These new standardized performance elements require the standardization of some processes and procedures currently in place at some agencies and centers. These processes and procedures include:

• For a passport specialist who works a regular 8 hour day - 7 hours is the standard amount of time per day to be used to calculate hourly production for counter or desk adjudication workload production. (Time when the employee is assigned to other tasks or otherwise not accounted for will, of course, be subtracted.)
• For a passport specialist who works a 9 hour compressed day - 8 hours is the standard amount of time per day to be used to calculate hourly counter or desk adjudication workload production.
• For a passport specialist who works a 10 hour compressed day (NPC) - 9 hours is the standard amount of time per day to be used to calculate counter or desk adjudication workload production.
• Complex adjudication cases are not to be factored out of productive workload. Time spent on these cases is to be counted in the hourly desk or counter adjudication workload production calculations. If an employee has an especially time-consuming case (or cases), he/she may let his/her supervisor know, to account for an unusually low production period. However, over time, we expect the distribution of labor-intensive cases to be balanced enough as to not adversely affect anyone's rating. Additionally, the production standards are to be used to evaluate employee performance over the course of an entire rating period. They are not quotas that have to be met every hour or every day.
• EF work is also to be counted in the hourly desk adjudication workload production totals.
• Counter work that already has been adjudicated is not to be counted in the hourly desk adjudication production of passport specialists who "machine adjudicate" it.
• Suspense "comeback" work, applicant response, holds assignments and rewrites/reissues/refiles are not to be counted in the hourly desk or counter adjudication workload production totals. (However, when an application is initially adjudicated and placed in suspense, it will count towards production.)
• Suspense work, applicant response and rewrites/reissues/refiles are to be handled by a centralized unit within the agency. Passport specialists are to be rotated into this assignment.
• Routine "washouts" and "holds" that can be resolved based on the information returned by namecheck and in the application are to be handled by all passport specialists as part of productive workload. However, all "holds" that need to be taken "off-line" until additional information is received are to be handled by a centralized unit within the agency. Passport specialists are to be rotated into this assignment.
• Initially, production standards for centralized suspense, hold, re-write, re-file and reissue work will not be established. However, passport specialists' performance in terms of knowledge demonstrated, customer service and fraud detection will be evaluated when they perform these tasks.
• Fraud and ID problem cases - Passport Specialists, at all grade levels, are to be given the opportunity to develop fraud cases. Time spent developing this type of case before it is forwarded to the fraud unit is not to be excluded from specialists' productive time.
• GS-11s are to be rotated into the Customer Service and Fraud offices at least once during each rating year, where size of staff permits. In cases where staff size does not permit annual rotations, rotations should be equitably distributed and no senior passport specialist should rotated more than once until all others have had an opportunity. (This does not preclude assigning a seasoned GS-11 to act as the FPM or CSM during his/her absence.)