Global Excellence Frameworks and Human Capital

Abstract

According to the business excellence (BE)- and return on investment (ROI)-based Process Maturity–Global Insights ‘global survey 2014’ conducted by KPMG, over 60% of organisations invest in people-related practices to maintain employee motivation, learning, and career growth, while minimising attrition. In recent years, it has been recognised that the ways in which human resources (HR) are treated and developed affect their performance, and that, consequently, the general organisational performance is also affected. Given these considerations, many organisations have shown interest in global excellence frameworks such as the Baldrige or European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) models for quality. A study conducted by the New Zealand Centre for Organisational Excellence Research reported that there are currently about 61 excellence frameworks around the world (Ahmed 2015). These are the results of various national efforts of many countries to increase organisational competitiveness. However, in broader terms, many excellence frameworks are based on popular awards, such as the Deming Prize (DP), Baldrige Award, and EFQM Award. The latter two have provided foundations for many national-level excellence awards. These awards and their criteria are described in detail in this chapter. In addition, we illustrate how the excellence frameworks are linked to human capital and discuss the ‘people’ and ‘workforce’ criteria of the EFQM and Baldrige award models. Organisations seeking improvement in their HR management (HRM) also rely on known best practices, hoping they will benefit and improve their HRM policies and practices.