Travis County Commissioners Court
August 11, 2009,
Item 7
7.
consider and take appropriate action on status report and action plan for 467 classified job descriptions in 20 job families, in accordance with Travis County code section 10.080, job descriptions.
good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge.
>> good morning, Commissioners.
my name is todd osborne, I'm thea/x compensation manager here in Travis County.
with me is
>> [indiscernible] a long-time
>> [indiscernible] manager.
we are here to give you a status report on hrmd's plan to bring to the court 457 classified job descriptions for final court approval.
as I'm sure that you are all aware, hrmd conducted two three-year strategic planning cycles, the results of these were brought forward for implementation as they were completed.
the court gave approval for titles, pay grades and
>> [indiscernible] the unfinished part of these projects, however, has been the update of the job descriptions.
according to Travis County code 10.080, Commissioners court is required to approve all job descriptions.
hrmd has been working with the departments to make revisions and we are here to bring you the specifics of our plan to bring the jd's to the court for final approval.
now, before I turn the presentation over to luanne to go into the effects of the plan, I want to emphasize it won't affect pay grades, titles,
>> [indiscernible] already approved for the classifications.
it does not reflect anything that was done in -- in the next position of the strategic plan in year one, which was of course suspended by the court in may.
also I would like to emphasize that approval of the job descriptions will have no fiscal impact to the county.
however, approval of the job description since the job descriptions have an impact on so many aspects of the county's operations, including performance evaluations, hiring and other elements.
having said that, I will turn over the specifics of the plan to bring the job descriptions to the court to luanne schultz.
>> thank you, todd, as todd said the strategic plan cycles have already been completed.
there's major components of those strategic plan plan cycles that have already been approved, the job titles, pay grades, flsa, those are market competitive.
now we need to finish that final stage which is the job description.
those descriptions we need to bring forth also that are market competitive.
and we have been working over the course of the two strategic plan cycles with major key components of all of the departments that are impacted.
we have worked with various departments, multiple times, to refine and complete the descriptions so that they are a description that can be used and as todd said the descriptions are used for multiple sources, it's for hiring, recruitment, performance evaluations and employee relations issues.
workers' comp issues, so the components of that market competitive job description is not just in terms of just a job analysis project, there's multiple uses of a description.
so we are recommending that we bring forward to you in two phases a com -- components of 20 john families, 467 job descriptions, outline understand our backup -- outlined in our backup, we are recommending August 25th we bring 10 job families, medical job families, attorneys, executive manager, planning research, purchasing, public safety, emergency management, professional support, training education, reproduction and public information.
so that would be brought forth for your review and consideration for approval of those 10 job families on August 25th.
second phase would be on September 8th, again 10 job families, those are general
>> [indiscernible] and skill trades, administrative support, finance, engineering and support, social services, court, senior middle management and human resources and finally i.t.
so those again would be 10 job families for September 8th.
also, a major component of our plan, we have revised the job description format and components, those are outlined in your backup on page 4 and 5.
we've changed the job summary, we've changed duties and responsibilities, the minimum requirements, we have made adjustments on the elected descriptions for the equivalency for the minimum requirements, we have also enhanced the worker comp section, physical demand section.
so you can see that the job description format would also be a part of our plan that you would be approving in revised format.
we also have the job descriptions on the internet and then we are planning for a rollout should the descriptions be approved on August 25th and September 8th, the descriptions would be available on the intranet and internet for all use.
>> you said that -- that this does not actually affect the compensation for the -- for the upgrade in the job descriptions as you go through the different -- pardon me -- as you go through the different job families.
of course that's 20 families you did, 10 and 10 type of break down of upgrading those particular job families.
i guess I'm trying to see whether when upgrading those and you upgrading according I guess to some -- to market I guess -- is there expectation or what would the expectation be to employees that say okay, we -- this is our rank and file, it's classified stuff and the rank and file employees of Travis County know that these positions based on whatever skills and education, all of those other attributes, here and understand that they have -- that they are -- their job descriptions have been upgraded.
is there any expectation that they would be compensated accordingly when there's no money to address these concerns at this time?
and, also, if -- if these particular upgrades -- you said compensation affects a whole bunch of things, all of these other kind of things, performance, that's -- that's money attributed.
the is the expectation that they will receive some future funding?
if that is expectation, then would -- would they be -- we would be locked in to retrofit where they -- the job family was actually upgraded at that time?
like we have August and also September here for these upgrades as far as the families are concerned.
when money is available, to deal with these particular families that have been upgraded, would that be a retrofit situation?
to -- as far as the funding end of that to bring -- to make them whole according to what's been upgraded?
as far as the job description is concerned?
