The new Baldrige Award Criteria are organized around eight performance dimensions that both enable and reflect organizational resilience and long-term success. Since these criteria will be used to evaluate a wide variety of organizations, it is important for evaluators to understand and consider your organization’s unique environment.

1. From: New-Baldrige-Award-Criteria-for-2024_0.pdf (nist.gov) and
2024 Baldrige Award FAQs | NIST

2.  The new Baldrige Award Criteria are organized around eight performance dimensions
that both enable and reflect organizational resilience and long-term success.
 Since these criteria will be used to evaluate a wide variety of organizations, it is
important for evaluators to understand and consider your organization’s unique
environment.
 That begins with your responses to a series of questions in the Organizational Profile.

3.  The information requested in this section will provide context to ensure a deeper
understanding of your organization and its environment.
 The Organizational Profile section will not be evaluated.
 You will have a limit of 2,000 characters and up to three charts, graphs, and/or tables
for each question.
 This section should not include details of your key processes or results.

4.  1. What are your key products, services, and/or programs?
 2. What are your mission, vision, and values or guiding principles?
 3. What is your overall organizational leadership and governance structure?
 4. What is your workforce profile, including makeup/important characteristics of your
workforce (segments, demographics, the environment [centralized/dispersed, in
office/virtual])?

5.  5. What are your key market segments and/or customer groups? What percentage of
business volume/revenue does each comprise?
 6. What role do suppliers, partners, and collaborators perform in producing and
delivering your key products, services, and/or programs?
 7. What types of competitors do you have, and what differentiates your organization?

6.  8. What are your key communities? What role do these relationships play in supporting
your organization and your key communities?
 Note: Key communities may include the following:
▪ • Local/geographic (e.g., volunteerism and other activities that benefit your community)
▪ • Professional (e.g., participation and/or leadership of professional societies)
▪ • Industrial (e.g., participation and/or leadership of trade associations)

7.  9. What are the strategic challenges, threats, advantages, opportunities, core
competencies, or other critical factors that most impact your organization’s success
and sustainability?
 10. What are your key applicable regulations, as well as accreditation, certification, or
registration requirements?
 11. Is there anything you consider unusual about your environment or business model
that would aid in understanding your organization?

8.  For each of the sections below, there are two types of questions: one asks about key
processes used, the other, results and/or outcomes achieved.
 Both are important in the evaluation process; however, results and outcomes carry
more weight and are the focus of the application review phase.
 For organizations that advance, the site visit review phase will verify performance
results and explore key processes, systems, and various role-model characteristics.

9.  Results below will be evaluated based on responsiveness to the question asked,
performance levels and trends, comparisons to competitors or industry benchmarks
(as appropriate), and relevance of the metrics provided.
 Relevance can be thought of as whether your organization is measuring what is
important to your success and sustainability, to include appropriate segmented data.

10.  In the first question in each section below, briefly describe your processes and/or
systems. The description is limited to 2,000 characters and a maximum of three
charts/graphs/tables.
 For questions 2 and beyond in each section below, where appropriate and possible,
use charts, graphs, and/or tables to provide your most recent five years of
performance data against relevant comparisons. Include segmentation where
requested, and elsewhere as appropriate for your organization. Relevant comparisons
may include results for competitors, best-in-class, top decile or quartile, etc.

11.  1. Briefly describe and/or depict your leadership and governance processes and/or
systems, including processes for succession planning and for two-way communication.
 2. What are your results for the effectiveness of senior leaders’ engagement and
communication by key workforce segments (e.g., workforce ratings of leaders)?

12.  3. What are your results for the effectiveness of senior leaders’ engagement and
communication by key customer and stakeholder segments?
 4. What are your results for leadership and governance accountability (e.g., internal
and external audits and assessments, certifications, and accreditations)?
 Note: Comparisons are not expected for this question.
 5. What are your results for grievances and complaints, including those related to
safety, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and ethics?

13.  Note: Comparisons not expected for the results in this section.
 1. Briefly describe and/or depict your key processes used in strategic planning,
including development, resource allocation, and execution.
 2. What are your results for accomplishment of your action plans?

14.  3. What are your results for the impact of your organizational strategy?
 Note: These are the results demonstrating the impact of accomplishing your strategic
goals and/or objectives.
 4. What are your results for achievement of workforce plans, including capability and
capacity for strategically important positions?

15.  1. Briefly describe and/or depict your key processes used for the following:
▪ a. design and delivery of your products and services,
▪ b. supply network management, and
▪ c. innovation management.
 2. What are your results for the effectiveness and efficiency of your key processes?

