Baldrige Express

When you take steps to better your organization, you need to know if your efforts are working. But figuring that out can be easier said than done.

The Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, in conjunction with the National Council for Performance Excellence, offers a high-level diagnostic tool that can help. Called Baldrige Express, it's designed to help you gauge deployment of improvement initiatives.

Below you can read how one Nashville company, Aegis Sciences Corporation, implements Baldrige Express. In its first two years of use, Ageis has discovered that Baldrige Express:

• Inspires results
• Reinforces a TNCPE application
• Provides benchmarking data
• Cultivates a Criteria culture
• Is customizable

Baldrige Express Case Study: Aegis Sciences Corporation

Aegis Sciences Corporation is a rapidly growing, Nashville-based drug testing laboratory. Like many companies, it is dedicated to continuous improvement, but seeks regular, effective and fast insight into its processes. What gaps need filling? Are employees engaged? Are the Criteria concepts Aegis has embraced becoming part of the company’s culture?

Last year, through a partnership between TNCPE and the National Council for Performance Excellence, Aegis discovered Baldrige Express – a diagnostic tool that would help the company answer these questions and more. It’s a survey-based, internal assessment designed to measure performance on a wide range of key indicators.
Baldrige Express helped Aegis gauge its improvement efforts and evaluate its key processes, systems and results. The company was able to quickly translate the feedback into practical, measurable efforts that address the opportunities for improvement identified by the survey.

Darcie Duckworth, Aegis’ assistant director of training, facilitates Baldrige Express for her company. She reports that last year, the first time the company used the tool, Aegis was able to glean a lot of value from the hefty Baldrige Express Feedback Report. 

Results
“A lot of good things came from the first year,” said Darcie. “We needed better training, development, and HR.”

An issue that was brought up by several team members was a dearth of information about job opportunities within the company. As a result, Aegis developed a better process for notifying team members of job openings, and it began to implement more cross-training.
To address feedback about communication, Aegis began publishing a monthly internal newsletter.

But one of the most interesting by-products of Aegis’ Baldrige Express use is what the company calls “BEA Teams” or “Baldrige Express Action Teams,” composed of Aegis employees.

“We’re taking those team members and teaching them how to be mini TNCPE examiners,” said Darcie. Each BEA Team is assigned one Category of the Baldrige Criteria and uses the Baldrige Express feedback to identify gaps.  “We developed a process for them to try to find OFIs for the feedback in their categories, and then present them to executive management,” said Darcie.  Much like a TNCPE evaluation, the BEA Team process includes independent review and consensus stages.

Reinforcing the TNCPE Application
In addition to pushing the company ahead, initiatives driven by Aegis’ Baldrige Express Feedback will help improve the company’s 2009 TNCPE Award application. Baldrige Express results are designed to serve as a stand-alone self-assessment or as a lead-in to a TNCPE application or other Baldrige-based assessment.  Some organizations have used Baldrige Express to sustain improvement momentum between award cycles.

Benchmarking Data
When Darcie received feedback from Aegis’ second Baldrige Express survey, she was pleased to discover an improvement from the previous year: Baldrige Express provides benchmarking data with its feedback report. “You really get to see where you stand with others in the same industry code,” said Darcie. Identifying this kind of comparative data comes into play in the Criteria, particularly within Items 2, 3 and 4.

Cultivating a Criteria Culture
Something that is particularly important to Aegis is imbuing Criteria concepts across its workforce. Darcie says Baldrige Express has been helpful in not only gauging that workforce buy-in, but familiarizing employees with the structure of the Baldrige Criteria. 
“We really wanted to get our team members engaged in the Criteria, and this seemed to be a really good tool to do that,” said Darcie.

Prior understanding of the Baldrige Criteria is not needed to complete the survey, but taking it will introduce and reinforce the concepts of the Baldrige framework – from senior leaders down.  At the same time, the results provide insight into how well members of an organization understand and use the Criteria.

Customizable
While Aegis chose to survey its entire workforce (and even a long-time consultant), Baldrige Express is customizable. The fee structure is based on the number of users, so it can be scaled up or down, depending on how many employees an organization wants to assess and budget constraints.

Survey results are customizable, too. Data can be disaggregate according to multiple subgroups that an organization defines. This helps identify differences in perception or deployment between departments, employee types, grade level, work sites, seniority, or any other factors selected by the company.

The survey can be administered online, on paper, or a combination of both. Even the survey language and questions can be modified to best fit an organization’s needs.
Ultimately, Aegis appreciates Baldrige Express as an improvement driver that gives a voice to its workforce. It synthesizes points of view from all parts of the organization, maturing its processes and integrating approaches.

“(Baldrige Express) gives team members an outlet to make suggestions for improvement,” says Archie. “We have four different business units, so, for example, it gives an opportunity for someone in business development to give a process improvement for our laboratory. It’s a really good cross-functional tool for us.”

FAQs

How long does it take to do a Baldrige Express survey?
How much does Baldrige Express Cost?
What kind of companies can use Baldrige Express?
How can I get Baldrige Express for my company?

How long does it take to do a Baldrige Express survey?
The 45-question survey itself takes an hour to an hour-and-a half for each user to complete (depending on how thoughtful the person is in their comments). Companies often give employees a deadline to complete it (7 or 14 days, for example), and include incentives to encourage participation.

Once the company finishes gathering input from its employees, feedback comes quickly -- within five days of completion, organizations will receive a feedback report.

How much does Baldrige Express Cost?
The entire analysis can cost as little as $2,500, a small fraction of using traditional consulting services to obtain the same data. The fee structure breaks down like this:

What kind of companies can use Baldrige Express?
The survey is appropriate for organizations of any type, including those in the manufacturing, health care, service, government, education, or non-profit sectors.

How can I get Baldrige Express for my company?
Contact TNCPE. The organization’s staff will walk you through the process from start to finish, introducing the assessment to your team, and culminating in an analysis of the findings. We’All help you interpret the results and suggest steps you can take to address areas that need improvement.