Malcolm Baldrige Award: Category 5

Sam Ryan

What Will be Covered• What is Baldrige Award Category 5?• How Can it be Used in Your Organization• Baldrige Application• How it Works• Category 5 in the Real World• MESA Production Exercise• Summary• Reading List

What is Category 5?

• Deals with the workforce• Involves developing an employee

environment conducive to:– Personal growth– Full participation– Human resources development

What is Category 5? (cont)

• Applicant must demonstrate the following related to employees:– Employees must be empowered– A culture of open communication between

employees must be present– Employee well-being and satisfaction

How Can it be Used in Your Organization

• Anonymous employee questionnaire:– Send out a questionnaire to employees– Ask questions related to Baldrige Award. For

example:• Do you feel empowered enough to do…?• Can you communicate openly to perform task?• How do you feel abut your daily task?

– Ensure that questionnaire is anonymous and be sure employees are confident it is anonymous

How Can it be Used in Your Organization? (cont)

• What to do with questionnaire results?– List employee answers from most common to

least common– Take the 10 most prevalent problems and

problems that are most important to fix– Take a few minutes and think about how

applying for the Baldrige Award will help improve the problem areas in your organization

Baldrige Application– Eligibility

• Before Applying, must check eligibility of your firm

1. Visit Baldrige website:

- http://www.nist.gov/baldrige

2. Click on “Baldrige Award Application Forms”

3. Click on “Eligibility Form”

4. Proceed to fill out Word Document

Baldrige Application (cont.)

– Application

• Apply to whichever Baldrige Sector your company fits best

1. Click on “Application Form” on the Baldrige website

2. Submit the form, along with:

• Application Fees

• Application Report

How it Works

• First your organizations applies for the award

• Second, your application is sent to the Baldrige examiners

• Third, Baldrige examiners visit your organization and evaluate efforts based on seven categories– *see next slide for map of categories

How it Works (cont)Baldrige Award Criteria

Category 5 in Action

• MESA Productions Inc.– Located in Tulsa, OK– Designs, manufactures and installs protection

systems that control corrosion of metal surfaces– Small, private, family owned company (139

employees)– Won Baldrige Award in 2006 and 2012 in the

small business category

Category 5 in Action (cont)• MESA Productions Inc.

– MESA’s corporate culture rated in top 10 percent of manufacturing companies

– Workers satisfaction:• Through cross-training in other departments,

workers remain busy• Workers are secure and supported in developing

current or different career paths• Employees share financial success through profit-

sharing programs

MESA Production Exercise

• Refer to MESA’s website and click on the link “Human Resources Focus”– http://www.mesaproducts.com/baldrige.html#criteriaarticles

• As a team read the article and think about how your company can implement these ideas

• Brainstorm how MESA used the criteria outlined by the award to improve their HR

MESA Production Exercise

• Discuss the strengths of MESA and your organization

• Then Brainstorm how your organization can use the Baldrige Criteria to improve HR

• Then, find the areas most needed for HR improvement in your organization and set a goal to improve these areas

Summary• Category 5 deals with the workforce and ensuring an

environment conducive to:– Personal growth, full participation, and human resources development

• The Baldrige Quality Award criteria identify three areas of HR efforts– Work Systems, employee learning and motivation, and employee well-

being and satisfaction

• In order to win the award organizations must excellence in all 7 categories – (Leadership, Strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement

analysis and knowledge management, HR focus, process management, and business/organizational performance results)

– Although, this presentation only focuses on Category 5

Suggested Readings/Sources• Foster, Thomas. Managing Quality. 4th. New Jersey: Pearson

Education Inc., 2010. 69-76. Print•  "Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) ."ASQ.org.

American Society for Quality. Web. 26 Nov 2012. <http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/malcolm-baldrige-

• May , Terrry. "Human Resources Focus." Criteria for Performance Excellence. 2012: 1. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

• National Institute of Standards and Technology. “Four U.S Organizations Honored with the 2012 Baldridge National Quality Award" Web. 14 Nov. 2012. < http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/baldrige_recipients2012.cfm

 Using 0.3 GB of your 10.1

GB