Glossary

Select a letter below or view entire glossary.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | W


Placement Goal	See Goal.
PPS	Personnel Payroll System: payroll system used by UC campuses, designed and updated by the Office of the President. PPS holds payroll, benefits data, and leave accrual
PPSM	Personnel Policies for Staff Members: the policies that cover employees who are not exclusively represented by a union
Preferential Rehire	Rights accorded to laid-off employees providing first consideration for jobs for which they are qualified. See Personnel Policies and Contracts as well as Special Placement Consideration for details.
Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)	The California Fair Employment and Housing Act provides up to four months (88 work days) leave during the time a woman is actually disabled and unable to perform her job due to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. Upon the documented advice of her health care provider, a pregnant employee may request temporary reassignment to a less strenuous or hazardous position. If the employer can reasonably accommodate such a request, it must be granted.
Proposition 209	Also known as the California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209 is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, except where “strictly necessary” to maintain eligibility for federal funding. The University is required to comply with federal affirmative action requirements in order to remain eligible for funding as a federal contractor. Under federal guidelines, the use of race or gender as a “plus” factor in making employment decisions is permitted, but not required. Therefore, the use of race or gender as a “plus” factor is no longer a part of the University’s affirmative action plan. However, federal enforcement agencies have determined that race and gender recruitment efforts are “strictly necessary” components of an effective affirmative action plan. Therefore, the University continues to conduct inclusive recruitment and outreach in job groups where there is underutilization.
PRT	Position Resource Tracking: module of BIBS used to track permanently budgeted positions
Reduced Work Schedule	Reduction of the usual number of hours per workweek, or hours per workday, of an employee for reasons outlined under intermittent leave.
Represented Employee	An employee in a job for which terms and conditions of employment are bargained by a union. These include: campus clerical, service, registered nurse, patient care technical, police officer, staff research, technical, printing trades, hospital residual professionals, graduate students, and skilled crafts employees.
Salary Grade	Designates a salary range to which a number of job titles are assigned. The grade's salary range is based upon wages paid in the market for comparable duties. Every non-represented job title will be assigned a specific salary grade.
Salary Range	The range of pay established for a salary grade. This is used as a guide to set individual employee salaries for a job. The salary range generally has a minimum, a midpoint and a maximum.
Salary Structure	The hierarchy of salary grades and salary ranges established for an organization.
Serious Health Condition	According to federal regulations, is an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves: Inpatient care in a hospital, hospice or residential medical care facility, including any period of incapacity related to inpatient care, or any subsequent treatment in connection with inpatient care; Any period of incapacity for three consecutive calendar days or longer that also involves treatment two or more times by a health care provider; Any period of incapacity for three consecutive calendar days or longer that also involves treatment by a health care provider and a regimen of continuing treatment under his or her supervision; Any period of incapacity due to pregnancy or prenatal care; Any period of incapacity due to a chronic serious health condition which is under the supervision of a health care provider; Any period of incapacity which is permanent or long term due to a condition which treatment may not be effective. A serious health condition does not include minor illnesses, such as the common cold, flu, earaches, upset stomach, or routine dental problems, orthodontic treatments, or periodontal disease. Of course, complications, if they arise, could convert a minor illness into a serious health condition. If you have a question about whether a particular illness or injury qualifies as a serious health condition, please contact your Department Personnel Manager, Employee Relations Consultant, or the Academic Personnel Office. The medical certification provision that an employee is “needed to care for” a family member encompasses both physical and psychological care. It includes situations where, for example, because of a serious health condition, the family member is unable to care for his or her own basic medical, hygienic, or nutritional needs or safety, or is unable to transport himself or herself to the doctor, etc. The term also includes providing psychological comfort and reassurance, which would be beneficial to a child, spouse or parent with a serious health condition who is receiving inpatient or home care. The term also includes situations where the employee may be needed to fill in for others who are caring for the family member, or to make arrangements for changes in care, such as transfer to a nursing home.
Short-Term Disability	Income replacement for an employee who is unable to work due to a pregnancy/childbirth, disabling injury, or illness. UC pays the premiums and coverage is automatic. To be eligible to receive benefits, the employee must be under a doctor's direct and continuous care and the illness or injury must not be work related. After the waiting period is met, the plan pays 55% of the eligible earnings, up to $800.00 a month maximum for up to 6 months.
