2010 Baldrige Application Worksheets
Category 5 – Workforce Focus
Note: The intent of this document is to guide my interviews with an applicant to gather information to help them develop their application. Often, additional information is gathered based in response to the question itself. This tool is not intended as an assessment guide, nor is it assured to address all required information.
Category 5 – Workforce Focus
I. Workforce Engagement
1. Briefly describe to me your overall philosophy or approach to human resource management. Tie it back to your mission, vision, values if possible. This is just to get an opening paragraph to focus the reader.
A. Workforce Enrichment
1. Key Factors of Engagement
a. What approach do you have in place to determine the factors that contribute to satisfaction in your workforce:
Employees,
Volunteers,
Student workers,
Contractors,
Adjunct,
Other? etc.
b. What approach do you have in place to determine the factors that contribute to the engagement of your workforce:
Employees,
Volunteers,
Student workers,
Contractors,
Adjunct,
Other? etc.
2. Foster Organizational Culture
a. What approaches do you use to foster a culture of open communications?
b. What approaches do you use to foster a culture of high performance work (which means that everyone has goals and knows what they are supposed to do to accomplish those goals)?
c. What approaches do you use to foster a culture of engagement?
d. What approaches do you have in place to ensure that you benefit from the different viewpoints of your diverse workforce? (e.g., work in teams, organize teams to represent diversity, celebrate diverse holidays, etc.)
3. Performance Management System
a. How does your performance management system (also known as performance evaluation) support high performance work (which means a focus on the student and their success and organizational aligned goals)? Often this will be the inclusion of specific individual goals for people that align directly with the organization’s strategic plan.
b. How does your performance management system support employee engagement? I have seen some responses here that demonstrate that the organization understands what things employees require to be engaged and then they include them in the performance evaluation.
c. Part of the performance management system is supporting positive performance in areas of importance and this support includes compensation, recognition, reward and incentive practices. What are your compensation, recognition, reward and incentive practices?
d. How does your performance management system focus employees on the importance of the students? On other stakeholders? On the good of the organization? On attaining action plans?
B. Workforce and Leader Development
1. Learning and Development System
a. How is your learning and development approach for leadership designed to address the need to continue to grow your organization’s core competencies (see your response in the Profile), Strategic Challenges (see your response in the Profile), and accomplishment of your action plans? (In short – how do you arrange training and development related to those areas of greatest expertise and needs for future growth?)
b. How is your learning and development approach for employees and other workforce members designed to address the need to continue to grow your organization’s core competencies (see your response in the Profile), Strategic Challenges (see your response in the Profile), and accomplishment of your action plans? (In short – how do you arrange training and development related to those areas of greatest expertise and needs for future growth?)
c. How is your learning and development approach for leaders designed to address performance improvement activities (teaching quality tools and methodology), and innovation?
d. How is your learning and development approach for employees and other workforce member designed to address performance improvement activities (teaching quality tools and methodology), and innovation?
e. How is your learning and development approach for leaders designed to address ethics and ethical business practices?
f. How is your learning and development approach for employees and other workforce member designed to address ethics and ethical business practices?
g. What variety of methods do you use to provide learning and development to leaders and to all of the workforce? (E.g., classroom delivery, distance learning, mentoring, conferences, coaching and work related experiences, etc.)
2. Workforce Member Development
a. What process do you use to determine the learning and development needs of your employees and other workforce members? How do they input self-identified needs? How do leaders and supervisors input organizational as well as individual needs?
b. What process do you use to ensure that retiring or departing employees transfer the knowledge that they have about the organization before they leave?
c. How do you ensure that the knowledge that employees gain in training is reinforced once back on the job?
3. Evaluate Effectiveness of Training and Development
a. What approach(es) do you use to evaluate how effective your training and development is?
4. Career Progression Approaches
a. Describe your succession planning approach for leadership, management and supervisory positions.
b. Describe your approach for assuring that faculty and staff certification and licensing requirements are met.
c. Describe your approach for managing effective career progression for all of your employees and other workforce members.
C. Assess Workforce Engagement
1. Assess Workforce Engagement
a. How do you determine how engaged your workforce is? Do you use surveys and focus groups? Additional measure-based approaches should also be used such as absenteeism, recognition, productivity, etc.
b. How do you determine how satisfied your workforce is? Do you use surveys and focus groups? Additional measure-based approaches should also be used such as turnover, grievances, retention, longevity, absenteeism, safety, etc.
c. Are there any differences in approach to evaluate satisfaction and engagement between different workforce segments? Like differing surveys for different groups, etc.
