Benefits » Perks » Alternative Work Schedules Guide
Guide for Planning/Managing Alternative Work Schedules
Group-level management (or equivalent) with review and approval at division level
Division-level management (or equivalent) with review and approval at AD level
Step 1: Define business and programmatic needs.
- Define the mission of your organization.
- Identify your customer base.
- Who are your external customers?
- Who are your internal customers?
- What organizations do you regularly interact with?
- What are the customers'/stakeholders' expectations? Service expectations?
Step 2: Based on business and programmatic needs, identify internal considerations impacting work-schedule options (see Table 1 - pdf).
Programmatic Considerations
- Consider when and if operations (i.e., experiments/equipment maintenance) require concurrent availability of several employees or multiple skill sets.
- What are your safety and security considerations when determining work hours?
- Consider whether or not operations require frequent face-to-face interactions.
- Consider job functions and skill sets or knowledge of the employees (i.e., CREM library employees).
- Consider depth of coverage among employees. Will employees' knowledge base support effective coverage?
- Consider when extended work hours may serve customer sets more effectively.
Internal Considerations
- Consider workflow of group.
- Consider interdependencies among other LANL organizations.
- Consider partnerships with other groups to ensure coverage.
- Consider employees' past behaviors. Can they self-manage with limited supervision?
Step 3: Establish employee work schedules considering results from Steps 1 and 2
(see Table 2 - pdf).
- Define organization's operational hours.
- Consider group organization for schedule solutions:
- What is your group structure? Are there teams within your group?
- What is the administrative structure of your group?
- How large is your workforce?
- Determine work schedule needs to cover the organization's operational hours adequately to meet business needs and deliverables.
(Group-level management defines the work schedule for the respective work unit. An employee may request a work schedule that will optimize programmatic delivery and customer service. A manager may approve a work schedule for an employee only after considering all programmatic and business impacts and receiving approval on the organizational work schedule from the respective division- or Associate Director-level manager.)
- Inform/negotiate with customer.
- Obtain next level management approval.
Step 4: Negotiate and implement schedule (see Table 2 - pdf).
- Inform workforce about the work schedule options based on the needs of the work unit and negotiate the schedules that will support your programmatic objectives most effectively.
- Group-level manager proposes organizational schedules for final division-level review and approval.
Step 5: Enter the approved work schedule for your group into the Citrix system.
- The manager or group or division level administrator in your office must enter the group's new schedule into the Time and Effort (T&E) system.
- Final approval in the system will rest with the responsible group- or division-level manager.
Step 6: Continue to manage the work schedule.
- A group-level or skip-level (division or AD) manager may require an employee to change their work schedule at any point that the manager believes that programmatic needs or customer service are being negatively impacted by employee availability.
- When a worker requests a schedule change, a manager must assess the impact of the current employee work schedules and any proposed schedule changes on the group/work unit schedule before approving any requested changes.
