Benefits of Applying

Based on annual surveys conducted by the Judges Panel of the MBNQA, Baldrige Award applicants have noted the following benefits:

• Accelerated improvement efforts: The application process itself accelerates and goes beyond internal self-assessments by bringing a rigorous, objective, external viewpoint to the organization's internal improvement process.
• Energized employees: Pursuing a common goal motivates employees, resulting in energized improvement efforts.
• An outside perspective: Five to eight trained experts review each application. As a group, they spend a minimum of 300 hours reviewing each application, and site-visited applicants receive more than 1,000 hours of review.
• Learning from the feedback: Each applicant receives an objective, non-prescriptive written assessment of its strengths and opportunities for improvement based on an examination of its award application against the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Organizations often use the report in their strategic planning to focus on their customers and improve results, as well as to help energize and guide improvement efforts.
• Aligned efforts and resources: The linkages among the requirements of the seven Baldrige Criteria Categories can help your organization achieve better coordination and consistency among plans, processes, information, resource decisions, actions, results, analysis, and learning.
• An integrated approach to management: Management benefits from the big-picture systems perspective embedded in the integrated structure of the Baldrige core values and concepts, the Baldrige Criteria, and the scoring guidelines. This perspective helps your organization channel activities in consistent directions, ensuring unity of purpose while supporting agility, innovation, and decentralized decision making.
• Focus on results: Results are the bottom line in the Baldrige process: 450 of the 1,000 points in the Baldrige scoring system are allocated to results, one of seven Baldrige Criteria Categories. This results focus helps your organization determine the most critical areas to measure, create and balance value for key stakeholders, and improve performance in key areas such as customer engagement, process performance, product performance, student learning, and health care outcomes.
• Enhanced certification and accreditation efforts: Recent iterations of standards from organizations in widely varying fields—such as those from the International Organization for Standardization, the Joint Commission, and the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools—are compatible with the Baldrige Criteria. In some cases, a Baldrige application may be substituted for an assessment.
• Role-model status and pride: Even though Baldrige Award recipients tell the Baldrige Program that applying for the Award is not about winning, they also report that their organizations and communities develop a tremendous sense of pride. Baldrige Award recipients share their stories and best performance practices with thousands of people around the country and the world. And Baldrige Award recipients help improve the competitiveness of U.S. organizations by inspiring them to improve their performance.