Position Management Community of Practice

What is the Position Management Community of Practice?

A quarterly meeting series hosted by the Berkeley UCPath Operations Team to bring together subject matter experts and decentralized UCPath Position Management Transactors.

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Who is this meeting for?

Anyone whose role intersects with UCPath Position Management, especially transactors who manage vacant and filled position data.

This meeting series is intended to bring together transactors who have the following UCPath Access Roles:

  • Position Management / Position Control
  • Position Administration
  • PayPath

Learn more about the mission, objectives, and scope of our UCPath Community of Practice.

Position Management Definition

The oversight of position data from creation to inactivation, ensuring positions remain aligned with funding, job codes, and employment structures.

This includes Vacant and Filled Position Management through:

  • Position Control
  • Position Administration
  • PayPath
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""Quarterly Meeting Schedule

Upcoming Meetings:

  • Q1: February, 2027
  • Q2: April - June 2027
  • Q3: July - September 2026
  • Q4: October - December 2026
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Resources

Community Google Drive

In this folder you will find:

  • Meeting recordings, slide decks, and notes
  • Community-shared resources

Want to join the community?

Position Management Community of Practice - Sign-Up

Sign up for the Community of Practice today!

Audience is intended for transactors with inquiry, initiator, or approver roles for Position Management/Control, Position Administration, and PayPath. But anyone whose role intersects with Position Management is welcome to sign up!

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Have a topic or question to discuss?

Topics of Interest

Future meeting topics our Community of Practice is interested in discussing:

  • Updating vs. Creating New Positions Best Practices
  • Copying/Initializing from a Position Best Practices
  • Overallocation & Multi-Head Count Issues
  • Approval vs. Approvers – Who ‘Owns’ Position Management?
  • Staff vs. Academic – Adding a Stipend
  • Downstream Impacts of Incorrect Position Data

Last updated 2/2/2026

Position Management Community of Practice - Topics & Questions

Propose a topic or ask a question for a future meeting
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Past Meetings:

06/16/2026: Vacant Position Cleanup Initiative

Session Summary: 

  • Campus-wide initiative launched: In partnership with the Vice Chancellor for Finance (VCF), Berkeley is launching a one-time Vacant Position Cleanup Initiative to improve data accuracy, strengthen position management practices, and support more informed budget planning.
  • Focus on truly inactive positions: Departments were asked to review long-term vacant positions that are no longer needed and determine whether they should remain active or be inactivated in UCPath. The goal is to improve the quality of position data, not to reduce approved staffing levels.
  • Department expertise drives decisions: Local departments know their operational needs best. Position Managers, HR, Finance, and departmental leadership should work together to determine whether each vacant position should be retained for future hiring or inactivated.
  • Standardized review process: Participants walked through the campus review process, including how departments will receive their position lists, complete the review, and submit recommendations for inactivation.
  • Key timelines and expectations: The initiative timeline, departmental responsibilities, and available support resources were reviewed, along with opportunities to ask questions throughout the project.
  • Long-term position management: Regularly reviewing vacant positions helps maintain accurate data, improves reporting and budgeting, and reduces future cleanup efforts by making position review part of routine business practices.

Session Materials:

02/02/2026: Vacant Position Management Best Practices

Session Summary: 

  • Positions are foundational to financial planning: salaries, wages, and benefits make up ~60% of the campus budget (and up to 90% in some divisions), making accurate position data critical for budgeting and decision-making.

  • Too many vacant positions obscure insight: with ~67,000 vacant positions in UCPath (many student-related), the challenge isn’t reporting,  it’s identifying true vacancies.

  • Intentional cleanup works: a Haas spotlight showed how clear workflows, stakeholder buy-in, and HR–Finance collaboration enabled a large-scale position cleanup and better cost visibility.

  • CalAnswers supports smarter decisions: download your department’s data from the Position Roster report in the Position Management Dashboard in CalAnswers, and add a new column  “Position Review.” Label each position to decide whether vacant positions should be recruited, reused, or inactivated:

    • Filled - ‘In Budget’

    • Vacant - ‘Recturing’, ‘Re-use for __’ or ‘Inactivate.’

  • Shared ownership matters: breakout discussions emphasized partnering with managers and reviewing positions regularly to keep data accurate and sustainable.

Session Materials:

10/29/2025: Position Lifecycle Workflow

Session Summary: During this session, we explored how clear communication and intentional collaboration keep Position Management workflows running smoothly across units. Participants shared tangible practices like using shared Smartsheets or Google Sheets for real-time updates, scheduling regular check-ins with partners, and manually verifying data in Service Hub when needed. Spotlight presentations from the School of Public Health and Student Affairs highlighted the power of streamlined structures, centralized oversight, and proactive coordination between HR, Finance, and departments.

Session Materials:

9/22/2025: Project Charter & Position Lifecycles Framework Introduction

Session Summary: We discussed the mission, objectives, scope, and stakeholders for this Community of Practice. We defined the Position Lifecycle framework and, in breakout rooms, discussed our role(s) with the Position Lifecycle as well as where communication handoffs within the lifecycle, between units, break down.

Session Materials:

Topics