This article is the final installment in a three-part series on the EEO-1 Report and EEOC Compliance The key to filing a timely and accurate report is educating yourself on Equal Employment... Visit site for full story...

Can your employees track their daily performance, or do they have to wait for a manager review? Do they know where they need training or when they excel at a process? In this manager’s dilemma, I walk through a "Peer Productivity Comparison" Dashboard in WorkiQ, explain how desktop analytics can help your employees diagnose their own performance. This workforce analytics dashboard displays: The number of work processes a single user completed over several days. (ie. insurance claim, IT ticket, enrollment application, etc.) The average time this user needed to complete each work processes. The average time this user spent performing defined tasks (sub-processes) within a process each day. This same information above for the user’s team, so each employee can compare performance to their peers. Request WorkiQ Demo The post Managers Dilemma: How can employees compare performance? appeared first on WorkiQ Blog.

Posted by Christine Schaefer The journey to excellence of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) might be traced all the way back to the company’s beginning in 1999. The 2012 Baldrige Award-winning manufacturer, based in Grand Prairie, Texas, was created that year out of two company units. Those units had "distinctly different cultures, processes, business models, and systems," according to James F. Berry, MFC’s president from 1997 to 2012. But the management team of the new company "embarked on a journey to create leaner common processes, an optimized culture, a consistent business model, and common business systems," said Berry. "Foundational to our successful performance throughout this journey has been the talent and engagement of our employees," he added. "This company spends considerable time interacting with our employees at every level. We strive to ensure that our employees have careers rather than jobs." As a result of this focus, nearly 85 percent of MFC employees in 2011 reported being proud to work for MFC, outperforming a national benchmark of 82 percent. MFC also boasts a high employee retention rate—95 percent and 94 percent in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The company considers its low turnover rate, the lowest in its industry, an indicator of employee engagement. During the Baldrige Program’s 25th Annual Quest for Excellence® Conference in Baltimore, Berry joined other senior leaders of 2012 Baldrige Award recipients in celebrating performance excellence and sharing best practices. As a Baldrige Award recipient, MFC is showing its commitment to helping other organizations improve and excel by widely sharing its seven principles for performance excellence. Watch a video in which Berry discusses highlights of MFC’s success story here. And look for more posts about MFC and the other three 2012 Baldrige Award recipients here on Blogrige soon!

Posted by Christine Schaefer For those who wish to learn more about performance excellence from senior leaders of role-model organizations, this post is the first in a four-part series sharing insights from senior leaders of Baldrige Award-winning organizations. Speaking at the Baldrige Program’s recent 25th Anniversary Gala, each leader described the value of the Baldrige framework and core values in their organizations and sectors. Cargill Kitchen Solutions President Chris Roberts expressed appreciation for the positive impact of Baldrige principles in both his professional life and his personal life. Roberts’s Cargill business unit—formerly known as Sunny Fresh Foods—received the Baldrige Award in both 1999 and 2005. Cargill Kitchen Solutions President Chris Roberts Speaking of the variety of U.S. organizations today that produce high-quality products and services while guided by use of the Baldrige framework for performance excellence, Roberts remarked, "Who would have ever thought that the worlds of fiber optics, dental and financial products, health care, and academia could be influenced by a simple yet powerful idea cultivated each year by both the Baldrige Program and NIST?" Roberts recalled that while he has benefited for years in his personal life from use of products such as cars and computing technologies of companies with a Baldrige-based focus on quality, he was formally introduced to the Baldrige principles just seven years ago as a member of the Cargill Corn Milling business leadership team. At that time, "I began to learn the formal practices of an organization that went about its daily business of buying, converting, making, moving, innovating, and selling all based on the Baldrige principles," he said. "Suddenly I understood the secret sauce, as some would call it, as I viewed the power of an engaged team linked to a thoughtful strategy which came to life countless times each day in factories, terminals, offices, and facilities, day and night, in good weather and bad, no matter what." Roberts then recalled his participation in the self-assessment and award application process that resulted in Cargill Corn Milling’s becoming a Baldrige Award recipient in 2008. "I realize that I’m a much better leader today," he said, "because I deeply understand the value of a business built on a sound mission, vision, and values; visionary leadership; relentless customer focus; clear and transparent communication; continuous learning; agility; thoughtful planning; and innovation—all linked to the power of a team of engaged stakeholders who are responsible citizens in the communities in which they both work and live." "I get to live those values each day as the current president of Cargill Kitchen Solutions, a two-time Baldrige Awardee," he added. Roberts challenged Baldrige Award recipients both past and present to "stay the course" because "there is a consumer, a patient, a student, a neighbor, or a close friend whose lives we are impacting every day." "Each day, if we relentlessly live by these principles" and "do what we do best," he suggested, "one of them could be standing before us [as leader of a Baldrige Award recipient] 25 years from today." Inspired by Roberts, I hope that I have the privilege 25 years from today of being at a Baldrige Award ceremony where leaders of role-model organizations of every sector tell of how the Criteria have helped sustain them and the entire U.S. economy at world-class levels of excellence. The next post in this series will share insights on excellence from Terry Holliday, former superintendent of Iredell-Statesville (NC) Schools, a 2008 Baldrige Award recipient. See and share more photos and a slide show from the Baldrige 25th anniversary gala and award ceremony.

