Accreditation - Hartnell College!!

Institutional Self Evaluation – 12-05-12
3. The two staff development committees, which identify needs and interests in
training and develop or find programs to meet those needs.
4. The Executive Cabinet, where staffing issues and needs are addressed,
whether those issues and needs first surface in conversations with the unions,
other employee groups, or among HR staff.
When the result of that planning requires resources, a proposal is developed and brought to
the Resource Allocation Committee, which assesses annual college-wide goals and provides
recommendations on the annual college budget.
The last HR plan focused on making improvements in technology: to make HR processes and
forms available online, to improve the HR web presence, to purchase and implement a webbased
applicant tracking system, and to implement online timecards. The overarching goals
for these improvements were to eliminate redundant work for staff, and to make it easy for
all applicants and employees to access basic HR information at any time and from any place.
Most of this plan has been or is being implemented.
Following the extensive work of the academic and student services areas, the administrative
services area of the college began its first systematic program review in the fall 2012. The
results of this review will guide the HR staff in its future planning, including determining
whether it can make better use of its shared governance committee structure or other
mechanisms to ensure that human resources planning continues to be integrated into the
institution‘s planning mechanisms.
Self Evaluation
The college does integrate its human resources planning into the planning of the institution.
There have been several challenges to that planning, though. Sometimes, the state has
reduced funding late in a year, leaving the college with inadequate funds to implement its
plans and few options to cut spending. To prepare for these possibilities, the college has
sometimes imposed a virtual hiring freeze. With a goal to preserve employment for as many
people as possible despite the dwindling resources, Hartnell has had to be creative in
providing the type and amount of staffing that the institution needs. Sometimes, existing staff
have had to assume roles that they could not have anticipated, and for which they are not
entirely prepared. It is difficult, in these situations, to assess how well the planning went, as
some decisions were not the result of planning. The fact that Hartnell employees have been
so successful in creating, maintaining, and enriching so many programs speaks to how well
the original plans have been integrated, and how well even the ad lib decisions were guided
by the college‘s strong sense of its mission-based work.
A review of the entire shared governance committee structure is anticipated during the 2012-
13 academic year. This may result in a change in the human resources area, as the THRFP
Committee has proven to be a bit unwieldy, covering as much ground as it does
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