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The Leadership category examines how your organization’s senior leaders’ personal actions guide and sustain your organization. Also examined are your organization’s governance system and how your organization fulfills its legal, ethical, and societal responsibilities and supports its key communities.
1.1 Senior Leadership: How do your senior leaders lead? (70 pts.)
Within your response, include answers to the following questions:
(2) How do senior leaders personally promote an organizational environment that fosters, requires, and results in legal and ethical behavior?
(3) How do senior leaders create a sustainable organization? How do they create an environment for organizational performance improvement, the accomplishment of your mission and strategic objectives, innovation, competitive or role-model performance leadership, and organizational agility? How do they create an environment for organizational and workforce learning? How do they develop and enhance their personal leadership skills? How do they participate in organizational learning, in succession planning, and in the development of future organizational leaders?
(2) How do senior leaders create a focus on action to accomplish the organization’s objectives, improve performance, and attain its vision? What performance measures do senior leaders regularly review to identify needed actions? How do senior leaders include a focus on creating and balancing value for Customers and other stakeholders in their organizational performance expectations?
N1. Organizational vision (1.1a[1]) should set the context for strategic objectives and action plans, which are described in Items 2.1 and 2.2.
N2. A sustainable organization (1.1a[3]) is capable of addressing current business needs and possesses the agility and strategic management to prepare successfully for its future business and market environment. In this context, the concept of innovation includes both technological and organizational innovation to succeed in the future. A sustainable organization also ensures a safe and secure environment for the workforce and other key stakeholders. An organization’s contributions to environmental, social, and economic systems beyond those of its workforce and immediate stakeholders are considered in its societal responsibilities (Item 1.2).
N3. A focus on action (1.1b[2]) considers the strategy, the workforce, the work systems, and the hard assets of your organization. It includes both innovation and ongoing improvements in productivity that may be achieved through eliminating waste or reducing cycle time, and it might use techniques such as six sigma and lean. It also includes the actions to accomplish your organization’s strategic objectives.
N4. Your organizational performance results should be reported in Items 7.1–7.6.
N5. For nonprofit organizations that rely on volunteers to accomplish their work, responses to 1.1b(1) also should discuss your efforts to communicate with and engage the volunteer workforce.
1.2 Governance and Social Responsibilities: How do you govern and fulfill your societal responsibilities? (50 pts.)
(2) How do you evaluate the performance of your senior leaders, including the chief executive? How do you evaluate the performance of members of the governance board, as appropriate? How do senior leaders and your governance board use these performance reviews to further their development and to improve both their personal leadership effectiveness and that of your board and leadership system, as appropriate?
b. Legal and Ethical Behavior
(2) How does your organization promote and ensure ethical behavior in all your interactions? What are your key processes and measures or indicators for enabling and monitoring ethical behavior in your governance structure, throughout your organization, and in interactions with Customers, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders? How do you monitor and respond to breaches of ethical behavior?
(2) How does your organization actively support and strengthen your key communities? What are your key communities? How do you identify these communities and determine areas for organizational involvement, including areas related to your core competencies? How do your senior leaders, in concert with your workforce, contribute to improving these communities?
N1. Societal responsibilities in areas critical to your organization’s ongoing marketplace success also should be addressed in strategy development (Item 2.1) and in process management (Category 6). Key results, such as results of regulatory and legal compliance (including the results of mandated financial audits); reductions in environmental impacts through the use of “green” technology, resource-conserving activities, or other means; or improvements in social impacts, such as the global use of enlightened labor practices, should be reported as Leadership Outcomes (Item 7.6).
N2. Transparency in operations of your governance board (1.2a[1]) should include your internal controls on governance processes. For some nonprofit organizations, an external advisory board may provide some or all of the governance board functions. For those nonprofit organizations that serve as stewards of public funds, stewardship of those funds and transparency in operations are areas of emphasis.
N3. Leadership Performance evaluation (1.2a[2]) might be supported by peer reviews, formal performance management reviews, and formal or informal workforce and other stakeholder feedback and surveys. For some nonprofit and government organizations, external advisory boards might evaluate the performance of senior leaders and the governance board.