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey One of my favorite educators was my high school American history teacher because I remember really learning something. Rather than taking primarily written tests, we often reenacted notable moments in history, and our tests came from how well we understood the issues facing our characters. In my mind, it allowed us to learn versus just memorize the history, and the assumption was that no matter the complexities of the situation, we all could learn. Today, one of my favorite educators to hear speak is Terry Holliday, commissioner of education at the Kentucky Department of Education. And lucky for me, he is also a Baldrige-Award-winning superintendent from Iredell-Statesville Schools who recently presented at the Baldrige 25th Anniversary Gala. Educators must have "a firm belief that every child can achieve and have a brighter tomorrow" said Holliday. If you believe that every child can learn, and with the help of tools such as the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence, students who might otherwise not graduate can turn their lives around. Holliday told the story of watching a young lady in Statesville, North Carolina, who had two children and who had originally dropped out of high school accept her high school diploma. "She was headed toward a life of drugs, crime, and public support," said Holliday. "Our team [members] at [Baldrige Award recipient Iredell-Statesville] analyzed the data. They developed an approach for an alternative program. They built relationships with students and parents. They created day-to-day processes and capacity building throughout the organization. The end result was that this young lady was the first in her family to graduate from high school, and a life headed toward hardship had been redirected toward a life filled with pride and productivity." Holliday said this systematic, data-driven approach to help this young lady and others like her was due to the school system’s use of the Baldrige Education Criteria. "I truly believe that children have benefited due to the Baldrige Criteria," he said. Now the commisioner of education in Kentucky, Holliday said that using a systemic and systematic approach, Kentucky became the first state in the nation to adopt common course standards that ensure benchmarking against international compeittors. "Kentucky was the first state to implement these standards, assess these standards, and get a waiver from [No Child Left Behind] based on these standards," he said. "In the past, many students who graduated from high school in Kentucky had to take remediation courses in college. Only one in three kids were ready for college and careers. We’ve now raised that bar in Kentucky and we’re going to double that percentage by 2015." Holliday also shared his experience attending Baldrige training and serving as an examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. "There were two things that I learned that I would never forget: ADLI and LeTCI [evaluation factors used by Baldrige examiners: approach-deployment-learning-integration and levels-trends-comparisons-integration]. So I used those throughout my career and use them today in education. We’re always looking for a silver bullet. We think if we just get a little bit more money or this new program in place we can solve all of the academic problems of all of our children, but the only silver bullet I ever found was hard work; systemic, systematic approaches; done with data-driven decision making, so you have to have humility and feedback loops, and you’ve got to integrate what you learned throughout the K-12 system." At the conclusion of his Baldrige 25th-anniversary speech, Holliday said, "I thank you, the Baldrige community, for providing this educator and many like me, inspiration, determination, knowledge, skills, and a firm belief that every child can achieve and have a brighter tomorrow. . . . So on behalf of the thousands of potential drop outs from Iredell-Statesville Schools who have graduated; on behalf of the hundreds of Special Education, African American, and Hispanic children at Iredell-Statesville who have closed the achievement gap. . . . and on behalf of 4,500 additional high school graduates in the class of 2012 in Kentucky who graduated high school and were career ready, I say happy twenty-fifth and I’ll see you all for the fiftieth." For me, this focus that each and every child can achieve and learn is as inspirational as it gets in education. What has been your inspiration for helping children learn? This post is the second in a four-part series providing highlights from senior leaders’ speeches at the Baldrige Program’s 25th anniversary celebration. See and share more photos and a slide show from the 25th anniversary gala and award ceremony.    

