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Human
Resources Management
Curriculum
Guidelines Summary
What
Court Leaders Need to Know and Be Able to Do
The
Human Resources Management competency includes four areas, which encompass
personal characteristics as well as acquired knowledge, skills and
abilities (KSA’s):
 Curriculum
Guidelines
Vision
and Purpose
Human
Resources Fundamentals Context
and Fairness Management
and Supervision
Vision
and Purpose
Vision-focused,
purposeful, ethical, and legally defensible management of the court’s
human resources supports judicial independence, impartiality, and
accountability. Since
alignment of Human Resources with the court’s core purposes and
responsibilities and its vision and strategic objectives is essential, the
court must have a strategic vision. Some do not.
Effective leaders establish a direction for the court.
Human Resources and other court functions reflect this direction.
When this is true, Human Resources supports an independent and
impartial judiciary, one pillar on which a free and ordered society
depends and upon which the entire justice system rests.
Courts
must adhere to federal and state human resources legal mandates
concerning, among many issues, the hiring and supervision of court staff
and their work environment. But
these mandates must always also respect judicial independence, the
inherent powers doctrine, and supporting case law.
The court’s
mission, values, and strategic vision should be consistent with the
court’s enduring purposes and responsibilities.
If
the court lacks strategic vision, the Human Resources function will drift
along with the rest of the court from crisis to crisis. In this circumstance, Human Resources staff, together with
judicial branch educators, with direction from court leaders, should take
the lead in helping the court affirm its core values, articulate a
strategic vision, and align Human Resources and other functions with the
court’s strategic vision.
For
court leaders to oversee Human Resources, they must understand the
fundamentals. Job analysis is
critical. When court leaders
understand what their employees do, they can oversee the evaluation of
actual against desired performance. This will help the court structure
jobs, departments, and workflow; develop job descriptions; design
recruitment and selection procedures; evaluate positions to ensure
equitable compensation; and organize performance management systems.
Like
other organizations, courts need effective and legally defensible
recruitment and selection processes -- identifying and attracting
applicants, narrowing the pool, and selecting candidates whose
qualifications best fit the specific job and the court’s values and
culture. After
employees are selected, they must learn the court’s culture and be
prepared for the specifics of their job. Compensation includes both
extrinsic (e.g. pay, benefits) and intrinsic (e.g. satisfaction for a job
well done) rewards. Establishing
internal and external equity in the compensation system through job
analysis, job evaluation, and compensation surveys are important
fundamentals as is employee relations. Performance management helps
employees perform by defining responsibilities, setting expectations,
providing necessary resources, giving ongoing feedback, periodically
appraising performance, and utilizing the resulting information for
decision making, problem solving, and development.
Performance appraisal is but one aspect of performance management.
Understanding
labor relations, the legal environment of people management, and changing
labor force demographics is essential, as is what motivates the behavior
and priorities of court employees.
Context
and Fairness
Establishing
and enforcing fair policies and rules, dealing with employee performance
and behavior issues, and responding to employee complaints and grievances,
is accomplished in differing contexts. In many courts, employees are
unionized. Trial courts can
be state or locally funded, affecting Human Resource policies. Do all or some enjoy merit system protections? Are they
employees of a state-funded trial court system, or is there local
variability with respect to Human Resource issues?
Professionals understand the political and organizational
environment of their court and the impacts of the many variations on court
Human Resources Management. They
also know that whatever the context and constraints, fairness --
both actual and perceived -- is the standard of a court that is a
model employer. Employees
should perceive that Human Resources can be trusted to make fair and
independent recommendations to court leadership.
Management
and Supervision
Effective
court leaders ensure that the parts of the court, including Human
Resources, are a productive whole. Organizational cohesion is possible
when court leaders have the will and skill to pull the organization
together so that the whole is greater than the
sum of the
parts.
Human Resources Management is central to this integrating task.
Human Resources sets a tone that permeates the court from the moment
employees are recruited and hired, as they are developed and promoted,
through to their departure. When
the court’s leadership is effective, court staff are empowered.
They understand and are committed to the courts’ mission and
vision. They know their job is important and how it fits in the whole.
Recognition of Human Resources staff as a key department and
function is a strong message to judges and staff that court employees are
important and make valuable contributions to justice and public trust and
confidence.
Court
leaders establish standards and maintain the court’s direction and
operations. They balance the
need to maintain routines with the need to make changes.
Human Resource Management is not an end in itself.
Rather it supports court workflow, internal and external
interdependencies, and the change process.
While Human Resources monitors and enforces compliance with legal
mandates, it is primarily a service function.
Human Resources services and supports court leaders, court
departments, and staff who do the work.
Leadership ensures that staff assigned to Human Resources and
Training, Education, and Development staffs are on the same page.
Through
their management of Human Resources and other departments, court leaders
model the behavior they wish to see throughout the court. When the leaders
are successful in modeling the behavior they want to see and in setting
high standards with Human Resource staff,
Human Resource is invaluable in creating and maintaining a high
performance culture.
Click on each of the
four Curriculum Guidelines to see the
associated Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Vision
and Purpose
Human
Resources Fundamentals Context
and Fairness Management
and Supervision
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Resources Management MSWord version for printing.
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Resources Management Adobe Acrobat 5.0 version for printing.
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