N4. Measures or indicators of ethical behavior (1.2b[2]) might include the percentage of independent board members, measures of relationships with stockholder and nonstockholder constituencies, instances of ethical conduct breaches and responses, survey results on employee perceptions of organizational ethics, ethics hotline use, and results of ethics reviews and audits. They also might include evidence that policies, workforce training, and monitoring systems are in place with respect to conflicts of interest and proper use of funds.
N5. Areas of societal contributions and community support appropriate for 1.2c might include your efforts to improve the environment (e.g., collaboration to conserve the environment or natural resources); strengthen local community services, education, and health; and improve the practices of trade, business, or professional associations.
N6. The health and safety of your workforce are not addressed in Item 1.2; you should address these workforce factors in Item 5.2.
N7. Nonprofit organizations should report in 1.2b(1), as appropriate, how they address the legal and regulatory requirements and standards that govern fundraising and lobbying activities.
N8. For some charitable organizations, societal contributions and support for key communities (1.2c) may occur totally through the mission-related activities of the organization. In such cases, it is appropriate to respond with any “extra efforts” you devote to support of these communities.
The Strategic Planning category examines how your organization develops strategic objectives and action plans. Also examined are how your chosen strategic objectives and action plans are deployed and changed if circumstances require, and how progress is measured.
2.1 Strategy Development: How do you develop your strategy? (40 pts.)
(2) How do you ensure that strategic planning addresses the key factors listed below? How do you collect and analyze relevant data and information pertaining to these factors as part of your strategic planning process:
b. Strategic Objectives
(2) How do your strategic objectives address your strategic challenges and strategic advantages? How do your strategic objectives address your opportunities for innovation in products, operations, and your business model? How do your strategic objectives address current and future core competencies? How do you ensure that your strategic objectives balance short- and longer-term challenges and opportunities? How do you ensure that your strategic objectives consider and balance the needs of all key stakeholders?
Notes:
N1. “Strategy Development” refers to your organization’s approach (formal or informal) to preparing for the future. Strategy development might utilize various types of forecasts, projections, options, scenarios, knowledge (see 4.2a for relevant organizational knowledge), or other approaches to envisioning the future for purposes of decision making and resource allocation. Strategy development might involve participation by key suppliers, distributors, partners, and Customers. For some nonprofit organizations, strategy development might involve participation by organizations providing similar services or drawing from the same donor population or volunteer workforce.
N2. The term “strategy” should be interpreted broadly. Strategy might be built around or lead to any or all of the following: new products; redefinition of key Customer groups or market segments; new core competencies; revenue growth via various approaches, including acquisitions, grants, and endowments; divestitures; new partnerships and alliances; and new employee or volunteer relationships. Strategy might be directed toward becoming a preferred supplier, a local supplier in each of your major Customers’ or partners’ markets, a low-cost producer, a market innovator, or a high-end or customized product or service provider. It also might be directed toward meeting a community or public need.
N3. Your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (2.1a[2]) should address all factors that are key to your organization’s future success, including the following, as appropriate: your Customer and market requirements, expectations, and opportunities; your opportunities for innovation and role-model performance; your core competencies; your competitive environment and your performance relative to competitors and comparable organizations; your product life cycle; technological and other key innovations or changes that might affect your products and services and how you operate, as well as the rate of that innovation; your workforce and other resource needs; your ability to capitalize on diversity; your opportunities to redirect resources to higher-priority products, services, or areas; financial, societal, ethical, regulatory, technological, security, and other potential risks and opportunities; your ability to prevent and respond to emergencies, including natural or other disasters; changes in the national or global economy; partner and supply chain requirements, strengths, and weaknesses; changes in your parent organization; and other factors unique to your organization.
N4. Your ability to execute the strategic plan (2.1a[2]) should address your ability to mobilize the necessary resources and knowledge. It also should address your organizational agility based on contingency plans or, if circumstances require, a shift in plans and rapid execution of new or changed plans.
N5. Strategic objectives that address key challenges and advantages (2.1b[2]) might include rapid response, customization, co-location with major Customers or partners, workforce capability and capacity, specific joint ventures, virtual manufacturing, rapid innovation, ISO quality or environmental systems registration, Web-based supplier and Customer relationship management, and product and service quality enhancements. Responses to Item 2.1 should focus on your specific challenges and advantages—those most important to your ongoing success and to strengthening your organization’s overall performance.
