FWA Guidelines

Key to Reviewing an FWA Proposal Form

How might this proposed arrangement allow you to maintain or improve your individual performance?

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The Cancer Center doesn’t want to “raise the bar” higher for employees on FWAs than for employees on “regular” schedules. The employee’s response should show that the arrangement at least will not harm his or her performance. Ideally the arrangement will enhance the employee’s ability to do his or her job.

Look for evidence that the employee has thought through the ways in which this arrangement can affect the way work gets done.

Look for gains such as:

- increased access to customers
- improved quality of work
- improved quantity of work
- greater creativity

Be aware of any assumptions you have that might unfairly affect review of an FWA such as: "Meetings can only happen when everyone is in the same room together."

How might this proposed arrangement add value to the Cancer Center’s work?

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Look for demonstrated linkages to the business – such as:

- increased revenue
- decreased real estate costs
- enhanced customer service
- lowered payroll costs
- retention of highly-talented employees
- increased morale
- decreased absenteeism
- reduced tardiness

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Expect specific, measurable outcomes that can be used to determine the proposed business gain.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: “Business benefits take too long to kick in and will not affect my bottom line.”

What challenges could the proposed arrangement raise with: a) your manager b) your team or coworkers c) your internal customers and d) your external customers?

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Your assessment of this section should be based on the thoroughness of responses:

- Is there a clear understanding of who will be affected by the new arrangement?
- Are there concrete and accurate examples of the possible challenges?
- Consider checking with key people mentioned in the employee's response to be sure
their primary concerns are met.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: “I can’t imagine our customers would ever tolerate less than an immediate response. This couldn’t work here.”

What solution(s) would you propose to overcome each of the challenges raised in question 3?

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Make sure the employee has completely filled out this part of the form.

Look for specific, concrete and well-planned solutions.

An effective response will provide alternative solutions.

An effective response will also show how the solutions support the organization.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: “I can’t see any way around these problems – there are too many of them and they require too many changes for people to accept.”

What deliverables and measurements (qualitative and quantitative) do you propose that you and your manager use to assess your performance?

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Look for explicitly defined goals and objectives.

Work with the employee on fine-tuning the characteristics and behaviors that constitute performing well in the job.

Assess the quality of this response on its specificity, its reasonableness in terms of performance and timeline, and its ability to be measured.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: "We really don’t have any very precise way of measuring individual output and I doubt that this process will help.”

What review process do you propose that you and your manager use to constructively monitor and improve your flexible work arrangement?

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Does the employee include a timeline and specific standards for assessing the effectiveness of the FWA?

Consider getting feedback from the employee on your skill as a manager in managing the flexible work arrangement.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: “There’s no sense spending time on a different review process; we’ll go with what we have.”

What would be one or more early warning signs that this arrangement isn’t working?

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Encourage the employee to be explicit about responding to "worst-case scenarios."

Discuss with the employee the various constituencies that might be affected by the arrangement and consider possible negative effects.

Have the employee think about "warning signs" that might occur prior to the failure of the arrangement, and that would allow correction of the problem.

Be aware of negative assumptions such as: "Trying to guess what will be a warning sign is unnecessary. We will recognize that the arrangement is in trouble when it starts to happen.”