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The Progress

Occupational Panels Underway

Occupational Panels Underway – 5 Things You Should Know

An occupational panel is a structured discussion session that brings together employees.

As part of the ongoing Compensation and Pay Equity Project, we’ve entered a key phase: Occupational Panels are now in progress.

1: What’s an Occupational Panel?

These are small group discussions with employees who perform similar work across different departments. Led by our partners at Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc., the panels are designed to dig deeper into the day-to-day responsibilities, decision-making, and qualifications tied to each role.

They build on the information you shared earlier through the Position Description Questionnaires (PDQs) and help ensure that job classifications reflect the real work being done across the County.

2: Why It Matters

Harris County has a large and complex classification system—over 4,000 job titles and nearly 900 job codes for more than 18,000 employees. That level of complexity can make it difficult to maintain consistency in pay, job expectations, and career growth. These panels support our goal of building a clearer, more accurate, and fairer classification structure.

3: Who’s Participating?

Participants have already been selected for this round. Gallagher identified these roles based on a few key factors, including:

  • The complexity of the job
  • Inconsistencies or gaps in PDQ responses
  • The need for better clarity within key job families

4: This round includes roles such as:

  • Court Coordinators
  • Executive Assistants
  • Contract and Communications Coordinators
  • Staff Services and Strategy Managers
  • Case Aides, Assistant Auditors, and HR support roles

Policy Advisors

These examples represent just a portion of the positions included. To see the full list of roles involved in this round of panels, you can click here to view more.

⚠️ Please note: Not every job will have a panel. Only positions that needed additional clarity for classification purposes were selected for this phase.

5: What’s Next?

Gallagher will use the insights gathered through the panels to help refine our job classifications and better align roles across departments. This feedback will be integrated into draft classification structures that will be reviewed by leadership later in the process.

While there’s no action needed from most employees at this time, we want to keep you informed as we move through this important work. Your participation earlier in the project helped set the foundation for where we are now, and we’ll continue to share updates as the project progresses.

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