N6. Item 2.1 addresses your overall organizational strategy, which might include changes in product offerings and Customer engagement processes. However, the item does not address product design or Customer engagement strategies; you should address these factors in Items 6.1 and 3.1, as appropriate.
2.2 Strategy Deployment: How do you deploy your strategy? (45 pts.)
a. Action Plan Development and Deployment
(2) How do you develop and deploy action plans throughout the organization to your workforce and to key suppliers and partners, as appropriate, to achieve your key strategic objectives? How do you ensure that the key outcomes of your action plans can be sustained?
(3) How do you ensure that financial and other resources are available to support the accomplishment of your action plans, while meeting current obligations? How do you allocate these resources to support the accomplishment of the plans? How do you assess and manage the financial and other risks associated with the plans?
(4) How do you establish and deploy modified action plans if circumstances require a shift in plans and rapid execution of new plans?
(5) What are your key human resource or workforce plans to accomplish your short- and longer-term strategic objectives and action plans? How do the plans address potential impacts on people in your workforce and any potential changes to workforce capability and capacity needs?
(6) What are your key performance measures or indicators for tracking the achievement and effectiveness of your action plans? How do you ensure that your overall action plan measurement system reinforces organizational alignment? How do you ensure that the measurement system covers all key deployment areas and stakeholders?
b. Performance Projection
N1. Strategy and action plan development and deployment are closely linked to other items in the criteria. The following are examples of key linkages:
N2. Measures and indicators of projected performance (2.2b) might include changes resulting from new ventures; organizational acquisitions or mergers; new value creation; market entry and shifts; new legislative mandates, legal requirements, or industry standards; and significant anticipated innovations in products and technology.
The Customer Focus category examines how your organization engages its Customers for long-term marketplace success. This engagement strategy includes how your organization builds a Customer-focused culture. Also examined is how your organization listens to the voice of its Customers and uses this information to improve and identify opportunities for innovation.
3.1 Customer Engagement: How do you engage Customers to serve their need and build relationships? (40 pts.)
(2) How do you determine your key mechanisms to support use of your products and enable Customers to seek information and conduct their business with you? What are your key means of Customer support, including your key communication mechanisms? How do they vary for different Customers, Customer groups, or market segments? How do you determine your Customer’ key support requirements? How do you ensure that Customer support requirements are deployed to all people and processes involved in Customer support?
(3) How do you keep your approaches for identifying and innovating product offerings and for providing Customer support current with business needs and directions?
b. Building a Customer Culture
(2) How do you build and manage relationships with Customers to
(3) How do you keep your approaches for creating a Customer-focused culture and building Customer relationships current with business needs and directions? Notes:
N1. “Customer engagement” refers to your Customers’ investment in your brand and product offerings. Characteristics of engagement include Customer retention and loyalty, Customers’ willingness to make an effort to do business—and to increase business—with your organization, and Customers’ willingness to actively advocate for and recommend your brand and product offerings.
N2. “Product offerings” and “products” refer to the goods and services that you offer in the marketplace. Product offerings (3.1a[1]) should consider all the important characteristics of products and services and their performance throughout their full life cycle and the full “consumption chain.” The focus should be on features that affect Customer preference and loyalty— for example, those features that differentiate your products from competing offerings or other organizations’ services. Those features might include price, reliability, value, delivery, timeliness, ease of use, requirements for the use and disposal of hazardous materials, Customer or technical support, and the sales relationship. Key product features also might take into account how transactions occur and factors such as Customer data privacy and security. Your results on performance relative to key product features should be reported in Item 7.1, and those concerning Customer perceptions and actions (outcomes) should be reported in Item 7.2.
N3. The goal of Customer support (3.1a[2]) is to make your organization easy to do business with and responsive to your Customers’ expectations.
N4. Customer relationship building (3.1b[2]) might include the development of partnerships or alliances with Customers.
N5. The Customer life cycle (3.1b[2]) begins in the pre-sale period and should include all stages of your involvement with the Customer. This might include relationship building, the active business relationship, and an exit strategy, as appropriate.
3.2 Voice of the Customer: How to you obtain and use information from your Customers? (45 pts.)
(2) How do you listen to former Customers, potential Customers, and Customers of competitors to obtain actionable information and to obtain feedback on your products, Customer support, and transactions, as appropriate?
