Guide to Managing Human Resources
Introduction
We developed the Guide to Managing Human Resources because supervisors and managers asked for a comprehensive yet easy-to-use manual that would provide guidelines for the personnel management decisions you make every day. We hope the Guide will support you in those decisions by providing the information you need to manage your human resources tasks.
Probably about 80 percent of the decisions you make in personnel management fit into the category of routine. That doesn't mean they're easy, but it means they fall within fairly standard guidelines. That 80 percent can probably be handled without help if you're familiar with the contents of the Guide.
The structure and content of the Guide were developed after talking with groups of managers and supervisors to learn what you wanted it to include and how the material should be organized, and then consulting with the Human Resources specialists who handle the wide variety of questions and processes related to your human resources responsibilities. (Please see the Acknowledgments for information about those who contributed to the effort.)
What the Guide offers is the support you need to carry out your role as manager or supervisor, organized by employee life cycle. The first section, Recruiting Staff, begins with a hiring checklist that shows you the steps you need to follow; the detailed material on hiring is contained in Chapter One-Employment. Later chapters are divided into sections on Managing Successfully, Interaction in the Workplace, Wellness in the Workplace, and Employee Relations and Labor Relations.
For the 20 percent of decisions that aren't routine, the extraordinarily complex, unusual, or new situations, you will probably still wish to work with a specialist in Human Resources. Some entries suggest you consult with your Employee Relations Specialist before proceeding.
How the Guide is organized
Each chapter includes a brief summary of the topic and a list of "guiding principles" that underlie the subject matter of that chapter. The guiding principles could be described as the "why" of personnel actions. They are the values we share - fair, equitable pay for performance is one example - that can guide managers in making personnel decisions.
The text provides the "how-to" that flows from the guiding principles. The Guide doesn't quote policies and contracts because those are available elsewhere. It does give you the steps to follow when you implement a policy or procedure, or the issues to consider when making a decision, or the details to cover when you're developing a plan.
You'll also find notes referring you to other chapters when procedures and decisions overlap more than one area, or suggesting that you consult policies and contracts when appropriate.
Many of the chapters include checklists or "Questions to Ask Yourself" when making a decision. These tools are intended to supplement the detailed explanations; they can be memory joggers or last-minute controls.
At the end of most chapters, you'll find Other Resources. These are reminders of whom to call in Human Resources if you need more help, or what forms are needed for a particular action, or where you can go for more information on the topic.
At the end of the Guide you'll find Appendices, including pertinent documents and resources. The Chancellor's Philosophy of Human Resources Management, Appendix B, is a strong statement of the values behind what you do in human resources management.
Appendix C is the Human Resources Strategy that was part of the Administration Five-Year Strategic Plan developed in 1993 and Appendix D is the Human Resources Mission Statement.
Appendix E is the Berkeley Campus Drug and Alcohol Testing Information Summary and Appendix F discusses Dealing with Threatening or Potentially Violent Behavior.
Appendix G, the most recent addition, gives ideas for establishing Recognition and Rewards Programs.
Appendix A is a list of Other Resources that will help you in your management role, such as policy manuals, handbooks, and training catalogs.
We hope that the language and tone of the Guide make it easy to use. Some parts of the material may seem a little more formal than other parts, because the content is more regulatory. Also, we want you to know we paid attention to the issue of gender in language. There are a number of solutions to this problem; we picked the one that we believe works best for this material. Rather than trying to make every personal pronoun plural, we kept them singular when that seemed to fit the material, but we mixed the use of he and she. Some chapters include no gender pronouns, some use he, and some use she.