Introduction to Baldrige Excellence Model

The Baldrige Excellence Model is used by the business, non-profit, educational, and health care organizations to manage organizational performance. It is a performance excellence model that helps to drive higher performance outcomes by ensuring effective leadership, effective strategic planning, effective process management, and human resource management.

Baldrige Excellence Model as Strategic planning tool

This model is the system approach for achieving performance excellence. The Baldrige Excellence Model include-

  • Criteria for achieving performance excellence
  • Set of core values and concepts
  • Scoring system to improve organization performance

This model also includes feedback to ensure continuous improvement of the organization. The key focus of this model is on promoting-

  • Organizational resilience
  • Innovation
  • Diversity, inclusion, and equality
  • Digitization

The need for the Baldrige Excellence Model

The Baldrige Excellence Model empowers the organization irrespective of its size and the business operations to reach its goals, improve performance and attain competitive advantage in the industry through better alignment of the business plans, processes, decisions, actions, results, and people. The use of this model helps to improve the overall performance of the organization through focus on customer satisfaction, higher productivity, and workforce empowerment. This model also helps organizations to compete in an increasingly competitive world. The Baldrige Excellence Model also offers the opportunity to organizations to create integrated leadership which also helps to drive higher performance outcomes.

The Baldrige Excellence Model focuses on 7 dimensions which include Strategic Planning, Leadership, Customers and Market Focus, Knowledge Management, Process Management, Workforce, and the Results.

Baldrige Excellence Model dimensions

The health care organizations and educational institutions also use the Baldrige Excellence Model to improve the product and service delivery, demonstrate efficient operations, better respond to the customer needs, etc.

How to apply the Baldrige Excellence Model?

The Baldrige Excellence Model can be used by the organizations by following the Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria which comprise seven categories. The criteria for the performance management under theBaldrige Excellence Model is set down as follows-

  • Leadership- The organization can determine how the senior executives guide the working of the organization and address their responsibilities towards the public.

  • Strategic planning- The organization can also examine how the organization sets the strategic plans and actions to improve the organization’s performance.

  • Customer focus- The organization also needs to examine the customer requirements and expectations to establish better customer relations. The customer focus can also help the organization acquire, attract, satisfy and retain various customers in the organization.

  • Measurement, analysis, and knowledge management- The Baldrige Excellence Criteria also requires the organizations to consider the management, use, analysis, and facilitation of data and information in the organization to further support key processes and ensure performance management at the workplace.

  • Workforce focus- The Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria also require the organizations to evaluate how the organization enables its employees to work up to full potential. The organization can also evaluate how the employees align to various business objectives.

  • Process management- The key question that can be answered to analyze the process management of the organization is “How production, delivery, and support processes of the organization are designed and managed?”

  • Results- The last phase that is evaluated under the Baldrige Excellence Model is results where the organization needs to examine the organization’s performance in different areas which include human resource management, supply chain, customer satisfaction, financial performance, market performance, governance, and social responsibility, operational performance, etc. This can also help the organization to determine how the organization performs in the industry in relation to its competitors.

Baldrige Excellence Model real example

Let us consider the Royal Children Hospital Baldrige Excellence Model here to understand the implications of this planning model. Royal Children Hospital uses the Baldrige Excellence Model to drive higher performance results.

Jane Miller is the Chief Operating Officer of this hospital who handles all the strategic operations of the hospital through effective leadership. Further, Jane Miller followed the Transformational style of leadership while implementing the new Royal Children’s Hospital Project with the aim to raise the quality of health services. Under this project, the strategic plan of delivering quality services for children in Metropolitan Melbourne and Rural Victoria was developed with the key focus on improving health services tertiary for patients. Under the new Royal Children’s Hospital Project, the Children's Health Partnership was also developed to design, build, finance, and maintain the hospital. The organization maintained strong customer relations by providing 2000 car parks, accommodation and facilities for parents, 500 bicycle spaces, play areas, better car park access, better educational facilities, and a range of shops and services for patients, staff, etc. Along with this, the hospital management also enforced effective Human Resource Management Policies by hiring specialized health care staff. The health service delivery in the new Royal Children’s Hospital is managed through Clinical Practice Guidelines being developed for the clinicians. The hospital also focuses on delivering quality and up-to-date information to the patients and their family members. The adoption of this strategic approach helped to ensure the treatment of 35000 patients per year with the provision of car parking for 2000 cars. In addition to this, the overall performance of Royal Children Hospital is managed through a focus on these Key Performance Indicators-

  • Excellence in health care

  • Better organizational environment

  • Focus on quality and safety of patients

  • Effective Leadership in education and research

  • Partner in pediatric care

The consideration of the seven dimensions of the Baldrige Excellence Model helps the organization to deliver high-quality patient care. The staff of RCH is also aware of the department expectations and hospital goals which also helps to improve the overall performance and productivity of the organization.