(3) How do you manage Customer complaints? How does your Customer complaint management process ensure that complaints are resolved promptly and effectively? How does your Customer complaint management process enable you to recover your Customers’ confidence, and enhance their satisfaction and engagement? How does your complaint management system enable aggregation and analysis of complaints for use in improvement throughout your organization and by your partners, as appropriate?
(2) How do you obtain and use information on your Customers’ satisfaction relative to their satisfaction with your competitors? How do you obtain and use information on your Customers’ satisfaction relative to the satisfaction levels of Customers of other organizations providing similar products or to industry benchmarks, as appropriate?
(3) How do you determine Customer dissatisfaction? How do your measurements capture actionable information for use in meeting your Customers’ requirements and exceeding their expectations in the future? How do your determination methods enable aggregation and analysis of data for use in improvement throughout your organization and by your partners, as appropriate?
(2) How do you use Customer, market, and product offering information to identify and anticipate key Customer requirements (including products and product features) and changing expectations and their relative importance to Customers’ purchasing or relationship decisions? How do you identify and anticipate how these requirements and changing expectations will differ across Customers, Customer groups, and market segments and across the Customer life cycle?
(3) How do you use Customer, market, and product offering information to improve marketing, build a more Customer-focused culture, and identify opportunities for innovation?
(4) How do you keep your approaches for Customer listening; determination of Customer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and engagement; and use of Customer data current with business needs and directions?
N1. The “voice of the Customer” refers to your process for capturing Customer-related information. Voice-of-the-Customer processes are intended to be proactive and continuously innovative to capture stated, unstated, and anticipated Customer requirements, expectations, and desires. The goal is to achieve Customer engagement. Listening to the voice of the Customer might include gathering and integrating various types of Customer data, such as survey data, focus group findings, warranty data, and complaint data that affect Customers’ purchasing and engagement decisions.
N2. Customer listening information could include marketing and sales information, Customer engagement data, win/loss analysis, and complaint data. “Actionable information” refers to specific aspects of your products and Customer interactions that affect Customers’ future relationships with your organization.
N3. Determining Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction (3.2b) might include the use of any or all of the following: surveys, formal and informal feedback, Customer account histories, complaints, field reports, win/loss analysis, Customer referral rates, and transaction completion rates. Information might be gathered on the Web, through personal contact or a third party, or by mail. Determining Customer dissatisfaction should be seen as more than reviewing low Customer satisfaction scores. Dissatisfaction should be independently determined to identify root causes of dissatisfaction and enable a systematic remedy to avoid future dissatisfaction.
N4. Other organizations providing similar products (3.2b[2]) might include organizations that are not competitors but provide similar products in other geographic areas or to different populations.
The Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management category examines how your organization selects, gathers, analyzes, manages, and improves its data, information, and knowledge assets and how it manages its information technology. The category also examines how your organization reviews and uses reviews to improve its performance.
4.1 Measurement, analysis, and Improvement of Organizational Performance: How do you measure, analyze, and then improve organizational performance? (45 pts.)
(2) How do you select and ensure the effective use of key comparative data and information to support operational and strategic decision making and innovation?
(3) How do you keep your performance measurement system current with business needs and directions? How do you ensure that your performance measurement system is sensitive to rapid or unexpected organizational or external changes?
N1. Performance measurement (4.1a) is used in fact based decision making for setting and aligning organizational directions and resource use at the work unit, key process, departmental, and organizational levels.
N2. Comparative data and information (4.1a[2]) are obtained by benchmarking and by seeking competitive comparisons. “Benchmarking” refers to identifying processes and results that represent best practices and performance for similar activities, inside or outside your organization’s industry. Competitive comparisons relate your organization’s performance to that of competitors and other organizations providing similar products and services.
N3. Organizational performance reviews (4.1b) should be informed by organizational performance measurement, performance measures reported throughout your criteria item responses, and performance measures reviewed by senior leaders (1.1b[2]), and they should be guided by the strategic objectives and action plans described in Items 2.1 and 2.2. The reviews also might be informed by internal or external Baldrige assessments.
N4. Analysis (4.1b) includes examining performance trends; organizational, industry, and technology projections; and comparisons, cause-effect relationships, and correlations. Analysis should support your performance reviews, help determine root causes, and help set priorities for resource use. Accordingly, analysis draws on all types of data: Customer-related, financial and market, operational, and competitive.
