Has Anyone Ever Heard About...........

Crout · February 2003

I ran across an ad for a HR Director and one of the skills they required was familiarity with the "case management approach to HR." I am not familiar with this term, nor could I find a reference in any database. If anyone knows what this term means, please share it with me. It's not that I want the job so much as I'm curious. Thank you.

Whirlwind · February 2003

I've NEVER heard this term before but I do work in a human service setting so I can speculate. I'll bet they mean an approach wherein programs and services are coordinated around individual EEs instead of being organized functionally. For example, this might mean that an EE -- instead of having to see one HR person for benefits, one for ADA concerns, one for Workers Comp, and one for leave/timekeeping issues -- would see one HR generalist assigned to them for everything. Every HR person would have a portion of the whole staff for whom he of she was responsible. Does that make sense?

On the other hand, I could be dead wrong!

Crout · February 2003

I think you're right on target, but they made it sound in the ad as if "case management approach" should be rolling right off the tongue of any self-respecting HR practitioner, and I have never heard of that particular phrase.

Riley · February 2003

Is there a number to call in the ad? I would call and say, I am interested, but want to know more about case management approach to HR. Maybe they could tell you what they mean.

Just a thought...

Crout · February 2003

Good idea, but since I saw the ad online there was no phone number.

njjel · February 2003

What the heck, respond to the e-mail and ask away! Nothing to lose, right?

Brad Forrister · February 2003

Well, I haven't run across it in an HR context, but the term is used frequently in both the legal world and the managed care worlds.

In the court system, it refers to the procedures increasingly used by courts to get the parties to reduce the number of issues, clarify the issues, settle parts of a case if possible, and get as many agreed facts as possible before a case goes to trial. It's the "managing" of cases by a judge or the judge's staff before the formal courtroom appearance. I can't think for the life of me what relevance this definition might have for HR.

In the managed care world, and increasingly in workers' comp as well, it refers to having a particular case manager (maybe these used to be called case workers) who is the uniform point of contact with the individual patient. The case manager signs off on all the doctor's visits, procedures, drugs, and anything else that might cost money. In workers' comp, this includes rehabilitation plans and making sure the patient makes all the required appointments.

The term is also used in such areas as juvenile delinquency, where many states have a case management "team" that includes representatives from social services, education, law enforcement, etc., who develop and administer a plan for each juvenile under their jurisdiction. Schools have similar interdisciplinary teams for kids who have special educational needs.

My guess is that it's this last version that's most likely to apply in the HR world. Was this, by any chance, a really big company?

Brad Forrister
Director of Publishing
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Don D · February 2003

Depending on one's proclivities, one might want to pursue or not respond to such an advertisement. I would go a step further and suggest that for an ad to include that statement indicates to me that there is an individual in the short chain of command who is into such things as social engineering and experimental approaches to personnel practices. If that is the least bit true, I think the successful applicant will be more involved in the anal engineering of processes and the production of paperwork than he will be in the successful management of outcomes and the meeting of company objectives. Others to watch for are, "Must be experienced in 360 degree appraisal processes", and "Imperitive that successful candidate have knowledge of kinesic interview techniques", and the possibilities are endless. Buzz words have multiple meanings. First, they mean what they mean. Second, they speak volumes about the writer of the advertisement and the type of supervision one will encounter.

Crout · February 2003

My thoughts precisely, Don.

Has Anyone Ever Heard About...........

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