The Certified Utility Human Resources (UHR) program is designed to provide education and training for public utility HR personnel. The program consists of nine courses, all of which are specific to and focused on current human resources issues. Participants are given four years to complete all the requirements for their certificate program.
Introduction to Human Resource Management
2 Days: This course provides an overview of the definition and roles of strategic partner, administrative expert, employee champion and change agent in the utility industry. Participants explore how to prepare for and perform the functions of the day-to-day operations that you might encounter in human resources. Each participant will complete an assessment and gap analysis to develop a curriculum plan based on their current needs.
Personnel Law
2 Days: This course addresses significant employment law issues including such vital areas as policies, procedures, principles and management practices. You will learn a step-by-step approach on how to prevent costly work disruptions, employee unrest and government inquiries. Topics include record-keeping requirements, discrimination law, equal pay, workers' compensation, and much, much more.
Organizational Liability: Risk Management
2 Days: One of the areas in which human resources staff must be prepared is risk management. During this course, you will examine real-world examples and strategies for risk management to gain insight on how others have handled various situations. You will also discuss how responsibilities of a human resources professional cross into many very important areas of the organization. Participants will learn about workplace safety, OSHA requirements, drug testing, workplace violence, and more.
Compensation & Benefits
This class provides participants opportunity to examine key strategies for negotiating cost-effective benefit packages for employees, best practices in controlling health care costs and administration of benefits program. You will explore strategies for keeping employees informed about their benefits as well as techniques for enhancing participation and compliance.
Building & Maintaining a High-Performance Workforce
2 Days: This workshop helps build your skills in the areas of employee recruitment, hiring, staffing and retention — including entrance and exit interview techniques. Participants will learn strategies for developing job descriptions and analyzing candidate skills against job requirements as well as developing a work environment conducive to retaining top performers.
Human Resource Development
Participants learn to assess current employee skills against those needed in the future in order to identify training needs. Knowledge gained will then be applied to the development of a one-year training calendar. In addition, instructors demonstrate techniques for measuring the results of workforce training and strategies used for evaluating performance in relation to specific workforce skills.
Strategic Planning & Organizational Development
2 Days: This class examines how to deal with changing management, implementing leadership development and how to ensure that you are aligning the HR department with the overall goals of the organization. Participants learn how to examine and apply strategies for measuring the outcomes of the organization at four levels. The HR professional will determine an individualized approach for their organization for tracking results and the ROI (Return on Investment).
Personnel Issues Update
1 Day: This workshop is designed to familiarize you with the changes in employment law which will impact HR operations and will include strategies to address current issues including new rulings and implementation of changes to existing policies and procedures.
Employee Relations & Communication
Employee relations and communication are two important factors for team development. Participants explore best practices for involving employees in the decisions that affect their jobs, strategies for managing diversity and techniques for building high-performance teams.