N5. The results of organizational performance analysis and review should contribute to your organizational strategic planning in Category 2.
N6. Your organizational performance results should be reported in Items 7.1–7.6.
4.2 Management of Information, Knowledge, and Information Technology: How do you manage your information, organizational knowledge, and information technology? (45 pts.)
(2) How do you make needed data and information available? How do you make them accessible to your workforce, suppliers, partners, collaborators, and Customers, as appropriate?
(3) How do you manage organizational knowledge to accomplish
b. Management of Information Resources and Technology
(2) In the event of an emergency, how do you ensure the continued availability of hardware and software systems and the continued availability of data and information?
(3) How do you keep your data and information availability mechanisms, including your software and hardware systems, current with business needs and directions and with technological changes in your operating environment?
N1. Data and information access (4.2a[2]) might be via electronic or other means.
The Workforce Focus category examines how your organization engages, manages, and develops your workforce to utilize its full potential in alignment with your organization’s overall mission, strategy, and action plans. The category examines your ability to assess workforce capability and capacity needs and to build a workforce environment conducive to high performance.
5.1 Workforce Engagement: How do you engage your workforce to achieve organizational and personal success? (45 pts.)
(2) How do you foster an organizational culture that is characterized by open communication, high-performance work, and an engaged workforce? How do you ensure your organizational culture benefits from the diverse ideas, cultures, and thinking of your workforce?
(3) How does your workforce performance management system support high-performance work and workforce engagement? How does your workforce performance management system consider workforce compensation, reward, recognition, and incentive practices? How does your workforce performance management system reinforce a Customer and business focus and achievement of your action plans?
b. Workforce and Leader Development
(2) How does your learning and development system address the following factors for your workforce?
(3) How do you evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your learning and development systems?
(4) How do you manage effective career progression for your entire workforce? How do you accomplish effective succession planning for management and leadership positions?
c. Assessment of Workforce Engagement
(2) How do you relate your workforce engagement assessment findings to key business results reported in Category 7 to identify opportunities for improvement in both workforce engagement and business results?
N1. “Workforce” refers to the people actively involved in accomplishing the work of your organization. It includes your organization’s permanent, temporary, and part-time personnel, as well as any contract employees supervised by your organization. It includes team leaders, supervisors, and managers at all levels. People supervised by a contractor should be addressed in Category 6 as part of your larger work systems. For nonprofit organizations that also rely on volunteers, “workforce” includes these volunteers.
N2. “Workforce engagement” refers to the extent of workforce commitment, both emotional and intellectual, to accomplishing the work, mission, and vision of the organization.
N3. The characteristics of “high-performance work” environments (5.1a[2] and 5.1a[3]) in which people do their utmost for the benefit of their Customers and for the success of the organization are key to understanding an engaged workforce. These characteristics are described in detail in the definition of “high-performance work” on page 58.
N4. Compensation, recognition, and related reward and incentive practices (5.1a[3]) include promotions and bonuses that might be based on performance, skills acquired, and other factors. In some government organizations, compensation systems are set by law or regulation. However, since recognition can include monetary and nonmonetary, formal and informal, and individual and group mechanisms, reward and recognition systems do permit flexibility.
N5. Your organization may have unique considerations relative to workforce development, learning, and career progression. If this is the case, your response to 5.1b should include how you address these considerations.
N6. Identifying improvement opportunities (5.1c[2]) might draw on your workforce-focused results presented in Item 7.4 and might involve addressing workforce-related problems based on their impact on your business results reported in response to other Category 7 items.
5.2 Workforce Environment: How do you build an effective and supportive workforce environment? (40 pts.)
(2) How do you recruit, hire, place, and retain new members of your workforce? How do you ensure your workforce represents the diverse ideas, cultures, and thinking of your hiring and Customer community?
(3) How do you manage and organize your workforce to accomplish the work of your organization, capitalize on the organization’s core competencies, reinforce a Customer and business focus, exceed performance expectations, address your strategic challenges and action plans, and achieve the agility to address changing business needs?
(4) How do you prepare your workforce for changing capability and capacity needs? How do you manage your workforce, its needs, and your needs to ensure continuity, to prevent workforce reductions, and to minimize the impact of workforce reductions, if they do become necessary?
b. Workforce Climate
(2) How do you support your workforce via policies, services, and benefits? How are these tailored to the needs of a diverse workforce and different workforce groups and segments?
