WHAT IS FLSA?
Employees are often in the best position to identify the most
economical and efficient ways to deliver services.
This principle is the basis of Facilitator-Led Self-Assessment.
Internal review communities in Canada, the United States and other countries are
using FLSA to help managers and employees evaluate their key business processes
by analysing risks and associated controls.
As our commitment to quality services, quality products and
satisfying client expectations becomes more important, we should not limit FLSA
to evaluating processes and controls. We can also use it to analyse operational
performance, quality, program results, value systems, and general business
practices.
FLSA helps to identify what is working well and what needs
improvement within major internal processes, while providing the flexibility to
respond quickly to problems.
Most organizations that practise FLSA follow a structured
process based on control models or quality criteria that reviewers and their
clients use as a frame of reference to communicate effectively and promote a
culture of continuous improvement.
Some models currently in use include COSO (Committee of
Sponsoring Organizations) in the United States, Cadbury (Internal Control and
Financial Reporting) in the United Kingdom, and CoCo (Canadian Institute of
Chartered Accountants' Criteria of Control Committee). A few organizations use
customized processes that include quality criteria based on those for the United
States' Baldridge Award.
Generally, FLSA uses workshops in which teams of employees and
their supervisors do an analysis of their organization's operations. Review
professionals often act as facilitators, coaches and change agents because of
their knowledge of quality measurement criteria, risks and controls.
Utilizing the Institute of Internal Auditors' universal business
risks, FLSA is an open and creative process in which staff at all levels take
part. The workshops can offer managers an action plan or recommendations to make
improvements.
WHY SELF-ASSESSMENT?
FLSA helps reviewers to serve their clients better and identify
issues that might otherwise go undetected. It's an incentive-based approach that
is proactive because it gives employees the opportunity to identify the issues.
It encourages employees to work together:
- to better define their objectives and activities;
- to identify and evaluate the risks in every major activity;
- to identify and evaluate the formal and informal controls required to
minimize significant risks;
- to improve results;
- to foster quality management; and
- to increase the employees' knowledge and awareness of controls and risk
assessment.
WHAT MAKES IT WORK?
Key to FLSA`s success is the skill of the review facilitators.
Organizations must screen candidates carefully to ensure they have the right
interpersonal skills and have had suitable training in facilitation techniques.
Other factors in the success of self-assessment are:
- senior management backing;
- a supportive environment;
- solid planning;
- the sound documentation of facts;
- a good quality assurance framework for the process;
- formal reporting and follow-up; and
- feedback to participants.
We have developed a guide for FLSA facilitators as part of the
Treasury Board Secretariat's Stretching the Tax Dollar series. The guide
helps participants measure the efficiency and effectiveness of their
self-assessment process. An electronic version will be available on the Treasury
Board's October 1995 CD-ROM and online via RésSourceNet. For information on
obtaining an electronic version of the guide, please contact the Planning and
Communications Directorate, Treasury Board Secretariat at (613) 957-2421.
For more information about FLSA, please contact Basil Orsini,
chairperson, Interdepartmental Self-Assessment Working Group at (613) 954-7834.
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