Organizational Performance Assessment
As you proceed to learn about our services through the use of this tool, we believe you will find the level of scientific rigor and practicality to be even as good as we have planned for you. Your success and satisfaction is our obligation.
The Organizational Performance Assessment:
The Organizational Performance Assessment(OPA) has been offered by us and used by organizations for over fifteen years. Its earlier version, the Organizational Assessment for Quality (OAQ) was used by over 300 public, not for profit, and private sector organizations. The earlier version (OAQ) was used by the U. S. Office of Personnel Management as an aid to help it assess the level of quality of Federal organizations. It has also been used by Fortune 100 companies to help benchmark best practices within their organizations as well as to pinpoint areas where the greatest opportunities for improvement exist within their specific organizational units.
Scientific Research Publications:
The validation and practical use of the tool was reported in Gilbert, G. R. & Parhizgari, A. M. (2000) Organizational Effectiveness Indicators to Support Service Quality Managing Service Quality, 10 (1), 46-51 (Recipient of Emerald Editors Excellence Award, 2001) and Parhizgari, A. M. & Gilbert, G. R. (2004) Measures Of Organizational Effectiveness: Private And Public Sector Performance, Omega, The International Journal of Management Science (Ranked10 among the top 25 papers published by the journal in 2004). More research is underway..
Scholarly Contributions Based On This Instrument:
- National Context and Organizational Performance. Paper presented at the Academy of International Business. Vancouver, Canada. July 27, 2014
- “An Exploration of the Effects of National Context and Organizational Performance: An Analysis of Sectors in Two Countries” Paper presented at the Academy of International Business Conference, Washington DC. July 1.
- “Organizational Effectiveness Indicators to Support Service Quality” Managing Service Quality, 10 (1), 46-51 (Recipient of Emerald Editor’s Excellence Award, 2001)
- “Measures Of Organizational Effectiveness: Private And Public Sector Performance,” Omega, The International Journal of Management Science (Ranked10 among the top 25 papers published by the journal in 2004).
- " The Effectiveness of Work Structures And Processes Of Sales/Marketing Types When Compared With Other Professions.". Conference Proceedings Academy of Marketing Science Conference, Cardiff, Wales. May 30-June 2.
- "Organizational Leadership and Cultural Change." A Doctoral Dissertation. University of Southern California. August.
- "On Measures of Organizational Effectiveness: Public vs. Private Sectors." Conference Proceedings. International Conference on Banking and Finance: Issues and Strategies. August.
The Scientific Uniqueness of the OPA:
Every measure embedded within the OPA has been validated using the most stringent of statistical tests. They demonstrate strong empirical reliability and validity in repeated samples.
Each of the ten OPA measures is highly associated with
Organizational goal accomplishment
Leading change within the organization
Effective human resource management
Sound financial management practices
Excelling in the use of information technology
Building effective partnerships with important representatives from other agencies
Each is also highly correlated with convergent validity measures such as employees’:
High ratings of effective organizational leadership
Ratings of outstanding customer service provided by the organization
Overall organizational effectiveness
We Validate Our Measures Within Your Organization:
We test each measure to reconfirm the suitability of our measures in your organization as part of our assessment process. Thus, we cannot only tell you which of the ten OPA measures is important in terms of your organization, but also pinpoint the relative weight of each measure to the accomplishment of your goals.
The OPA Can Help You Gain Competitive Advantage:
- It protects the confidentiality of each employee who makes the effort to offer his or her candid assessment of your organization
- It produces a real time easy-to-read assessment of your organization and the subsystems within it
- It provides easy to use graphs for you to see differences in ratings by your departments, shifts, professions, occupational groups, trades, work processes, geographic locations, product teams, employee demographics and the like (you decide what to capture and we break it down for you, just as you want it)
- It can be used again, over time, enabling you and your organization to track improvements as well as point out new areas needing attention, and other important changes that are occurring that you may not otherwise observe (or be managing)
- You can add questions or probes to the fundamental measures embedded in the OPA so you can tailor it to meet your own unique needs
A Word About User Organization's Responsibilities When Using The OPA:
The OPA is a tool designed to enable you to improve your organization. It helps you identify areas within your organization where you are especially strong, and it also identifies areas where you have the greatest opportunities for improvement. When you involve your employees in such an undertaking, there is an obligation to share the information gained from our report with them. Thus, you need to be committed to doing so, and we can help you if needed by having one of our very skilled consultants either come to your agency and personally present an overview of the report to your organizational team, or help coach you or your representative to be able to interpret the results and share the feedback with those in your organization.
