Human Resources Service Philosophy

UNLV's Human Resources Department is at foremost a service unit. Human Resources must envision that its principal function is to help university administrators and employees get their jobs done. Toward this end, it is critical that HR staff advise, that we do not direct; that we serve, that we do not regulate; that we look for ways to say "yes." Human Resources' role is to help administrators determine appropriate and permissible courses of action to achieve operational outcomes. We must share our knowledge and judgment, but without supplanting managers' judgment for our own; we must maintain appropriate internal audit and accountability mechanisms and satisfy external stakeholder requirements, but do so in the least intrusive manner possible.

Human Resources staff at all levels of the organization have been empowered to say "yes" - if they can find a way to accommodate managers' requests within existing policy and code provisions. No permission from supervisory staff is required; no internal transactional review is necessary. If regulatory or policy provisions appear to require a "no," HR staff have been instructed to seek advice and counsel from supervisory or management staff within the department, cascading up to the chief HR officer. This will ensure that we explore all reasonable avenues to accommodate university needs in a manner that is open to new circumstances and that seeks continuous improvement of administrative processes. We must be prepared to recognize that sometimes existing policies or regulations simply did not envision current operational requirements when they were written and that the policies or regulations, themselves, need to be updated, modified, or revised to accommodate an evolving workplace.

When such circumstances materialize with respect to campus-level policies, it is the role of the Associate Vice President, Human Resources (AVP-HR) to recommend to the Cabinet through the Vice President for Finance and Business that institutional policies be modified to promote best practices in higher education HR administration or to improve institutional efficiency or effectiveness. When such circumstances arise with respect to Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) State Personnel policies, it is the role of the AVP-HR to build collaborative relationships with NSHE or State Personnel counterparts, build consensus for promoting change within the system, and identify appropriate strategies for modifying statutory or regulatory provisions that do not reflect contemporary and professional human resources practices.