Snapshot	Because the work force numbers fluctuate, a snapshot of the work force is taken at one particular point in time, e.g., as of a particular day, and used as the basis for analysis. The snapshot used for utilization analysis of the work force is December 31 of each year.
Special Placement Consideration (SPC)	Policies and procedures to provide first consideration for positions to qualified employees who have been laid off, reviewed for medical separation, or medically separated. See Special Placement Consideration for details.
Spouse	A husband or wife as defined or recognized under state law for purpose of marriage (domestic partner – see applicable contract or policy).
Supplemental Disability	Employee-paid Income replacement plan for an employee who is unable to work due to pregnancy/childbirth, disabling injury, or illness. To be eligible to receive benefits, the employee must be under a doctor's direct and continuous care. If the disability is not work-related, benefits from this plan are coordinated with benefits from Short-Term Disability. After the waiting period is met, the plan, combined with all other sources of disability or retirement, pays 70% of the employee earnings up to $10,000 a month, for up to 12 months of temporary disability. If the employee is still disabled after 12 months, the employee may be eligible for plan's provision that pays long-term disability benefits. Note: UC does not participate in the employee-paid California State Disability Insurance (SDI) plan because the UC offers its own plans to employees.
TAP	Temporary Assistance Program: Berkeley's former in-house temporary staffing service
TCS	Title Code System: UC application that tracks information on titles used throughout the system and sends update transactions to the Title Code Tables used at each campus. Managers, supervisors, and staff can access the TCS using the Web Inquiry Tool.
TCT	Title Code Table: a set of control tables in PPS that tracks compensation data for each title
Temporary Disability	A physical incapacity that is expected to be completely cured or improved with proper medical attention. Temporary disability benefits provide a partial wage replacement benefit during weeks in which the employee actually sustains a wage loss. Temporary total disability produces a total loss of weekly earnings. A temporary partial disability produces a partial loss of earnings.
TIP	The Tax Savings on Insurance Premiums (TIP) program allows employees to pay medical, dental and/or vision plan monthly costs—if any—on a pretax, salary reduction basis.
Title Code System (TCS)	The Title Code System Web Inquiry tool (aka TCS) allows supervisors, managers, and staff to look up classification information about any title code in the UC system. You can filter information by campus, bargaining unit, personnel program, and other criteria. TCS is maintained by the UC Office of the President (UCOP).
Two-Factor Analysis	Current government regulations require that, in performing availability analyses, an organization must consider at least eight designated factors. Referred to as the "Two-Factor Analysis," they include the following for minorities: The availability of minorities/women having requisite skills in an area in which the contractor can reasonably recruit. The availability of promotable and transferable, and trainable minority/female employees within the contractor’s organization. Availability is determined for each job group by weighting each of the above factors in accordance with each factor?s significance to that job group.
UCbencom	Self-service UC employee benefits application run by Office of the President. Employees can access UCbencom via At Your Service and telephone. It then stores employee benefit data in PPS
Underutilization	Underutilization occurs when the percentage of employees in a protected group (women or minorities) is less than the availability percentage for that protected group. Underutilization is calculated for employees in each job group. The declaration of underutilization does not amount to an admission of impermissible conduct. It is neither a finding of discrimination nor a finding of a lack of good faith affirmative action efforts. Rather, underutilization is a technical targeting term used exclusively by affirmative action planners who seek to apply good faith efforts to increase in the future the percentage of utilization of minorities and women in a workforce.
UPAY 850	The UPAY 850 Enrollment, Change, Cancellation, or Opt Out - Health and Welfare Plans (PDF) form is used to make changes to employee benefits or—in certain cases—enroll in benefits for the first time. The form is an interactive PDF and can be downloaded from the At Your Service Forms and Publications pages.
Utilization Analysis	A comparison of the percentage of minority or women employees actually in a job group with the percentage of qualified minorities and women in the relevant labor market.
Waiver of Recruitment	An exception to recruitment policy allowing a specific individual with unique skills to be hired without listing the position for open recruitment. Waivers can be granted for limited and career positions. See Waivers of Recruitment for details.
Workforce	The number of non-academic career, contract and partial-year career employees at the University of California, Berkeley. The numbers can also be disaggregated to look at control unit or departmental workforce profiles. Workforce profiles count numbers of employees, not FTE (full-time equivalents).