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2008 GCAT Election Results - July 23, 2008President - Nadine Jenkins Vice President - John Williams Secretary - Lee Keeton Treasurer - Lorena Gomez
Members at Large Tia Finney Brenda Houston Don McKinley Wanda Modarelli Kimberly O"neil Jason Rohr Judy Seim Tanya Skinner Brian Stevenson |
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News & HappeningsThis is where you will be able to find highlighs regarding additions to the GCAT web site and other noteworthy events. If you've visited us before and want to know what's changed, take a look here first. First Annual National Court Collections Conference a Great Success
A major highlight of the event was a tour of the new Las Vegas Municipal Court building and more specifically the Las Vegas Judicial Enforcement Unit (JEU). The head of the JEU, John Williams, is also a member of the Board of Directors for GCAT and played a key role in bringing the first national court collections conference to Las Vegas. In addition to the outstanding presentations and take away materials, there were several opportunities to network with other collections professionals as well as vendors offering products and services specifically designed to improve collections performance. One attendee commented that they felt like they had connected to family and never knew a real connection existed. The conference also had two major corporate sponsors; Municipal Services Bureau, a recognized leader in the collections industry specializing in court collections; and RevQ, an innovative new subsidiary of collections software giant Columbia Ultimate specializing in court collections software. The first National Court Collections Conference was such a huge success plans were immediately formalized for next year. Mark you calendars! The 2007 version of the National Court Collections Conference has been tentatively set for September 24-26, 2007 at the Golden Nugget Las Vegas. Watch the association Website for additional details and developments. We also want to remind you of the special offer that was announced during the conference. GCAT will be offering free membership to the association for individuals through the end of the year.* Only a small annual renewal fee is due at the first of each calendar year. So don’t wait, sign up by December 31st for your free membership to the Association and get connected! Details are on our website at www.govcat.net. Just click on the button for Membership Application to get started. This would be the one time we can say that “what happened in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas” with your help. Thank you for your support and we hope to see you at next year’s conference! * Eligibility: Any person(s) employed by and/or responsible for the collection of revenue due a governmental entity, or any vendor (corporation membership only). Ask Alice Advice Column If I feel my collectors should be paid more or their pay grade re-evaluated, how would I go about convincing HR to do that? In today's workplace, it's hard to find a non-management employee that does not feel like they are being underpaid. Sometimes feelings of dissatisfaction are based on the fact they actually are being paid less to perform the same duties as someone else in the exact same position in another organization and sometimes it just feels that way. As a supervisor that may receive legitimate complaints about pay or have concerns that the salary for a specific position is no longer sufficient to attract qualified candidates, it is important to be proficient at separating fact from fiction. Inaccurate job descriptions can result in pay rate compression (very narrow pay differentials among jobs at different organizational levels), or red or green circled rates (pay rates that are above or below the maximum or minimum pay range for a grade). For example, a job description might become outdated because the same person occupies the position for 10 years triggering an update only upon their exit. Fair and accurate job grading is a complicated subject actually made more frustrating by the easy availability of on-online salary comparisons, which may or may not prove to be an exact match. If your organization utilizes the job point factor system instead of market analysis, then comparative salaries acquired from sites such as salary.com without the additional information provided by a job description, will not be accurate. In order to improve HR's receptivity to your job re-evaluation request, it should be accompanied by accurate and updated support data. Some organizations use an instrument sometimes called a Job Description Questionnaire, which walks you through an intensive series of questions, designed to explore every aspect of the duties and responsibilities for that position. Requiring the use of an official document along with an organized and mandatory process for submittal of a job re-evaluation request reduces the number of requests that end up only being support for the whining of a disgruntled employee or jealous competition between departments because one department refers to them secretaries and the calls them office managers. If this kind of instrument is not available, the next best thing to do is to obtain a copy of the current job description and review it line by line with the assistance of the employee that is currently in the position. If you request an online version of the job description from HR, revisions can be made more easily using the edit function of Microsoft word. In addition to the revised job description, attach a memo outlining and summarizing the following:
HR should respond with a qualitative review process, which may include feedback from supervisors who can serve as "subject matter experts". Traditional job evaluation systems are quantitative methods that use defined job factors (knowledge, skills, years of experience, employees supervised, revenues generated, size of operating budget, etc.) and degree levels between each factor. Points are assigned to each job factor and all factors are added together to determine the total job score. The total score for each job is used to create a job worth hierarchy or a ranking of jobs from the top to the bottom of the organization (Example: Collections Manager – 2,000 points and Mail Clerk – 175 points) Utilizing this method should improve the chances that you request will be seriously considered. Alice Gresham Walker, M.A., SPHR,
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September 2007