies, consensus building, and issue resolution to lead to successful outcomes.
• Ability to manage multiple conflicting priorities and quickly adjust to a changing environment.
• Ability to navigate complex and technical subject matter and quickly acquire specific sets of subject matter expertise.
• Building collaborative partnerships throughout an organization and with external interested parties.
• Experience coaching and advising top-level management on messaging and presentation delivery.
• Advising top management of audience impacts from public policy decisions.
• Producing and reviewing written, verbal, and visual communication materials for a variety of audiences to meet brand, quality, readability, and accessibility guidelines.
• Experience creating, editing, writing, and delivering effective presentations to diverse audiences in a high profile, public setting.

Preferred/Desired Education and Experience:

• Demonstrated ability to write and edit to meet the standards of the Associated Press style guide.
• Experience supporting or leading legislative and policy analysis, development, and implementation.
• Experience writing speeches, talking points, and preparing presentations for executive leaders to employees, key interested audiences, and the Legislature.
• Familiarity with user-centered design, graphic design, web content and management principles.

Required position competencies:
Communication and interaction with interested communities:

• Group facilitation skills necessary to lead productive and efficient discussion.
• Communication skills necessary to effectively share knowledge with diverse audiences including coworkers, contractors, customers, and special-interest communities to foster informed decision-making.
• Ability to work with staff at all levels to receive feedback and buy-in on communication materials.
• Demonstrated ability to work with external partners and communities and within the political environment (state agencies, elected officials, vendors, and private-sector parties).

Leadership and decision-making:

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively within the public arena through effective interested community and partner interactions, interagency teamwork, and sensitivity to public attitudes and concerns.
• Demonstrated ability to function in an environment that requires concurrent management of multiple complex activities, flexible work hours, tight timelines, frequent periods of high stress, and resource limitations due to being a public-sector program funded by tax dollars.

Leadership and management:

• Demonstrated ability to form and lead a cohesive team in an environment necessary to develop a broad base of institutional knowledge and opportunities for internal career advancement.
• Leadership skills necessary to guide and inform others in a manner that enables them to reach successful completion while keeping ownership of their assigned responsibilities.

Equity Competencies:
State of Washington Employees contribute to ensuring services, programs, workplaces, and interactions are responsive, respectful, accessible, and effective to the people and communities we serve. Employees are expected to:

• Take action to learn and Grow: Demonstrate a willingness to learn from new experiences, seek feedback, consider different perspectives, and continuously improve knowledge, skills, communication, and approaches to work.
• Take action to meet the needs of others: Seek to understand the needs and experiences of customers, coworkers, and communities. Identify barriers to access and participation and address them before they become obstacles for the people we serve, providing support