Community Work Agreement, plus info on Survey-Based Work System

Work 2004-02-16

Summary:

Community Work Agreement, plus info on Survey-Based Work System

Background:

This proposal lays out the basic assumptions and parameters of Great Oak's Community Work System, without specifying the details, which we expect to change over time. We believe that it is important to have some basic agreements about work, so that all of us, as well as new members joining in the future, have an agreed-upon foundation on which to build a work-sharing system that will evolve as we learn from experience.

Proposal:

We agree on the following basic points regarding community work:

- All work that needs to happen is our responsibility, either to do ourselves, or to hire someone else to do.
- All adult members (see definition of Members) of Great Oak will take responsibility for their share of the work of running the community. Non-member residents are welcome to participate in the community work system.
- We agree as a community that the work that needs to be done includes:
- Participation in community meetings
- Participation in one or more committees
- Participation in community work days
- Participation in the community work system, which is an evolving system of sharing the remaining work among community members and ensuring that the community's essential work is accomplished efficiently and effectively.
- Over time with hands-on experience, we expect to change and edit the tasks that need to be done and the systems we create to distribute the work.
- We will try to the accommodate the special needs of workers, including differing abilities and scheduling complexities.
- There will be times in all of our lives when we personally cannot meet our work expectations (such as illness, change in family composition, extended time away, etc). It is our hope that each adult member will take responsibility for her/his own conflict, and work with others in the community to find a mutually acceptable solution to fulfill their work hours.
- We do not expect people who miss their work expectations because of extenuating circumstances to "make up" the work that they miss. But we do expect members to communicate their situation as soon as possible to the appropriate responsible person(s) (probably the Work Coordinators), so that someone else can be found to do the work.
- The GO-Work Committee will be responsible for implementing the system that members will use to sign-up for tasks and that system will evolve over time as we gain experience with what and how tasks need to be performed.

Pros
� This proposal establishes a foundation of agreement about community work.
� Future members will be able to read this and know what are the basic parameters of shared work at Great Oak.
� These points of agreement are based on personal responsibility and flexibility regarding changing life situations.

Cons
� We may have overlooked an important point of agreement.
� As things change with time, we may find that one or more of these points no longer fits our community's needs.
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Part II - Survey-Based Community Work System - this was discussed but was not part of the formal consensed-on policy above.

Background
Over the past few months, the GO-Work Committee has developed several iterations of a vision for how we might organize the work of our community. The following describes a Survey-Based Community Work System, and many of the details associated with it. We expect this system to change over time as we learn from experience.

Goals of the Survey-Based Community Work System
� To devise a flexible plan by which we can efficiently and effectively accomplish the work of our community
� To maximize the happiness of the workers
� To create a system that is as transparent as possible, so that everyone can easily find out what is going on.

Description of Survey-Based Community Work System
Every three months (quarterly), members and participating non-members will fill out a web-based survey based on a current Task List. On the survey, workers will indicate their level of interest in doing each task, on a scale ranging from �I really want to do this" to �No, I don't want to do this under any circumstances." People will also have the option of saying that they �are willing to do any job that is needed." GO-Work Committee members or the Work Coordinators will assist any worker who is not able or does not want to complete the survey on line.

The Work Coordinators will go through the list of workers one by one, matching each worker to the available job that he/she most wants to do. This process will be repeated until all jobs are assigned. Some tweaking may be necessary to try to equalize the number of hours assigned to each person, and in order to maximize worker happiness.

At the end of this process will have a list of tasks and the workers assigned to them. This will be posted in the Common House.

Trading Tasks
People may trade tasks anytime as long as they update the posted work list for everyone's information.

How was the Task List created?
A list of tasks and estimated hours to complete them has been developed, based on 1) information about Sunward's task list; 2) information submitted by GO committees; 3) community feedback on a draft list distributed to all households. The Great Oak work system includes tasks associated with Common Meals (see Community Meal Proposal). The task list does not include participation in community meetings, regular committee work, or participation in community work days. Note: hours of work are estimated totals for one month.

Role of Committees
� to play an active role in updating the evolving task list, adding and subtracting tasks as our needs change
� to instigate and organize Community Work Days as needed. These can be small or large-scale.
� to serve as a resource for workers who are experiencing difficulties with tasks in the committee's area
� while general service on committees does not figure into the calculation of work hours in the Survey-Based Community Work System, the system does provide 2 hours credit for most committee convenors, to acknowledge the importance of their leadership roles and the extra work that this position may entail, and 2 hours of committee contingency time, which committees may use for unusually time-consuming tasks or projects as they come up.

