After more than two years of extensive consultation with campuses, the new personnel policies for staff members became effective at Berkeley Aug. 1. These policies are part of the broader efforts to restructure personnel management, known as the Human Resource Management Initiatives.

Human Resources Director Alice Gregory expressed her gratitude to campus employees for their comments and participation; many employee comments were incorporated into the campus responses to the Office of the President. In addition, six campus committees developed local policies and procedures in a collaborative process that had not been used before on the Berkeley campus.

Key Policy Changes

o Groups Within the Program. The new policies streamline the personnel program by consolidating the Executive, MAP, A&PS and Staff policies into one personnel manual for all non-represented staff. [NOTE: Employees in the Technical (TX) and Research Support Professional (RX) bargaining units, for whom collective bargaining agreements are pending, will continue to be covered by A&PS and SPP policies. SPP will also continue to apply to employees in the Police (PA) bargaining unit, who will soon make a decision regarding representation. Employees in bargaining units currently covered by collective bargaining agreements, such as the Service (SX) and Clerical and Allied Services (CX) units, will continue to be governed by their respective contracts.]

A few policies within the program are sub-divided into two groups: Professionals and Support Staff (PSS), corresponding to the former A&PS and SPP programs; and Management and Senior Professionals (MSP), corresponding to the former Executive and MAP programs. These differences are primarily in the areas of compensation, vacation leave and security of employment. In addition, the current FLSA exempt and non-exempt categories remain, as required by law.

o Sick Leave. The use of sick leave for family illness has been liberalized to include unrelated members of the employee's household.

o Compensation. As the campus requested, the Office of the President has decided to approach changes in the compensation structure in an incremental manner, depending the results of further study. Primary changes in the new policies are that: promotional and reclassification increases for step-based positions are not limited to one step; long-term casual employees formerly covered by A&PS are eligible for casual increases instead of merit increases; and career employees with three months' service in the program are eligible for merit increases. Also, employees previously eligible for six-month increases will now be considered for increases through the merit program instead.

o Complaint Resolution. Existing procedures and practices have been consolidated into one document, and the process has been streamlined somewhat.

For more information The policies, along with the campus policies and procedures, were sent to departments in late July, and copies are available for review at the Reference Desks of Doe and Moffitt libraries. They are also posted on the Personnel gopher and the Human Resources Web site (http://hrweb.berkeley.edu). During the first two weeks of August, the Personnel Office held information sessions for campus managers and supervisors in each control unit to outline in detail some of the changes.

Look on the Personnel gopher and HR Web for additional information.