NISD HR - The Resource

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Miller's Message
by Jim Miller,
Assistant Superintendent
for Human Resources

This edition of the Resource Newsletter is being sent to you early (April), so that you may have access to a lot of important information prior to school dismissal and the summer months. There are many reasons why Northside is the “District of Choice” in the San Antonio area, and that is why we are doing our best to communicate as much information to you as possible.

Throughout this summer, NISD Human Resources will be working hard to recruit and hire the best employees--like you. In addition, we will be working hard in the areas of compensation and benefits to make this the workplace where you want to continue working! We have evaluated the compensation and benefits packages and will be making recommendations to the Senior Staff and Board of Trustees regarding the best competitive packages for NISD. To provide us with your comments and feedback, please fill out our benefits survey featured in the article on page 6 in this newsletter. Please take time to complete this survey sometime between April 12 and April 19.

Once again, the HR department is committed to continuing to develop and deliver exceptional benefits and services and we are looking forward to serving NISD employees in the 2006–2007 school year. Please accept our best wishes for an outstanding and enjoyable summer, or at least an enjoyable change of pace. If we can ever help or assist you, do not hesitate to contact us.

Reclassification (Position Review)
Position review, formerly known as Reclassification, is an annual process that assists Human Resources (HR) in determining if any midpoint positions within the District have undergone significant changes that necessitate a review. The key term is “significant.”

Each year during this time, HR asks Campus and Department administrators to identify positions which may need to be reviewed for the upcoming employment year. Due to the high volume of requests presented to HR in years past, of which the majority did not meet the criteria, HR has modified the process to consider only position reviews that are brought forward at the Senior Cabinet level after discussion with their direct reporting management personnel.

The approach now taken will have Senior Cabinet members focus on positions that involve either a significant change in job duties typically resulting from a program change, department reorganization, a District organization structure change, or external factors such as new legislation or job market conditions. The process will require that strong evidence be presented by a member of management to a Senior Cabinet member and only those requests of a more critical and of higher priority will be considered.

Examples of factors which do not support position review or requests that will not be considered include those turned in by an employee, temporary transfer of duties from an existing position, funding source changes, employee performance or seniority, time served in a particular position, increase workload of existing activities, and comparing unlike positions.

A committee will meet sometime in May or June to review requests that meet the criteria and if a pay grade change does occurs to a position, HR will notify the designated employee(s) of the final action taken by the Committee before the start of the new employment year. Questions regarding Position Review may be addressed to Rick Gardner in Human Resources.