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey This post is part of a series sharing insights from senior leaders of Baldrige Award-winning organizations. Speaking at the Baldrige Program’s recent 25th Anniversary Gala, each leader described the value of the Baldrige framework and core values in their organizations and sectors. To achieve excellence in your nonprofit organization, whether a government or charity or other type of nonprofit, "simply do what makes sense for your business" was the advice of Bruce Kintz, president of Concordia Publishing House (CPH), a 2011 Baldrige Award recipient. Thirteen years ago, when its quality journey began, CPH, the publishing arm of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, had "difficulties." Kintz, whose experience came from the aerospace industry, grew up in the church body and was proud, he said, when he was asked to come serve and turn the publishing house around; "I thought what better time than now." "When I . . . came to Concordia Publishing House, we had difficulties," Kintz said. "There were internal process issues, external customer issues, and I had been trained to be a good engineer, to design solutions . . . supervise, unionize workers, etcetera. But I had taken a lot of leadership courses, so I had remembered that [the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence] was part and parcel of my training, my background, my development, my success. When I thought about this nonprofit publisher [CPH] though, I wasn’t quite sure if I could do it. We were literally at zero. No understanding of the Criteria. We started at ground zero." Kintz said it was his and CPH’s greatest desire to best serve their customers—the pastors and the teachers who teach our children. "They are the reason we embarked on the journey, and our customers will be the reason that we continue to follow this journey long into the future," he added. "I can safely tell you that the Criteria changed the future of CPH. We [now] operate with an efficiency that we never had before, with a precision that we never had before. . . . Our pursuit of learning and sharing and growing together . . . the job is never done. It’s not easy to win [the Baldrige Award], but it’s not about the award. It’s about the growth, the continuous improvement, the journey—no small task but it’s worth it." During its 13-year journey from an organization with difficulties to a role-model nonprofit organization, Kintz said CPH saw slow, steady progress using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence as a guide. We used "no stop watch," he said. "We simply said ‘Let’s do what makes sense for our business.’ We all watch our industries shift, our customers’ needs evolve, and our competitors struggle and downsize. But standing strong, our commitment to the Baldrige Criteria has ensured that we’re not only going to survive but that we will thrive." Kintz added his recommendation of the Baldrige Criteria for use by nonprofit organizations, "Baldrige winners see improvements in the quality of their products and services, which leads to productivity in their workforce, a strategic plan for sustainability. This all results in customer loyalty. Isn’t . . . that what it is all about?" This post is the third in a four-part series providing highlights from senior leaders’ speeches at the Baldrige Program’s 25th anniversary celebration. See and share more photos and a slide show from the 25th Anniversary Gala and award ceremony.

Posted by Christine Schaefer As the senior leader of a Baldrige Award-winning health care organization, Rulon Stacey has often spoken passionately of the positive impacts of adopting the Baldrige framework for performance excellence. He did so again at this year’s silver anniversary gala of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. "I can stand before you and say without a doubt that there are people alive today who otherwise would not have been were it not for the Baldrige journey of the Poudre Valley Health System," he told the gala audience. University of Colorado Health President Rulon Stacey Stacey led Poudre Valley Health System to earn a Baldrige Award in 2008. Today he is president of University of Colorado Health, which now includes Poudre Valley Health System. He also currently chairs the Baldrige Program’s Board of Overseers. At the Baldrige anniversary gala, Stacey spoke of Poudre Valley Health System’s journey to excellence through use of the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence beginning in 1997. "Baldrige helped us find a new path; we learned not to be content with average," he said. After noting that the Baldrige Program "continues to transform our nation’s businesses, schools, and health care," Stacey reflected on how much the world has changed over the 25 years of the Baldrige Program, especially in health care. He described how his own organization has grown over those years "from a small community hospital serving a single town in northern Colorado" to a "nationally recognized, academic health system with 5 hospitals and more than 15,000 employees, spanning 200 miles from Wyoming to southern Colorado." "None of us in health care or any other industry can predict what the next 25 years will bring," said Stacey, "but we know that we are going to need visionary leaders who guide and sustain their organization, understand their customers, and strategically plan for the future." "We are going to need an engaged workforce and effective processes to deliver customer value and drive organizational success," he said. "We are going to need ways to manage and mine the ever-increasing amount of data information bombarding us in the digital age," he added, "so that we can deliver world-class products, world-class services, delight our customers, and provide the financial return we need to ensure sustainability." "Isn’t that in the end the Baldrige framework? Isn’t that what we have been developing for 25 years?" he asked. "Time and time again we have all witnessed the power of that framework," he said. "We’ve witnessed it as it transformed struggling organizations into national role models or set an average organization on the road to excellence." How has your organization benefitted from use of the Baldrige framework? This post is the fourth in a four-part series providing highlights from senior leaders’ speeches at the Baldrige Program’s 25th anniversary celebration. See and share more photos and a slide show from the 25th anniversary gala and award ceremony.