16.  3. What are your results for the performance of your key products, services, and/or
programs?
 4. What are the results for the performance of key components of your supply network
(e.g., on-time delivery, availability of critical materials, quality)?
 5. What are your results for cybersecurity effectiveness, including intrusion attempts
versus incidents?

17.  1. Briefly describe and/or depict your key processes used for the following:
▪ a. risk management,
▪ b. continuity of operations, and
▪ c. emergency preparedness.
 2. What are the results for the effectiveness of your risk management plan, including
the following:
▪ a. number of risks identified versus number of risks mitigated,
▪ b. cost of losses, and
▪ c. cost savings of risks averted and risks mitigated?

18.  3. What are the results for the testing of your continuity of operations plan?
 4. What are the results for the testing of your emergency preparedness plans (e.g.,
time to evacuate your facility, emergency response time, recovery time)?

19.  Note: Results presented below should include data for key workforce segments, where
available.
 1. Briefly describe your key processes used for the following:
▪ a. workforce engagement,
▪ b. workforce development and job skills training, and
▪ c. ensuring workplace health and safety.
 2. What are your results for turnover, retention, and absenteeism?
 3. What are your results for workforce satisfaction and dissatisfaction?

20.  4. What are your results for workforce engagement?
 5. What are your results for workforce and leadership development, including job skills
training?
 6. What are your results for significant safety-related incidents, including Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reportable incidents?
 7. What are your results for additional indicators of workplace health and safety (e.g.,
results of safety audits, near-miss tracking)?

21.  1. Briefly describe your key processes used for the following:
▪ a. customer listening,
▪ b. customer engagement, and
▪ c. customer support.
 2. What are your results for market size and market share, by business unit or
product/service, as appropriate?
 3. What are your results for your customer loyalty, including likelihood to recommend
your organization, by key customer segments?

22.  Note: For health care organizations, as appropriate: Include your results for Hospital
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) or CAHPS
scores.
 4. What are your results for customer complaints, by key customer segments, if
available?
 5. What are your results for customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, by key customer
segments?

23.  1. Briefly describe your key processes for community engagement and societal
contributions. Be sure to include your processes for the following:
▪ a. listening and engaging with your key communities, and
▪ b. supporting your key communities.
 2. What are your results for engaging and building relationships with your key
communities? Be sure to include results for the following:
▪ a. the number and type of engagements,
▪ b. the frequency of each engagement type (how often the engagement happens), and c.
▪ the length of time of engagements.

24.  3. What are your results for societal contributions?
 Note: See below for some examples of societal contributions:
▪ • reduced energy consumption
▪ • use of renewable energy resources and recycled water
▪ • reduction of your carbon footprint
▪ • waste reduction and utilization
▪ • alternative approaches to conserving resources (e.g., increased virtual meetings)
▪ • global use of enlightened labor practices; and
▪ • donations of goods or services to promote housing, community health, and food security.

25.  1. Briefly describe your key processes used for managing your organization’s finances
to ensure the following:
▪ a. financial viability, and
▪ b. access to capital during disruptions.
 2. What are your results for financial viability (e.g., liquidity, days cash on
hand/reserves, credit or bond rating)?
 3. What are your results for financial performance (e.g., revenues, operating margin,
performance to budget) by organization units, as appropriate?

27.  The Baldrige Program’s purpose and mission have always been to improve the
performance and long-term success of businesses and other organizations by (1)
recognizing role models with the Baldrige Award and (2) fostering the adoption of
proven leadership, management, and operational practices.
 Since the program was created in 1987, those practices needed to ensure long-term
success have evolved significantly.
 The 2024 Baldrige Award process reflects that major shift in focus while still being
true to the 1987 legislation focused on quality and improvement of U.S. businesses.

28.  The increasing frequency of regional, national, and global disruptions puts the health,
education, and economic vitality of communities across the nation at risk, impacting
our economy and national security. Our nation needs organizations that can achieve
and sustain high performance over time and through various disruptions––be they
technological, geopolitical, environmental, or market-based.
 Building on the Baldrige Program’s legacy of quality and performance excellence, the
Baldrige Award will recognize role models of resilience and long-term success—
organizations that are ready and able to adapt, innovate, and thrive in an ever-
changing, dynamic environment.

29.  The award criteria, application, and evaluation process are being streamlined to focus
on identifying role models rather than providing a complete organization-wide
assessment against every question in the Baldrige Excellence Framework.
 The award criteria will be a narrowed set of questions that address organizational
resilience and long-term success derived from the content and concepts found in the
framework.

