Organizational Assessment: A framework for improving performance

Calls for performance measures and metrics sound good, but public sector organizations often lack the tools required to assess the organization as a whole and create true change.In order to implement an integrated cycle of assessment, planning, and improvement, government agencies at all levels need a usable framework for organizational assessment that speaks to their unique needs. Organizational Assessment and Improvement in the Public Sector provides that framework, an understanding of assessment itself, and a methodology for assessment focused on the public sector. The book introduces the concept of organizational assessment, its importance, and its significance in public sector organizations. It addresses the organizational theory that underlies assessment, including change management, organizational and individual learning, and organizational development. Building on this, the author focuses on the processes and demonstrates how the communication that results from an assessment process can create a widely accepted case for change. She presents a model grounded in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Program criteria but adapted for the culture of government organizations. She also addresses the criteria that form the basis for assessment and implementation and provides examples and best practices. Facing decreasing budgets and an increasing demand for services, government agencies must increase their capabilities, maximize their available fiscal and human resources, and increase their effectiveness and efficiency. They often operate in an atmosphere that prizes effectiveness but measures it in silos assigned to individual programs and a structure that encourages people to do more with less while systematically discouraging efficiency. Stressing the significant and important differences between a business and a government, this book supplies the knowledge and tools necessary to create a culture of assessment in government organizations at all levels.

Organizational Diagnosis and Assessment presents sharp-image diagnosis, a distinctive approach to organizational consultation and planned change, that reflects current research and theorizing about organizational change and effectiveness. The authors draw on multiple analytical frames to produce empirically grounded models of sources of ineffectiveness and forces for change, showing how consultants, managers, and applied researchers can break free of unproductive practices and ways of thinking to avoid uncritical adoption of management fads. They offer workable solutions to critical problems and demonstrate ways to meet organizational challenges like market downturns, technological change, and alliances with other organizations. Organizational Diagnosis and Assessment covers diagnosis and assessment of work groups, organizations, and whole systems. This volume develops analytical approaches for problem solving and strategy formation in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Diagnosis of public policy issues, like assessments of the effectiveness of health systems, is also addressed. Many of the models and techniques contribute to assessing the changing nature of the workplace, examining organizational decline and other life-cycle transitions; gendering; change and diversity in organizational culture and in workforce composition; the spread of new forms of work organization, including teams, flat hierarchies, and networks; new uses of information technology; and mergers and alliances among organizations. Organizational Diagnosis and Assessment will be invaluable to advanced students, consultants, and applied behavioral scientists in social sciences, management, social work, organizational and industrial psychology, organizational sociology, nursing, and public administration.

Assessment Centers and Managerial Performance presents the historical development of multiple assessment procedures with focus on those advances relevant to assessment centers. This book discusses the models of job analysis, the nature of managerial work, work-sampling assessment methods, and the process of human judgment based on the assessment center experience. Organized into 11 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the various methods to describe, evaluate, and predict management effectiveness. This text then describes a number of assessment programs, including the earliest assessment centers. Other chapters consider the five approaches to predicting managerial effectiveness, including psychometric testing, clinical evaluations by psychologists, supervisor's ratings of potentials background interviews, and assessment centers. This book discusses as well the three levels of managerial jobs, namely, supervisory, middle management, and executive. The final chapter deals with the development of standards for assessment center operations. This book is a valuable resource for psychologists.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "invaluable examples and adaptations of the tools."--Page 4 of cover.

Manual on measurement and improvement of work organization and job design - includes a bibliography pp. 522 to 542.

Institutional Assessment: A framework for strengthening organizational capacity for IDRCs research partners

Discusses how to eliminate unethical behavior at the workplace, demonstrating how to master corporate politics ethically through an understanding of political styles and an application of strategies in such areas as networking and idea promotion.

Handbook of Workplace Assessment Given the trend for organizations to streamline their workforces and focus on acquiring and retaining only top talent, a key challenge has been how to use assessment programs to deliver a high-performing workforce that can drive revenues, shareholder value, growth, and long-term sustainability. The Handbook of Workplace Assessment directly addresses this challenge by presenting sound, evidence-based, and practical guidance for implementing assessment processes that will lead to exceptional decisions about people. The chapters in this book provide a wide range of perspectives from a world-renowned group of authors and reflect cutting-edge theory and practice. The Handbook of Workplace Assessment provides the framework for what should be assessed and why and shows how to ensure that assessment programs are of the highest quality reviews best practices for assessing capabilities across a wide variety of positions summarizes key strategic applications of assessment that include succession management, mergers, acquisitions and downsizings, identification of potential, and selection on a global scale highlights advances, trends, and issues in the assessment field including technology-based assessment, the legal environment, alternative validation strategies, flaws in assessment, and the strategic use of evaluation to link assessment to organizational priorities This SIOP Professional Practice Series Handbook will be applicable to HR professionals who are tasked with implementing an assessment program as well as for the users of assessments, including hiring managers and organizational leaders who are looking for direction on what to assess, what it will take, and how to realize the benefits of an assessment program. This Handbook is also intended for assessment professionals and researchers who build, validate, and implement assessments.

Many organizations have embraced the concept of improving overall performance by using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria as a benchmark to gauge their strengths and opportunities for improvement, and as a measurement of their overall alignment and integration of key processes. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, America has made great strides in improving homeland security. Individual citizens, industry, and government leaders from all spectrums of our society have become involved in ensuring national security. This comprehensive and hands-on manual will help organizations align the Baldrige Award Criteria for Performance Excellence with homeland security issues. These are issues that both public and private organizations must address in order to ensure a safe work environment for their employees and the customers of their products and services.