Posted by Christine Schaefer This summer witnessed the founding of Performance Excellence Northwest (PENW).  This regional Baldrige-based program is now ready to serve U.S. businesses and nonprofit, education, and health care organizations located in the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. With this development, the total number of state, regional, and sector-specific programs throughout the United States that belong to the Alliance for Performance Excellence has reached 35. In addition, the Alliance recently welcomed its first internationally based member program: Max India Group. The Alliance is a key partner with the national Baldrige Performance Excellence Program in what has become known in recent years as the Baldrige Enterprise. The Alliance member programs, like the national program, administer awards and provide assessments and feedback to help organizations improve their performance using the Criteria for Performance Excellence. Thus, in addition to greatly extending the reach of the national Baldrige Program in helping organizations improve their performance, the Alliance programs serve as an applicant feeder system for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the prestigious, Presidential prize for excellence. "We are excited and appreciate this opportunity to better support our current customers and develop regional partnerships to support excellence in the Pacific Northwest," says Deborah Ameen, newly appointed executive director of PENW. Ameen is a national Baldrige examiner who also has been a judge in the California Council for Excellence (CCE) and in the previous Washington state program. "It is important that we can learn and share with such a group of high-performing Baldrige-focused organizations that the Alliance represents," says Prashant Hoskote, senior director of quality and service excellence at Max India Group. "The Alliance is an elite group of professionals with whom we share a common journey." As noted on Blogrige before, the network of Baldrige-based Alliance programs helps ensure excellence in U.S. organizations of every size and sector from "sea to shining sea." We hope to see this network continue growing excellence across America and beyond, benefitting residents of far-flung cities and states, customers of service and manufacturing businesses and nonprofits alike, patients of health care organizations large and small, and students in schools from the earliest grades through college.

