The Human Resource Services (HRS) Department within the County of Orange provides services to each agency/department through a centralized model. The Health Care Agency (HCA) is assigned a satellite HRS team to provide day-to-day Human Resource (HR) support in the areas of personnel transaction processing, performance management, return to work, recruiting, classification, new employee training, personnel investigations and discipline, Leave of Absence (LOA) coordination, labor relations, licensure monitoring, policy and procedure review and training. These services are coordinated with the centralized HRS team who also provides countywide training and organizational development, labor contract negotiations, classification review, labor relations and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) services throughout the County.

The HCA HR Team collaborates with management and staff to provide effective and efficient services while adhering to established policies, procedures and applicable laws. The following is a summary of each of the functions within the HCA HR team:

Classification

The HCA HR team coordinates with the central HRS Classification team to ensure that the duties being performed by HCA employees are properly classified within the County’s classification structure. This also includes reallocating vacant positions to another classification where the duties are more aligned with the duties the unit needs the position to perform. Once HCA HR conducts its review of reallocation requests they are submitted to the central HR classification team for further review and analysis. The reallocation process is included as a Balanced Scorecard Measure with a goal of Average Time to Complete Reallocation Requests within 60 days.

Employee Relations

The Employee Relations (ER) team consists of five ER Analysts who partner with all levels of the organization regarding performance management issues, policy review and revision, personnel investigations, disciplinary actions and employee relations issues. They also provide day-to-day support to all HCA staff requesting HR related information and work with the various labor organizations to resolve work related issues.

Records

The Records unit consists of four team members who are responsible for processing all personnel transactions in the Countywide Accounting and Personnel Systems (CAPS) personnel system, coordinating new hire sign-up and training, performance evaluation and licensure monitoring, administering the Catastrophic Leave donation program, processing Leaves of Absence and processing job offer paperwork.

Recruiting

There are currently nine staff members assigned to the HCA HR Recruiting team. This team is responsible for partnering with HCA hiring managers to conduct recruitments for open positions within the County’s Merit and Selection Rules. The team also conducts outreach by visiting various schools and by attending job fairs to market HCA as an employer of choice in order to obtain the best candidates for HCA’s open positions. Over the last year this team opened approximately 80 recruitments where over 442 candidates were hired or promoted into HCA positions.

Given the critical nature of this function, the HCA HR team has included Average Time to Hire as a Balanced Scorecard Measure with a goal of 90 days or less. One effort to move closer to that goal includes the implementation of an online testing component for large recruitments which identifies more qualified candidates within a shorter period of time than traditional assessment methods.

Return to Work

The HCA Return-to-Work Manager is the main point of contact for all HCA employees who have suffered a work related or non-work related injury and meets with the employees in an attempt to return them to work as early as possible. This position also tracks all Leaves of Absence (LOA) and coordinates disability retirement applications with Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS).

Training and Organizational Development

The HCA HR team is continuing to develop and facilitate short training topics to be delivered to various HCA audiences at staff meetings or upon request. Topics include performance management, participating in recruitments, EAP program and classification to name a few. The team can also customize training related to any HR topic upon request. The HCA HR team is also leading the HCA Mentorship Program Committee which is developing a mentoring program for HCA employees. The committee is providing training for each of the roles in the program and then identifying mentorship pairs that will meet on a regular basis over the course of six months.

The central HRS Learning and Organizational Development (LOD) team is currently providing countywide leadership development training through the Professional Development Experience (PDX) program. This program offers three levels of training to supervisors and managers within a cohort setting. This training includes first level nuts and bolts training for new supervisors as well as more advanced training to higher level managers and executive staff. As of August 2016, a total of 31% of the eligible HCA employees have completed PDX training.