Overview of the Process

General Description:

The workplan is an agreement between an employee and management outlining the employee's work contribution to the unit. It may be a standard workplan that matches other employees' workplans in the unit or it may be unique to a particular employee.

The workplan generally covers expectations for a full year. In some cases, a work cycle may cover less than one year. (You will find more information on situations where a reduced work cycle applies in the next section of the guide: Writing the Original Workplan.)

As a supervisor, you will probably be working with and revising existing workplans more often than writing new ones.

Usage:

Typically, this is how you will use workplans:

• Your current employees have existing workplans, so you will only need to review and update the plans once a year for most employees.
• If one of your employees takes on some new duties, you will need to revise the workplan to cover the remainder of the plan year.
• If an employee starts having trouble meeting established expectations, develop an "Improvement Plan" to supplement the existing workplan.
• If you get a new position that will have unique duties in relation to what your other employees do, you may have to create a workplan "from scratch."

Making It Work:

Workplans contain "Performance Expectations" that you and the employee discuss. The expectations spell out what employees should accomplish and what behaviors, skills, or competencies they need to accomplish those expectations in a work cycle. (These are listed as "Results Expectations" and "Behavioral Expectations" on the form. You'll find specific instructions on these components later in this guide.)

As you go through the specifics of creating or reviewing workplans, you'll learn that it is not possible or desirable to list every task an employee may do during the cycle. Often, the specific tasks are covered in operations manuals or other documents. You may also find that it is impossible to include all elements of the job description in the workplan. To make the workplan a useful planning and evaluation tool, strive to make it short enough to be manageable. Long workplans are difficult to track and hard to document.

In the rest of this guide, you will see how to create thorough but manageable workplans for all of your employees.

The following is an abbreviated sample workplan that should give you a good overview of a complete workplan. It does not include all of the Key Responsibilities/Results or Dimensions that would make up a full workplan, but it should give you a good sample of the types of information you would find on a workplan. You will find detailed instructions on completing each of these sections in the rest of this guide.

Workplan Example:

Magda is a Budget Analyst who juggles requests from a number of customers. Her supervisor has completed the workplan through the ratings and comments sections at one of her yearly appraisals.

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