N1. “Workforce capability” (5.2a) refers to your organization’s ability to accomplish its work processes through the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of its people. Capability may include the ability to build and sustain relationships with your Customers; to innovate and transition to new technologies; to develop new products, services, and work processes; and to meet changing business, market, and regulatory demands. “Workforce capacity” (5.2a) refers to your organization’s ability to ensure sufficient staffing levels to accomplish its work processes and successfully deliver your products to your Customers, including the ability to meet seasonal or varying demand levels.
N2. Workforce capability and capacity should consider not only current needs but also future requirements based on your strategic objectives and action plans reported in Category 2.
N3. Preparing your workforce for changing capability and capacity needs (5.2a[4]) might include training, education, frequent communication, considerations of workforce employment and employability, career counseling, and outplacement and other services.
The Process Management category examines how your organization designs its work systems and how it designs, manages, and improves its key processes for implementing those work systems to deliver Customer value and achieve organizational success and sustainability. Also examined is your readiness for emergencies.
6.1 Work Systems: How do you design your work systems (35 pts.)
(2) How do your work systems and key work processes relate to and capitalize on your core competencies?
b. Key Work Processes
(2) How do you determine key work process requirements, incorporating input from Customers, suppliers, partners, and collaborators, as appropriate? What are the key requirements for these processes?
c. Emergency Readiness
N1. “Work systems” refers to how the work of your organization is accomplished. Work systems involve your workforce, your key suppliers and partners, your contractors, your collaborators, and other components of the supply chain needed to produce and deliver your products and business and support processes. Your work systems coordinate the internal work processes and the external resources necessary for you to develop, produce, and deliver your products to your Customers and to succeed in your marketplace.
N2. Your key work processes (6.1b[1]) are your most important internal value creation processes and might include product design and delivery, Customer support, supply chain management, business, and support processes. Your key work processes are the processes that involve the majority of your organization’s workforce and produce Customer, stakeholder, and stockholder value.
N3. Disasters and emergencies (6.1c) might be weather-related, utility-related, security-related, or due to a local or national emergency, including potential pandemics. Emergency considerations related to information technology should be addressed in Item 4.2.
6.2 Work Processes: How do you design, manage, and improve your key organizational work processes? (50 pts.)
(2) How do you control the overall costs of your work processes? How do you prevent defects, service errors, and rework and minimize warranty costs or Customers’ productivity losses, as appropriate? How do you minimize the costs of inspections, tests, and process or performance audits, as appropriate?
N1. To improve process performance (6.2c) and reduce variability, your organization might implement approaches such as a Lean Enterprise System, Six Sigma methodology, use of ISO quality systems standards, the Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology, or other process improvement tools. These approaches might be part of your performance improvement system described in response to P.2c in the Organizational Profile.
N2. The results of improvements in product performance should be reported in Item 7.1. All other work process performance results should be reported in Item 7.5.
The Results category examines your organization’s performance and improvement in all key areas— product outcomes, Customer-focused outcomes, financial and market outcomes, workforce-focused outcomes, process effectiveness outcomes, and leadership outcomes. Performance levels are examined relative to those of competitors and other organizations with similar product offerings.
7.1 Product Outcomes: What are your product performance results? (100 pts.)
Provide data and information to answer the following questions:
N1. Product results reported in this item should relate to the key product features identified as Customer requirements and expectations in P.1b(2), based on information gathered in Items 3.1 and 3.2. The measures or indicators should address factors that affect Customer preference, such as those included in Item P.1, Note 5, and Item 3.1, Note 2.
N2. For some nonprofit organizations, product or service performance measures might be mandated by your funding sources. These measures should be identified and reported in your response to this item.
7.2 Customer-Focused Outcomes: What are your Customer-focused performance results? (70 pts.)
(2) What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of Customer relationship building and engagement? How do these results compare over the course of your Customer life cycle, as appropriate?
N1. What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction? How do these results compare with the Customer satisfaction levels of your competitors and other organizations providing similar products?
N2. What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of Customer relationship building and engagement? How do these results compare over the course of your Customer life cycle, as appropriate?
7.3 Financial and Market Outcomes: What are your financial and marketplace performance results? (70 pts.)
(2) What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of marketplace performance, including market share or position, market and market share growth, and new markets entered, as appropriate?