Once you get the report, you have an incredible opportunity to enlist the help of all on your team to pinpoint best practices as well as barriers to organizational effectiveness and then identify action plans to enhance what needs improvement. Again, we can help you with this, but with or without our personal involvement, you need to be committed to act on the feedback derived from your employees’ ratings.
The OPA has helped us facilitate significant improvement in every organization where it has been used, and then actions taken to identify barriers and create new ways of working together, more efficiently, productively, and by getting results through highly motivated employees working together in teams.
Just like you, we earn our reputations every day as a result of the success of our client/customers who are committed to lead their organizations to a better place. Your success is directly related to our success. When we help you accomplish your goals, we succeed along with you. Thus, you can count on us to be your partner; to join with you on your path to quantifiable continuous improvement.
Measures In The OPA:
The OPA has 10 measures embedded in it. Each is analyzed, and subsequently an easy to read, work force friendly report is generated, very quickly.
The measures include:
Importance Of The Mission
Employees' belief that the work of the agency is very important. Agency has an important mission and provides important products and/or services. Studies consistently have confirmed that a key characteristic of organizational goal accomplishment is the degree to which organizational members know, understand, and are committed to their organization's mission. When the members of the organization understand its mission and believe it is very important, they are capable of becoming great.
Supportive Policies Toward The Work Force
Organization is loyal to its work force, is perceived to care about the employees' welfare, is fair to employees. Studies have linked supportive policies demonstrated by supervisors and the organization, itself, to be directly connected to employee satisfaction and commitment, and these, in turn, are associated with improved organizational performance.
Facilitative Organizational Design
Flexible rules, and not being over laden with rigid bureaucratic barriers, enable employees to respond to their customers in a timely manner. It is well known that excessive red tape and layers of internal checks and balances impede organizational responsiveness. Quick decision making processes are needed by employees so they can meet the demands of their own internal or external customers and suppliers. This is a measure of the relative responsiveness of decision making within the organization based on its design.
Positive Working Conditions
Good working conditions, pleasant place to work, attractive work environment. This is an indicator of internal customer support on the part of top management toward the employees. Such enable employees to perform the tasks expected of them as a result of their having proper tools and supplies.
Pay And Benefits
The degree to which employees view the compensation they receive from their company to be fair and acceptable. When employees feel they are being treated inequitably, their willingness to perform is impeded, and such lowers organizational effectiveness. This is a measure of the employees' perceptions about how fair they are treated by their employer through their pay and benefits.
Open Communications With Employees
Employees know where they stand at all times and are given real time feedback about their performance in an effective way. Leaders listen to employees' ideas and concerns, and share feedback from customers with employees to solve problems together. Studies clearly demonstrate that in contemporary organizations embedded in rapidly changing environments, highly participative forms of management are more effective than top-down forms of the past. This is a measure of employee empowerment and effective use of team based decision making.
Employee Loyalty And Pride
Has very loyal work force, highly motivated, hard working employees who have a lot of pride in their workmanship. Employee loyalty and pride have been found to be important indicators of sustained organizational effectiveness and the organization's ability to excel.
Employee Loyalty And Pride
Has very loyal work force, highly motivated, hard working employees who have a lot of pride in their workmanship. Employee loyalty and pride have been found to be important indicators of sustained organizational effectiveness and the organization's ability to excel.
Operational Efficiency
Does things on time, employs efficient ways of getting the work done, does not waste time, meets deadlines better than most other organizations. This is an indicator of the organization's effectiveness at eliminating waste and other inefficiencies that are costly in terms of time, money, rework and on time delivery to the customer.
Customer Oriented Behavior
Places a lot of emphasis on satisfying its customers, is friendly to customers, has easy access for its customers to use its services, treats customers courteously, is dedicated to customer satisfaction. This is an essential measure of organizational effectiveness in private sector and most public sector organizations.
Customer Oriented Behavior
Places a lot of emphasis on satisfying its customers, is friendly to customers, has easy access for its customers to use its services, treats customers courteously, is dedicated to customer satisfaction. This is an essential measure of organizational effectiveness in private sector and most public sector organizations.
Supplier Relations
Spends a lot of time and effort to help develop its suppliers, helps its suppliers perform more effectively, wants its suppliers to succeed. This sheds light on the organization's focus on enabling its suppliers to perform effectively for the organization. It is an important indicator of effective supply-chain management.