Posted by Christine Schaefer How have the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence helped one of the nation’s largest and most powerful nonprofit lobbying organizations to enhance its performance? Jo Ann Jenkins, chief operating officer of AARP, Inc., and past president of the AARP Foundation, participated in the Baldrige Executive Fellows program in 2012. In the interview below, she shares key insights and results of her learning through the Fellows Program to use the Baldrige framework to boost leadership practices and her organization’s drive toward excellence. What are some of the drivers for your participation in the Baldrige Executive Fellows program? How did you learn of this program, and how do you think your participation has benefitted AARP? I have always believed that the Baldrige Executive Fellows program is an opportunity for transformational growth—from both an organizational and a personal perspective. A colleague of mine was a former Baldrige Fellow, and my boss—the CEO of AARP (A. Barry Rand)—previously led an organization (Xerox) to become a two-time winner of the Baldrige Award. After I joined the AARP Foundation as president in 2010, they both encouraged me to participate in the program—and I’m glad that I pursued the opportunity. As a Fellow, I was able to establish invaluable connections and garner insights into how other leading organizations—both private and public—are developing and implementing innovative, effective strategies in support of operational excellence and leadership development. In my current role as chief operating officer of AARP, I’ve been able to tap many of the other leaders in my cohort and draw on the diversity of perspectives and experiences they offer. Jo Ann Jenkins What are some of your key learnings about the Baldrige framework (the Criteria for Performance Excellence) and organizations that have used this framework? How did your perceptions change (if applicable) as you learned more about Baldrige as a Fellow? My experience as a Baldrige Executive Fellow exceeded my expectations of the program. It is much more than a program about organizational performance; it also delves into the discipline and leadership skills required to create and sustain a world-class organization. A significant insight that is often undervalued is that the leadership and senior management must model their organization’s mission consistently, with passion and enthusiasm. They must truly "walk the talk"—particularly during times of change. Change is more than just sending directives via e-mail and mandating that people do things differently. Effective change really does happen from the top down and swells from the ground up. Leaders must be willing to communicate and model the change in an ongoing, transparent, and consistent manner. Tell us about the latest improvement efforts at AARP; how has your organization been using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence? The Baldrige framework challenges us to think and act strategically and make an unvarnished assessment of our staff, structure, and resources to ensure that we operate from a position of strength, which allows us to achieve our mission. The Baldrige Criteria have guided how we approach our planning processes and build capacity with a focus on developing skilled practitioners. The Baldrige Criteria were instrumental in driving our organization to seek and listen to the voices of those we serve. It’s not enough to just provide programs and services to struggling seniors and older adults—we need to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our clients in ways that are appropriate and satisfying to them. With the Baldrige Criteria as our guide, we have implemented a customer feedback loop for all of our programs and for the volunteers that serve in our programs. It is providing us with actionable feedback that allows us to excel at living up to our mission. What do you see as the key challenges for large nonprofits today, and how do you think these might be overcome? Nonprofit organizations—no matter their size—are faced with delivering services in a cost-effective manner, while ensuring quality and meaningful impact. Too often, nonprofits have limited staffs or have historical approaches, which hinder innovative approaches and optimization to better meet their mission. With the ongoing changes in technology, tighter funding sources, and increased competition to reach donors, nonprofits have to be resourceful and think and act strategically. This includes tapping into new funding sources and creating new (and sometimes nontraditional) partnerships to serve clients while being accountable, transparent, efficient, and effective. I believe that the Baldrige Criteria provide a great roadmap to help generate a world-class, results-oriented organization. For any nonprofit to be successful, it must work with its leadership and its board of directors to maintain organizational integrity and consistently apply the principles to its work. What do you see as key benefits of Baldrige? The goal of any nonprofit is to create processes that allow us to spend more time on our mission and less time on administration. Applying the principles of the Baldrige Criteria can help an organization perform and become more efficient, thus engaging more donors to help achieve the organization’s mission. If you are an aspiring or current C-level executive of an organization, consider the benefits of participating in the 2014 Baldrige Executive Fellows program; the deadline for applications is December 15, 2013.  For more information on the Fellows program, see the Baldrige Web site here and/or send an e-mail to www.nist.gov/baldrige/fellows. You can also check out Blogrige interviews with two other Baldrige Executive Fellows: Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Seagate executive Dave Brucks.  

Posted by Christine Schaefer There is something about reaching the number "100" that seems to inspire celebrations. The news media often fetes senior citizens on their centenarian birthdays. Many organizations host 100th-anniversary events to mark their century milestones. And on a personal note, my five-year-old has lately been counting up to and down from 100 in anticipation of annual festivities for the "100th Day of School." This year, the Baldrige Program, too, has a noteworthy 100 to celebrate: more than 100 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards have now been earned, providing the nation with role models in every sector of the U.S. economy. Here are the three organizations that have raised the number of Baldrige Awards to more than 100: Pewaukee School District, Pewaukee, WI (education) Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, Plano, TX (health care) Sutter Davis Hospital, Davis, CA (health care) As with winners of the previous 99 Baldrige Awards (including six that earned the distinction twice), profiles and contact information for the three 2013 Baldrige Award recipients are posted on our Web site here. Additional highlights of their achievements and journeys to excellence are often shared in blog posts here. You can also learn directly from the 2013 Baldrige Award recipients by attending their presentations—covering every category of the Criteria for Performance Excellence—at the Baldrige Program’s Quest for Excellence® conference in Baltimore next April. Please join my daughter in the countdown to that best-practice-sharing event; by the end of this month, it will be fewer than 100 days away!