2. Relate Findings to Results
a. This may be a bit hard – what kinds of analysis do you perform to evaluate the impact of satisfaction and engagement on the organization’s results of performance. (e.g., increased satisfaction leads to increased student success, increased satisfaction leads to increased student engagement, etc.)
II. Workforce Environment
A. Workforce Capability and Capacity
1. Assess workforce capability and capacity needs
a. How do you determine the levels of capability your organization needs for current and near-term operations? Include skills, competencies and staffing levels.
b. How do you determine the levels of capacity that your organization needs for current and near-term operations? Include skills, competencies and staffing levels.
c. How do you determine the levels of capability that your organization needs for longer-term planned operations? Include skills, competencies and staffing levels.
d. How do you determine the levels of capacity that your organization needs for longer-term planned operations? Include skills, competencies and staffing levels.
2. Recruit, Hire, Place, Retain
a. What is your recruitment process? (Include all types of workforce including employees, contractors, student workers, volunteers, etc.)
b. What is your hiring process? (Include all types of workforce including employees, contractors, student workers, volunteers, etc.)
c. What is your placement process (orientation, onboarding, etc.) (Include all types of workforce including employees, contractors, student workers, volunteers, etc.)
d. What is your approach to retain employees after you have hired them? (Include all types of workforce including employees, contractors, student workers, volunteers, etc.)
e. What is your approach to ensure that you have a diverse workforce that represents your student diversity and/or your hiring community diversity? (advertise in diversity oriented sources, attend diversity oriented Chamber of Commerce meetings, Job Fairs at places that will provide a diverse pool of recruits)
3. Manage and Organize Workforce
a. Explain how you organize your workforce (departments, work groups, hierarchical, pods, etc.) Then explain how you manage your workforce (self-directed, matrix management, supervisor driven, etc.)
b. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to capitalize on your organization’s core competencies.
c. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to reinforce a student and stakeholder focus.
d. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to capitalize reinforce a focus on the organization’s needs.
e. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to exceed performance expectations (like if you manage according to goals set for all employees aligned to the direction of the organization, or if you have cross-trained employees that allows you to move people around as needed to exceed expectations, or if you have incentive packages for exceeding performance expectations).
f. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to address strategic challenges and action plans (such as having a specific group responsible to address a strategic challenge).
g. Explain how the organization and management of your organization you just described is designed to provide agility to the organization (such as having cross-trained employees so you can change direction quickly, or if you are matrix managed and can reallocate people to different tasks as needed)
4. Prepare Workforce for Changing Needs
a. What approaches do you engage in to prepare your workforce for changing capability or capacity needs? (Cross-training, training for new skills, using temporary or contract employees to allow flexibility to staff-down if needed)
b. What process and approach do you use for workforce reductions if they are needed?
B. Workforce Climate
1. Health, Safety, Security
a. Tell me how you systematically address the safety of employees and other workforce members. Include how you identify safety issues, how you involve the workforce in identifying issues, how you address those issues and how you monitor those issues.
b. Tell me how you systematically address the security of employees and other workforce members. Include how you identify security issues, how you involve the workforce in identifying issues, how you address those issues and how you monitor those issues.
c. Tell me how you systematically address the health and well-being of employees and other workforce members. Include how you identify health issues, how you involve the workforce in identifying issues, how you address those issues and how you monitor those issues.
d. In the Profile you identified the significant safety concern areas of your workforce. How do you measure your performance in keeping a safe place to work in those areas? What are the measures and what are your goals (if you completed the table then you already have this one)
e. How do workplace issues vary for different segments of employees? This is probably more true for segments related to job role – like the facilities people probably have more safety concerns that Faculty.
2. Policies, Service, Benefits
a. What are the key policies that you have to support your employees and other workforce members?
b. What are the key services that are provided to employees and other workforce members? (e.g., breakrooms, workout facilities, etc.)
c. What are the key benefits that are provided to employees and other workforce members?
d. How do you tailor these policies, services and benefits to meet the needs of your diverse workforce? (e.g., floating holiday used by employees to celebrate the holiday of their choice, short-term disability that can be used for maternity leave, etc.)
This tool and all information contained within this document is the sole property of Accelerated Improvement Mentoring, Incorporated (AIM, Inc.) and may not be shared or used without the express written consent of Jackie Beede or Bruce Beede.
AIM, Inc. 2664 Highway 18 W, Fayette, AL 35555 (205) 768-0023
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