Community Work Days
During our weekend retreat with Shari Leach, we talked about �all hands on deck" community work days, perhaps two per year. This generated extensive discussion about what to do when people can't participate for scheduling or other reasons. We recommend that we have more, smaller community work days, especially in the early days of the community when there will be many special projects. This will make it easier to overcome scheduling conflicts, and enable people to participate in projects that interest them.

Job Descriptions
It will be important for workers to generate and update job descriptions for their tasks. This will save time for the next person. Ideally, job descriptions will be posted on the Wiki site. People who do not use the Wiki should develop and update a written job description and submit this to the Work Coordinators. The GO-Work Committee will develop a template for Job Descriptions.

Longer-term tasks (�Perennials").
Some tasks will be more effectively carried out if one person does them for longer than one quarter, sometimes much longer. These are tasks involving acquired knowledge and ongoing familiarity, such as Treasurer and Bookkeeping Coordinator.

Seasonality of Work
Work sign-ups will occur quarterly, which is to say, seasonally. This is because of the seasonal nature of many tasks. The Task List we circulated included ALL the tasks we have identified, regardless of season. The actual survey you fill out will only have the tasks for the approaching quarter listed. Each quarter's survey will therefore be slightly different, and the total number of hours may vary.

Work Coordinators, Area Coordinators, and Point People
To begin we recommend that we have two perennial Work Coordinators who will try to solve problems and recommend changes to this first attempt at sharing the community's work. We have also created numerous Coordinator and Point Person positions. In general, a Coordinator organizes people, while a Point Person provides information. For example, the CH Clean-Up Coordinator will help organize the many people who will work on cleaning the Common House, while the Grounds Tools Maintainer & Point Person will not just maintain the tools, but also provide information to users about how the tools function, where they are stored, etc.

Problem Solving
When workers have problems figuring out how to do their assignments, they should
1. Consult the job description and possibly the people who have done this job in the past
2. Ask their area Coordinator or Point Person for assistance
3. Consult with their area Committee Convenor, who may take the issue to the Committee
4. Ask the Work Coordinators for help
5. When all else fails, an issue may be brought to the community for resolution.
However, during the early stages of the work system, workers should let the Work Coordinators know about problems so that they can keep track of what the issues are. Eventually, we hope to see people moving toward solving their own problems.

Community Meal System as part of Community Work.
Community meals are often called the �glue that holds cohousing together." Community meals are clearly a benefit to the community.
This is comparable to other items that the community agreed were benefits to the community, but that not every individual directly benefits from or uses, such as childcare, community garden, laundry, play structure, game room, exercise room, media room, eventual workshop, etc. When people are choosing their community work, they can choose whether to do their work hours in the meal program. For example, if �Betty" does not want to do her community labor in the kitchen, she can choose to snowplow. Eating is optional.

Important reasons for including meal-related work in the community work system include:
� Many hands make light work. With more workers, each person will need to work fewer shifts in the kitchen.
� People who don't like to work in the kitchen can still eat. They simply direct their labor to other community needs.
� A consistent number of meals is assured, with no drop off as people drop out of the meal system.
� A strong Community Meal Program will help maintain the health of the community by providing frequent opportunities for people to talk and interact in a relaxed setting.

How many hours will each person work?
The number of hours will change slightly with each quarter, because of the seasonality of some tasks. The number will also continue to change slightly as we add and subtract tasks from the Task List. Our best guess right now is that, including work associated with Common Meals (see Community Meal Proposal) but not Community Meetings, basic Committee work, or Community Work Days, each worker will need to contribute approximately 8 hours of work per month.

Next Steps
1. Complete the Task List based on community feedback
2. Integrate Task List into web-based survey
3. Test-run the web-based survey on some willing community member �guinea pigs"
4. Roll out the web-based survey to all workers
5. Help non-web users to complete their survey
6. Assign tasks based on preference, then massage and tweak as needed
7. Post work assignments
8. Start working!

Timeline
Realistically, the best we can say is: as soon as possible!

Pros
� The community has provided lots of feedback in the development of this system, so we hope this will translate into buy-in
� This system seeks to both get the work done, and keep people as happy as possible
� It's almost ready to roll out, and we need to get started, even if the system is not perfect.

Cons
� This system does not include a job fair event, which some felt would be fun and community-building
� Cross-training depends on written job descriptions, although informal consultations with past task-holders are certainly possible
� We don't know yet what will happen if there are some tasks that NO ONE wants to do
� At some point, we may run into conflict over which tasks should be included in community work and which should not be. Hope that day is far off!

Comments:

Also discussed on 2/4/2004

Process Comments:

1 stand aside