1.

Quality awards have become quite popular in the recent times and are even regarded as
corporate status symbols. Historically it has been recognized that people play a major role in
providing quality and unless the people are motivated and committed towards quality,
improvements will not occur. This fact has been well taken into account while developing the
criteria for the awards. In this paper the role of human resources management in improving
the quality is examined by studying the emphasis on human resources with respect to the
criteria involved in different quality awards. The objective is to ascertain the importance
attached to the human resources management and hence to quantify their contribution towards
becoming an award winning company.

2 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence

This is the model behind the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, an award process
administered by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and managed by the National Institute of
Science and Technology (NIST), an agency of the US department of Commerce. This framework is
used as the basis for over 70 other national Business Excellence/Quality awards around the world.

The model consists of seven categories

1. Leadership

2. Strategic Planning

3. Customer & Market Focus

4. Measurement, Analysis & Knowledge Management

5. Workforce Focus

6. Process Management

7. Business Results

The core concepts of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence are

Visionary leadership

Customer-driven excellence

Organizational and personal learning

Valuing employees and partners

Agility

Focus on the future

Managing for innovation

Management by fact

Social responsibility
 Focus on results and creating value

Systems perspective

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EFQM Excellence Model

This is the model behind the European Business Excellence Award, an award process run by the
European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). This framework is used as the basis for
national business excellence and quality awards across Europe.

The model consists of nine categories

1. Leadership

2. Policy and Strategy

3. People

4. Partnerships and Resources

5. Processes

6. Customer Results

7. People Results

8. Society Results

9. Key Performance Results

The fundamental concepts that underpin the EFQM Excellence Model are:

Results Orientation

Customer Focus

Leadership and Constancy of Purpose

Management by Processes and Facts

People Development and Involvement

Continuous Learning, Innovation and Improvement

Partnership Development

Corporate Social Responsibility

Business Excellence is often described as outstanding practices in managing the organisation and
achieving results, all based on a set of fundamental concepts or values.
These practices have evolved into models for how a world class organisation should operate. These
models have been developed and continue to evolve through extensive study of the practice and
values of the worlds highest performing organisations.

Many countries have developed their own models and use these as frameworks to assess and
recognise the performance of organisations through awards programmes.

What are business excellence models?

Business excellence models are frameworks that when applied within an organisation can help to
focus thought and action in a more systematic and structured way that should lead to increased
performance. The models are holistic in that they focus upon all areas and dimensions of an
organisation, and in particular, factors that drive performance. These models are internationally
recognised as both providing a framework to assist the adoption of business excellence principles, and
an effective way of measuring how thoroughly this adoption has been incorporated.

What are the Baldrige criteria?

The Baldrige performance excellence criteria are a framework that any organization can use to
improve overall performance. Seven categories make up the award criteria:

Leadership

Examines how senior executives guide the organization and how the organization addresses its
responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship.

Strategic planning

Examines how the organization sets strategic directions and how it determines key action plans.

Customer and market focus

Examines how the organization determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets.

Information and analysis

Examines the management, effective use, and analysis of data and information to support key
organization processes and the organizations performance management system.

Human resource focus

Examines how the organization enables its workforce to develop its full potential and how the
workforce is aligned with the organizations objectives.

Process management

Examines aspects of how key production/delivery and support processes are designed, managed, and
improved.

Business results
Examines the organizations performance and improvement in its key business areas: customer
satisfaction, financial and marketplace performance, human resources, supplier and partner
performance, and operational performance. The category also examines how the organization
performs relative to competitors.

The criteria are used by thousands of organizations of all kinds for self-assessment and training and as
a tool to develop performance and business processes. Approximately 2 million copies have been
distributed since the first edition in 1988, and heavy reproduction and electronic access multiply that
number many times.

For many organizations, using the criteria results in better employee relations, higher productivity,
greater customer satisfaction, increased market share, and improved profitability. According to a
report by the Conference Board, a business membership organization, A majority of large U.S. firms
have used the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for self-improvement, and the
evidence suggests a long-term link between use of the Baldrige criteria and improved business
performance.

3.What is productivity?

Productivity is about how well people combine resources to produce goods and services. For
countries, it is about creating more from available resources such as raw materials, labour, skills,
capital equipment, land, intellectual property, managerial capability and financial capital. With the
right choices, higher production, higher value and higher incomes can be achieved for every hour
worked.

Why does productivity matter?

Generally speaking, the higher the productivity of a country, the higher the living standards that it can
afford and the more options it has to choose from to improve wellbeing. Wellbeing can be increased
by things like quality healthcare and education; excellent roads and other infrastructure; safer
communities; stronger support for people who need it; and improved environmental standards.

High productivity societies are characterised by smart choices about savings and investment versus
current consumption; dynamic and competitive markets; openness to trade and to international
connectedness; high awareness of external influences; rapid uptake and smart application of new
technologies, products and processes; and increasing demand for highly skilled and creative people.
These are the successful societies that attract and retain people, ideas and capital.

Key Points

o Productivity is essentially the efficiency in which a company or economy can

transform resources into goods, potentially creating more from less.

o Productivity can effectively raise living standards through decreasing the required
monetary investment in everyday necessities (and luxuries), making consumers
wealthier and business more profitable and in turn enabling higher government tax
revenues.

o Economists looking to measure this productivity within a given system generally

leverage production functions to determine how different factors of production (i.e.
inputs) affect the overall output.
 o The final important consideration in assessing productivity potential is the
production-possibility frontier (PPF), which outlines the maximum production
quantity of two goods in the scope of our current technological capacity and supply.

Terms

productivity the rate at which goods or services are produced by a standard population of
workers.

Production function Relates physical output of a production process to physical inputs or

factors of production.