>> let me clarify, Commissioner.
the job descriptions are a final stage, they are not being upgraded in terms of the pay grades.
those pay grades were already approved in strategic plan cycles.
so there would be -- this is just to completed the end result of what was already reviewed in the two strategic plan cycles and that third -- the second strategic plan plan cycle ended in fiscal year 2008.
>> I guess what threw me off when you said that it affects performance, it looks -- performance would be something that would be looked at.
normally performance has a money attributed to it.
it's a financial connection sometime when you have performance.
>> the job description is used by supervisors, by managers, for -- to outline those duties and to be able to put a performance plan together for that employee, that's not in relationship to the actual performance award, it's in relationship to the actual component of what the job duties are, what the minimum qualifications are.
>> right.
>> not the salary component.
>> okay.
okay.
well, I just want to make sure that -- that -- I understand where you are coming from, but I just want to make sure that the loose ends that -- when I looked at are not loose anymore and to make sure that we are talking about the same thing.
in other words, that the description of the components of the jobs that -- in these particular families were -- were -- where things are considered that were not considered before.
and you bring them all up under one umbrella, there will be no -- no financial expectation from the employees when they hear what we're talking about today.
>> I would say that there should be no expectation of any financial changes as a result of the approval of these job descriptions.
the descriptions create the work has that has already been done and designated by this court over six of the past seven -- this is kind of an administrative task and something that needed to be cleaned up and took a while to get to because of our very large number of classification descriptions and a lot of departments involved.
>> all right.
>> we feel like we have gotten to the point now that we can bring it to you for final approval.
>> okay.
i just want to make sure that that expectation to the employees of Travis County isn't something that what we're doing here today that they are expecting money attributed to it.
even though the job description that they had before has actually maybe changed.
>> the -- this is not compensation related item.
>> okay.
i want to make sure folks understand that.
>> what opportunities to provide input have departments had?
>> we've had multiple opportunities and we're making one final review that has -- the next week, the previous week, we had the departments review all of the job descriptions one final time.
>> okay.
plus I guess when you -- before those hearings with us, the departments will have an opportunity I think see a final draft.
>> that's correct.
>> and contact you if they want to provide input?
>> correct.
>> we've had open access on -- on our system that they've had access to in terms of -- I think it's been over at least three times this fiscal year they've had a review and they are currently this week under review in terms of the final review of the job descriptions.
providing their final comments back to us.
>> and I think it's safe to say the departments have not been shy about providing input and feedback.
>> okay.
>> how many of these do -- as far as your review, where are we as far as visiting those departments?
several departments -- excuse me.
how many of these departments have been reviewed to make sure that the job description is all inclusive by the departments of Travis County -- there are still outstanding dollar of -- of things that we still need to do as far as this particular task of -- the classified employees of Travis County?
>> all the departments have had access over the last two weeks to review the job descriptions one final time.
>> okay.
>> so they are making sure that all of the components over the course of the years they've had various input in, so they are -- each time we send them out again, they are asking us to -- they are looking to make sure their comments, the -- are included or if they are not included we're having dialogue as to why they're not included.
so they are making that one final review, one final approval of the -- of the job description.
>> okay.
>> actually, this week we're having a meeting with a few of those departments to finalize those department comments.
>> okay.
>> you are asking us today to approve you bringing these back in batches one on the --
>> August 25th and the second batch on September the 8th.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you all very much.
by the way, we will call up the other item probably is this afternoon after executive session, okay, number 35.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Friday, August 7, 2009 3:07 PM
