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King County employees have seen some major changes in the workplace under new King County Executive, Girmay Zahilay.

In his first weeks in office, he made sweeping staffing and departmental changes and also announced a plan for employees to work in office three days a week.

Both prompted some vocal opposition from county staff.

Zahilay is the first King County Executive in 16 years, following the departure of longtime Executive Dow Constantine.

He believes that played a role in some of the outcry.

The same thing that every new administration does, which is bring in their own people for the Executive Office, somehow perceived as something different than what it was for us.

I absolutely restructured the office around what I believe I was elected to deliver on.

"Breaking the Cycle," better government, being in community and having more presence outside and building for affordability.

Speaking of some of those changes, you announced a mandatory return to office three days a week.

Just in late April, a group of county employees participated in a protest.

Why is it important to have county workers in office in office at least three days a week?

Yeah, first and foremost, it's what the voters and our communities expect.

Every time I went out and I talked to people throughout my campaign, they said, we are perceiving lower customer service, lower responsiveness in county government, and we believe that some kind of more presence will help with productivity and more responsiveness.

That being said, there is no doubt that there is a lot of benefit to remote work as well.

And that's why we're implementing a permanent hybrid work arrangement.

Next time, Executive Zahilay shares suggestions for Sound Transit on which proposed projects to greenlight amid its major budget shortfall.

I'm Paris Jackson, thank you for watching The Newsfeed.