2025 was a standout year for CalHR! With passion, teamwork and a commitment to excellence, we delivered outstanding customer service to departments across the state, all while making big strides in improving our processes and procedures.
“These accomplishments wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication, time and work CalHR staff have put in,” said Monica Erickson, CalHR’s director. “Day in and day out, CalHR works hard to make our department and our state better. I am grateful for everything CalHR has done and continues to do. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish in 2026.”
Let’s take a look at our top highlights:
Class Consolidation Efforts: On Aug. 11, 2025, the State Personnel Board (SPB) approved the long-awaited Generalist Consolidation, which reduces 67 classes to 8 classes. The Generalist Consolidation will be effective Jan. 1, 2026, and it impacts roughly 30,000 Bargaining Unit 1 or related excluded positions at virtually every department. The Generalist Class Consolidation is the single largest state Human Resources streamlining initiative to be undertaken in California in decades. In 2025, CalHR also successfully completed several other major class modernization projects, including the Research Scientist Consolidation, Caltrans Maintenance Series updates, Health Facilities Evaluator series overhaul, Firefighter Paramedic consolidation, and the Peace Officer citizenship revisions. Together, these projects modernized another 36,904 jobs in civil service beyond the 30,000-job impact of the Generalist Consolidation.
Annual Conference and Forums: CalHR established the HR Policy Forums to foster collaboration and dialogue among HR professionals, department leaders and policy experts across the state. We held four quarterly forums on a variety of topics. Each drew over 150 participants and served as a vital platform for discussing key HR issues, ensuring every voice was heard and implementing changes because of the feedback received. The ECOS Mass Download feature is one major initiative that came from the feedback submitted by attendees. It will be available in early 2026.
Statewide Recruitment: CalHR made significant strides toward building a career pipeline driven by the belief that everyone deserves access to meaningful work. We have actively partnered with high schools, colleges, employment centers, media agencies and community organizations to reach underrepresented communities, veterans and individuals with disabilities. On Dec. 8, CalHR partnered with Assemblymembers Alex Lee and Patrick Aherns and County Supervisor Otto Lee of District 3 to host another successful Work4CA Bay Area Job Fair. Over 1,200 people registered to attend.
Resources for Wildfire Victims: When wildfires struck Southern California in January 2025, prompting a State of Emergency proclamation by Gov. Newsom, CalHR responded quickly to help affected state employees and the HR professionals who support them. CalHR launched a dedicated benefits resources webpage, which received 3,500 views in its first week, and by late February, it had been viewed a total of 7,650 times—demonstrating the value of the division’s ability to share timely, accessible benefits information during emergencies.
Defensive Driver Training Program: As part of the governor’s efficiency efforts, CalHR worked with the Department of General to transition the Defensive Driver Training to CalLearns. This effort continues to consolidate all mandatory training into a single platform. This course now delivers essential safety instruction to approximately 36,000 civil service employees each year, reinforcing CalHR’s commitment to providing consistent, high-quality statewide training.
Redesigned CalHR Website and Benie the Bot 2.0: In July 2025, CalHR launched a redesigned website that focused on user experience. The updated site features a modern, consistent design, simplified navigation and enhanced accessibility incorporated user feedback, and added language translation services. CalHR also upgraded Benie the Bot, a chatbot available 24/7. Engagement has since surged from 500 conversations in August 2025 to 4,500 conversations in September, with a 91% Customer Satisfaction Score, highlighting its value in providing timely and accessible benefits support.
Work4CA Enhancements: Since the refreshed Work for California (Work4CA) webpage launched, site traffic and engagement increased substantially, average monthly active users rose from the low thousands in 2024 to a peak of about 27.7k in summer 2025 with sessions reaching roughly 33.4k, driving a large uplift in new‑user accessing the site. CalHR added key capabilities to support and protect that growth: Work4CA forms were easy targets for bots due to their open accessibility and lack of verification controls. CalHR addressed this vulnerability by implementing CAPTCHA across all public forms and entry points. This added layer of protection effectively filters out non-human traffic and helps safeguard system performance and data integrity while maintaining a user-friendly experience. In addition, targeted content was published for federal employees outlining how to continue their civil service at the state level. This included dedicated pages that highlight open state positions comparable to federal positions; our partner resources that regularly host federal worker recruiting events; and an FAQ to make it easier for federal staff to navigate state hiring and onboarding. Together, these improvements strengthened security; increased event engagement and conversations; and provided clear, actionable guidance for federal workers exploring state careers.
Language Access Services: CalHR expanded statewide language assistance from 12 languages to 32 and distributed new informational posters for public offices. Californians experiencing language barriers can now leave a message, and the program coordinates for the appropriate department to respond with an interpreter. Since the expansion, 188 callers have received assistance, compared with 23 in the prior fiscal year.
CalCareers Call Center Modernization: CalHR successfully replaced its aging, legacy call center platform with a modern, cloud-based solution, delivering a transformative upgrade to how we support Californians using the CalCareers website. This modernization enhances system reliability, scalability and service delivery, while enabling new capabilities such as live chat support. The new platform also introduces enhanced call routing, call recording and screen recording features to support quality assurance and continuous improvement. Additionally, advanced analytics tools provide deeper insights into caller needs, enabling more personalized and effective service. This initiative was delivered at no additional cost to the department by leveraging a Quick Start service from an integration partner, which provided complimentary engineering resources to stand up the production environment.
CalHR Implements RTS: CalHR developed and implemented the Request Tracking System (RTS) after identifying a critical gap in how customer requests were being managed. Since its launch, RTS has supported the deployment of 28 workflows across seven divisions, with 12 more workflows currently in development and 35 additional requests in the backlog. To ensure continued progress and responsiveness, a dedicated product team has been established. This team operates within an agile framework, working closely with divisions to clear the backlog and deliver enhancements consistently. RTS has significantly improved transparency, accountability and cross-divisional collaboration, reinforcing CalHR’s commitment to customer service.
About CalHR
CalHR is responsible for all issues related to employee salaries and benefits, job classifications, civil rights, training, exams, recruitment and retention. For most employees, many of these matters are determined through the collective bargaining process managed by CalHR. For more information about CalHR, please visit our website.
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