HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
This chapter reviews the Austin Community College's (ACC) human resources management in the following sections:
- A. Organization and Staffing
- B. Human Resources Policies and Procedures
- C. Classification and Salary Administration
- D. Recruiting, Retention and Hiring Practices
- E. Faculty and Staff Development
Human resources management encompasses all the responsibilities and duties related to attracting, developing, motivating and retaining an effective work force. Qualified and talented employees are necessary for the college to fulfill its mission and goals. Human resources costs include salaries and benefits, which are usually the single largest expenditure of any college or organization. Although the responsibility for managing human resources is typically shared between a human resources department and an organization's management, the human resources department frequently oversees human resources policies and services.
Critical human resources responsibilities in a college environment include:
- Development, interpretation and communication of policies and procedures;
- Development and administration of an employee benefits program;
- Recruitment, selection and processing of new employees;
- Development and administration of a classification and compensation plan;
- Implementation and management of an employee evaluation and development program;
- Administration of the employee grievance and complaint process;
- Compilation of data and development of reports to satisfy compliance requirements;
- Management and maintenance of personnel records; and
- Compliance with federal and state rules, regulations and laws related to personnel.
BACKGROUND
ACC allocated 72 percent of its 2001-02 operating budget for employee costs that includes salaries, faculty overloads (salaries paid to full-time faculty personnel who teach over the required lecture equivalent hours), stipends (salaries paid for increased level of responsibilities) and employee benefits. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE) reported that a benchmarking study performed for ACC revealed that ACC spent about 70 percent of its 2000 educational and general budget for employee compensation, while its peers spent about 65 percent for compensation. In this study, ACC was compared to eight Texas peer community colleges and four non-Texas institutions.
Exhibit 4-1 presents the 2002 operating budget for ACC.
Exhibit 4-1 Source: ACC Operating Budget, Fiscal 2002.
ACC Operating Budget
2001-02
Object Dollar Amount Percent
of BudgetSalaries $73,262,569 72.0% Faculty Overloads $1,200,000 1.2% Faculty Stipends $136,159 0.1% Subtotal $74,598,728 73.3% Employee Benefits $2,700,263 2.7% *Lapse Salary Adjustment ($3,981,024) (4.0%) Consumable Supplies $2,441,412 2.4% Staff Development, Meetings & Travel $657,952 0.7% Utilities & Operating Supplies $11,816,232 11.6% Non-Capitalized Equipment (less than $500) $885,795 0.9% Capital Outlay
(Furniture, Equipment, Computers & Printers, Audio/Visual Equipment, Library Books & Technology Plan)$4,300,140 4.2% **Contingency $127,500 0.1% ***Early Retirement $900,000 0.9% ****Mandatory Transfer $7,262,758 7.1% Total $101,709,756 100.0%
*Lapse salary adjustment includes projected savings from turnover and hiring freeze.
**Contingency Funds are set aside and allocated to the provosts at the six instructional campuses and the two vice presidents to handle unplanned situations that occur throughout the year.
***Early retirement dollars are set aside to compensate eligible employees who take early retirement.
****Mandatory transfer includes transfers made to the Retirement of Indebtedness Fund to cover bond payment, to the Physical Plant Fund for preventive maintenance and capital improvement projects and to the Restricted Fund for Texas Public Education Grant (TPEG), Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) and College Workstudy.ACC categorizes its more than 3,000 employees into the following groups:
- Full-time faculty
- Adjunct faculty
- Administrator
- Professional-Technical
- Classified
- Hourly
The term "staffing table" refers to annually budgeted positions that are eligible for employee benefits. Board policy directs the president of ACC to publish a staffing table, as part of the budget process, giving the planned distribution of long-term positions for the year. Non-faculty staffing table employees are categorized either as administrative, professional/technical, classified and hourly. Administrative personnel are employees who are exempt from receiving overtime pay, paid on a monthly basis and considered as upper management. Professional/technical employees also are exempt from overtime pay and are paid on a monthly basis. Positions classified as professional/technical include accountants, analysts, buyers, coordinators, directors, managers and systems programmers. The classified category includes personnel who are not exempt from receiving overtime pay and are paid on a bi-weekly basis. Classified positions include assistants, clerks, building attendants, groundskeepers, cashiers, technicians and administrative assistants.
Full-time faculty includes instructors in college credit programs as well as counselors and librarians who are employed by the college and are included in the staffing table. Adjunct faculty are those instructors who teach in college credit and certificate programs who are employed on a course-by-course basis.
Hourly employees are hired by ACC on a temporary basis for a specific project, to substitute for employees on approved leave or when the workload exceeds the ability of the regular staff to accomplish work in a timely manner. Hourly employees are not full-time regular employees, but typically work less than 20 hours a week. ACC limits hourly employees to a maximum of 1,000 working hours during a fiscal year. Hourly employees are not eligible for employee benefits.
Exhibit 4-2 summarizes the number of personnel by employee classification for ACC.
Exhibit 4-2 Source: ACC Human Resources Department.
ACC Employee Count
Third Quarter, 2001-02
Employee Classification Employee Count Percentage Full-time faculty 417 12.5% Adjunct faculty 1,172 35.2% Administrator 37 1.1% Professional-Technical 343 10.3% Classified 506 15.2% Hourly 855 25.7% Total 3,330 100.0% OIE also reported that the benchmarking study showed that ACC had relatively fewer non-instructional staff to meet student needs than did the peer colleges included in the study.
ACC's faculty is the largest among its peers Exhibit 4-3. ACC had more faculty members then any of its peers.
Exhibit 4-3 Source: ACC Human Resources Department; Texas Higher Education Board;
Comparison of Total Faculty
ACC and Peers
2001
Institution Total Faculty ACC 1,589 Collin County Community College 755 North Harris Montgomery 1,465 San Jacinto 1,068
Texas State Auditor's Office.