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Workforce Management

Module

Competency

Workforce Management

Managing and motivating the workforce requires court leaders to not only understand the laws, legal rulings, and policies that guide the courts’ operations but also to be skilled in a number of specific human resource tasks.

Relevance

To carry out their fundamental purposes and responsibilities, courts must have the human talent to achieve the court’s mission and vision. The court leader must work every day to secure, manage, educate, and motivate court staff.  To do this, the court leader should have specific, technical expertise and knowledge of relevant laws, legal rulings and policies relating to day-to-day operations along with a host of human resource related skills and capabilities.

The court leader, who effectively manages and motivates the workforce, should possess the skills and capabilities necessary for job analysis and classification; performance management; workforce planning; professional staff development; development and updating of compensation and benefit plans; risk management; employee relations; and organizational change management. In short, the competent court leader secures the right people with the right skills.

Application

The court leader performing functions relating to the management, development and motivation of the court workforce, should be able to competently:

  • Attract, engage and retain a diverse workforce.
  • Develop and continually update a comprehensive manual of personnel policies and procedures that relate specifically to the court.
  • Ensure merit-based selection and promotion.
  • Encourage staff development by resolving performance problems and setting and supporting goals to be achieved.
  • Create a “high performance” work culture and environment by developing performance expectations, metrics-oriented performance monitoring systems and feedback and review mechanisms. [ref] See NCSC’s High Performance Courts model: http://www.ncsc.org/Information-and-Resources/High-Performance-Courts.aspx [/ref]
  • Assess and recommend appropriate personnel classification and competitive compensation, benefit and reward structures.
  • Identify staff education needs and secure resources for meeting those needs.
  • Use a variety of staff development tools: education, training, coaching, mentoring and professional development opportunities of both a basic and advanced nature that meet individual and organizational needs. [ref] CourTools, Measure # 9 http://www.courtools.org/ [/ref]
  • Support activities that address generational and other differences in the workforce.
  • Create a work environment that recognizes and optimizes extrinsic and intrinsic motivators.
  • Set and monitor ethical standards and behaviors. [ref] Model Code of Conduct: https://ncscdev.wpenginepowered.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Model%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20for%20Court%20Professionals%20no%20comments.pdf[/ref]
  • Employ efforts to enforce policies that prohibit harassment, bullying and other actions that define a hostile work environment.

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