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Performance Improvement through Workforce Development

ISO 9001:2008 Registered 2009 Recipient of Baldrige National Quality Award

v.9.26.11

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, Criteria for Performance Excellence Item 5.2c: Workforce and Leader Development

To improve performance in a meaningful way, you must adopt a process to develop your workforce that focuses on creating or growing knowledge and skills relevant to achieving organizational goals.

Performance Improvement through

Workforce Development

results. The results of our efforts to develop this segment of employees include ISO 9000 certification in 2008 and re-certification in 2011, the Missouri Quality Award in 2008 and the Baldrige National Quality Award in 2009. This white paper will cover two main points. First, it will describe a workforce development process that you can use to im-prove the performance of your employees and prepare them for the future. Second, it will explain how you can utilize this process to accelerate your organization’s journey toward performance excellence through the development of your supervi-sors, managers and vice presidents by helping them learn the Modern Leadership and Management Principles of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Important Definitions Development— To bring out the capabilities or possibilities of; bring to a more advanced or effective state (Dictionary.com)

Performance Excellence—The term “Performance Excellence” refers to an integrated approach to organizational performance manage-ment that results in (1) delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to organizational sustainability; (2) improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities; and (3) organizational and personal learning. The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence provide a framework and an assessment tool of understanding organizational strengths and opportunities for im-provement and thus for guiding planning efforts (from the 2011-2012 Criteria for Performance Excellence p. 61).

Personal Learning—Personal learning is achieved through education, training, and development opportunities that further individual growth. (from the 2011-2012 Criteria for Performance Excellence p. 60)

Workforce—All people actively involved in accomplishing the work of your organization, including volunteers and paid employees (permanent, part-time, temporary, telecommuting employees, contract employees supervised by the organization). The workforce in-cludes team leaders, supervisors and managers at all levels (from the 2011-2012 Criteria for Performance Excellence p. 63).

Workforce Development is the process or processes wherein which your workforce (everyone in your organization) develops the addi-tional capabilities necessary to meet your organization’s current and future goals and pursue your vision. In item 5.2, the Baldrige Criteria asks you to “describe how members of your workforce, including leaders, are developed to achieve high performance.” To align with the Baldrige Criteria, and therefore drive your organization toward performance excellence, you must determine how your workforce and leaders will be developed. High-performing organizations typically have multiple workforce de-velopment processes, focusing on leaders and managers, hourly Em-ployees, and possibly knowledge workers who are not in leadership roles. For best results, it is important to segment the development needs of your workforce. Workforce development is critical to improving performance and the most important of the workforce development processes at Mid-wayUSA has been the process of developing our supervisors, manag-ers and vice-presidents. This group of Employees is responsible for identifying our work systems, creating and improving our processes, setting process goals, training our hourly Employees, and delivering

Workforce Development

Process

Improving Performance through Workforce Development

“We will apply for and win the

Baldrige Award in 2009...”

Larry Potterfield, MidwayUSA CEO

DEFINE development goals

1

The Process: The first and most critical step in the workforce development process, is to define how development goals should align with organizational goals. Organizational goals are different than development goals. Develop-ment goals articulate what participants will learn or what they will be able to do by the end of the development ac-tivity; organizational goals are the overall aims of the organization for a set timeframe. A best practice development process will ensure that development goals facilitate the achievement of the organizational goals. To Performance Excellence: Before you get started, set and deploy a goal — Your organization must incorporate your Baldrige initiative into how you operate, and the best way to do this is to set an organizational goal to win the Baldrige Award (a major milestone on the path toward performance excellence!). This organizational goal should have a defined timeline for achievement. You should also consider an on-going goal to win the award every 6 years to ensure sustainability of the criteria in your organization. Once you have an organizational goal for your Baldrige initiative, ‘Win Baldrige,’ determine the development goals that will help achieve this. For example, one development goal is for employees in leadership roles to learn the Baldrige criteria.

IDENTIFY development

activities

2

The Process: Identify the development activities to implement to achieve the development goals set in step one. Development activities are those specific things you do to improve the knowledge and skills of your employees. To start you will need to identify the skills and knowledge needed to achieve the organizational goals, and from there identify the best activities to deliver the desired skills and knowledge. It is critical that the end result (organizational goal) is kept in focus. To Performance Excellence: To achieve the development goal, employees in leadership roles learning the Baldrige criteria, the following development activities are identified: 1) Have a senior leader become an expert and train employees in the criteria

Senior leaders must all become experts in the criteria and having them teach the criteria is one way to ensure this happens

2) Engage employees in the state or national quality award program as an examiner

As an examiner, employees will have the opportunity to review applications and participate in a site visit for other organizations. They will get first hand experience in understanding what the criteria looks like as it is implemented in other organizations and will develop an in-depth understanding of Ap-proach, Deployment, Learning and Integration (ADLI) and the criteria’s scoring system. It will also help them understand what you are trying to achieve within your organization.

3) Assign teams of employees write “perfect” answers to the questions in the Baldrige criteria

Have your employees participate in an exercise to write perfect-state responses to the Baldrige criteria questions. Ask them to write their answers based on how the best-run organization would respond to the questions. Nothing will accelerate their development quicker than having to answer the questions themselves! As you write your official Baldrige application for your organization, involve your employ-ees for further development.

DELIVER the

development

3

The Process: The development activities selected must be delivered to promote application of the new knowledge or skill. To Performance Excellence: In the case of the development goal, ‘employees in leadership roles learning the Baldrige criteria’, the development activity must be delivered in a way that ensures employees understand the Baldrige criteria and are able to apply it within their jobs and use it to improve performance.

SUPPORT the

development

4

The Process: Organizations must utilize various forms of ongoing performance support after the development ac-tivity has been delivered. There are three main sources of support – materials, systems, and people. A key in realiz-ing the full potential of development initiatives is to maintain a balance between accountability and support. Either one alone only provides a limited percentage of the full potential when they are used together. To Performance Excellence: As the criteria is deployed, the support mechanisms that will help ensure success are identified: 1) Designate a department to support the development activities associated with achieving your organizational

goal, ‘Win Baldrige.’ By assigning one department with this responsibility, employees who are being developed know who to go talk to when they have questions, concerns or need assistance.

2) Include Baldrige on your Mission Statement. 3) Create and deploy approaches to strategic planning and process management based on the criteria and teach

employees how these processes are integrated with one another and how they align with the criteria. 4) Develop a communications plan to deploy your organizational goals, including your Baldrige initiative. Use this

plan to teach the entire workforce about your approach to achieve your goals. 5) Facilitate two-way communication by implementing an approach to collecting suggestions from employees on

how to improve their processes and further deploy the Baldrige criteria.

CONTROL for

results

5

The Process: This is the bottom line. The purpose of this process is to develop your workforce in a way to facilitate the achievement of your organizational goals. To close the loop, you have to go back and double check the pro-gress on these goals. To Performance Excellence: When this process started, the organizational goal to ‘Win Baldrige’ was set. It is pretty clear cut to understand when this goal has been met; was the award won? To determine incremental progress, you can submit your application to the award program for a score, or you can assign your examiners to score your application. From here you can determine if your score improved. You can look at other important organizational results, where these impacted?

The process described below will help you answer the questions in Baldrige Criteria Item 5.2. It is through the use of this process to develop your supervisors, managers and vice-presidents that you can make great strides towards your vision of Performance Excellence.