N1. Responses to 7.3a(1) might include aggregate measures of financial return, such as return on investment (ROI), operating margins, profitability, or profitability by market segment or Customer group. Responses also might include measures of financial viability, such as liquidity, debt-to-equity ratio, days cash on hand, asset utilization, and cash flow. Measures should relate to the financial measures reported in 4.1a(1) and the financial management approaches described in Item 2.2. For nonprofit organizations, additional measures might include performance to budget, reserve funds, cost avoidance or savings, administrative expenditures as a percentage of budget, and the cost of fundraising versus funds raised.
N2. For nonprofit organizations, responses to 7.3a(2) might include measures of charitable donations or grants and the number of new programs or services offered.
7.4 Workforce-Focused Outcomes: What are your workforce-focused performance results? (70 pts.)
(2) What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of workforce and leader development?
(3) What are your current levels and trends in key measures of workforce capability and capacity, including staffing levels and appropriate skills?
(4) What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of your workforce climate, including workforce health, safety, and security and workforce services and benefits, as appropriate?
N1. Results reported in this item should relate to processes described in Category 5. Your results should be responsive to key work process needs described in Category 6 and to your organization’s action plans and human resource or workforce plans described in Item 2.2.
N2. Responses to 7.4a(1) should include measures and indicators identified in response to 5.1c(1).
N3. Nonprofit organizations that rely on volunteers should include results for their volunteer workforce, as appropriate.
7.5 Process Effectiveness Outcomes: What are your process effectiveness results (70 pts.)
(2) What are your current levels and trends in key measures or indicators of the operational performance of your key work processes, including productivity, cycle time, and other appropriate measures of process effectiveness, efficiency, and innovation?
N1. Results reported in Item 7.5 should address your key operational requirements as presented in the Organizational Profile and in Items 6.1 and 6.2. Include results not reported in Items 7.1–7.4.
N2. Results reported in Item 7.5 should provide key information for analysis and review of your organizational performance (Item 4.1); demonstrate use of organizational knowledge (Item 4.2); and provide the operational basis for product outcomes (Item 7.1), Customer-focused outcomes (Item 7.2), and financial and market outcomes (Item 7.3).
N3. Appropriate measures and indicators of work system performance (7.5a[1]) might include audit, just-in-time delivery, and acceptance results for externally provided products, services, and processes; supplier and partner performance; product, service, and work system innovation rates and results; simplification of internal jobs and job classifications; work layout improvements; changing supervisory ratios; response times for emergency drills or exercises; and results for work relocation or contingency exercises.
7.6 Leadership Outcomes: What are your leadership results? (70 pts.)
(2) What are your key current findings and trends in key measures or indicators of governance and fiscal accountability, both internal and external, as appropriate?
(3) What are your results for key measures or indicators of regulatory and legal compliance?
(4) What are your results for key measures or indicators of ethical behavior and of stakeholder trust in the senior leaders and governance of your organization? What are your results for key measures or indicators of breaches of ethical behavior?
(5) What are your results for key measures or indicators of your organization’s fulfillment of its societal responsibilities and your organization’s support of its key communities?
N1. Measures or indicators of strategy and action plan accomplishment (7.6a[1]) should address your strategic objectives and goals identified in 2.1b(1) and your action plan performance measures and projected performance identified in 2.2a(6) and 2.2b, respectively.
N2. Responses to 7.6a(2) might include financial statement issues and risks, important internal and external auditor recommendations, and management’s responses to these matters. For some nonprofit organizations, results of IRS 990 audits also might be included.
N3. Regulatory and legal compliance results (7.6a[3]) should address requirements described in 1.2b. Workforce-related occupational health and safety results (e.g., Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA] reportable incidents) should be reported in 7.4a(4).
N4. For examples of measures of ethical behavior and stakeholder trust (7.6a[4]), see Item 1.2, Note 4.
N5. Responses to 7.6a(5) should address your organization’s societal responsibilities discussed in 1.2b(1) and 1.2c(1), as well as support of the key communities discussed in 1.2c(2). Measures of contributions to societal well-being might include reduced energy consumption; the use of renewable energy resources, recycled water, and alternative approaches to conserve resources (e.g., increased audio and video conferencing); and the global use of enlightened labor practices.