30.  The award application will be an online interface that primarily consists of responding
to basic information about the organization and uploading limited and specific results
aligned to the drivers of organizational resilience in the form of graphs, charts, and
tables.

31.  Trained Baldrige examiners will evaluate those results using a simplified rubric that
considers levels, trends, comparisons, and integration/segmentation of data, as
appropriate. The Judges Panel will use those evaluations to determine which
organizations should advance to a site visit. During the site visit, the examiners will
verify performance, explore related processes, and assess role-model characteristics.
The Judges Panel will use the site visit evaluations to recommend Baldrige Award
recipients to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S.
Department of Commerce.

32.  For the first time, participating organizations that advance to the site visit phase of the
award process will be officially designated as “finalists” for the award. In addition,
site-visited organizations will be eligible for special recognition for having significant
impact in an area of importance to their organizations, their key stakeholders, and/or
the nation.
 Recognitions may include reshoring high-quality jobs; improving the overall well-being
of their workforce; strengthening the resilience of their supply chain; or enhancing the
economic vitality, health, and/or education of underserved populations in their
communities.

33.  Starting in 2024, we will leverage certain existing industry recognitions as part of a
pre-screening process that will “fast-track” some high-performing organizations
directly to the site visit phase.
 To date, we have identified two such recognitions that have the necessary breadth,
depth, rigor, and alignment to the Baldrige Award criteria: Drucker Institute’s Company
Rankings and JUST Capital’s Company Rankings; however, note that decisions on
which recognitions to consider are ongoing and subject to change. Others will be
considered in the future.

34.  An organization’s ability to be resilient and successful in the long term depends on
excellence in many areas of its performance.

35.  The award process is focused on role-model determination, not necessarily
organizational development/improvement, though this is still the focus of the Baldrige
Excellence Framework and its Criteria for Performance Excellence. This change reflects
the separation of these objectives.
 Sharing and promoting the nation’s role-model organizations is aligned with the
Baldrige Program’s mission and goals to improve the competitiveness and performance
of U.S. organizations for the benefit of all U.S. residents and to provide global
leadership in the learning and sharing of successful strategies and performance
practices, principles, and methodologies.

36.  Streamlining the award criteria, application, and evaluation process will make it much
easier for award applicant organizations to prepare an application and participate in the
award process.
 It should be noted that ease of participation does not mean it will be easy to win the
award.
 Achieving role-model levels of performance should never be easy.

37.  Earning the Baldrige Award and being recognized as a national role model has always
had a positive impact on brand reputation and has been considered a major
accomplishment. Now, the potential to be recognized as a “finalist” for the award,
along with special recognition for having impact in areas of importance to the
organization or the nation, all at a significantly lower investment of time and effort,
creates substantially more value for participating organizations.
 In addition, many organizations find value in having a positive impact on the nation
through sharing their best practices, thereby helping improve the performance and
outcomes across every sector of the economy.

38.  The streamlined award criteria, application, and evaluation process will result in
substantial reduction in the time and effort it will take for examiners to complete their
individual reviews, and for the examiner team to reach consensus and complete a site
visit review.

39.  One of the goals of the redesigned process is to ensure appropriate balance between
streamlining and protecting the rigor and integrity of the process.
 To help ensure the quality and consistency of the evaluations, the Baldrige Program will
provide “standard work” tools that will facilitate and guide examiners through their
evaluations, from application reviews through site visits.

40.  Examiner recruitment and selection are expected to kick-off in late 2023 or early
2024.
 All examiners will be required to successfully complete the training program that will
include online modules and interactive sessions designed to develop knowledge of the
new criteria, skill in the use of the revised evaluation rubric, and familiarity with the
standard work tools.

41.  Increasing awareness, interest, and participation in Baldrige at the national level will
automatically create more awareness, interest, and participation in the state, regional,
and sector-specific programs.

42.  Alliance programs generally serve organizations that are striving to improve their
performance, earn recognition as they progress along their improvement journeys, and
ultimately achieve the levels of performance necessary to compete for the national
award. That will not change.
 Alliance programs will continue to play a critical role in helping organizations get to that
level. However, it is possible that in the future the specifics of the evaluation and
recognition offerings could change to ensure alignment to the national award while
providing the most appropriate assessment for organizations at varying levels of
performance maturity.

43.  “Communities” was authorized by Congress as a Baldrige Award category in August
2022. The Baldrige Program’s authorization to recognize communities of excellence
creates an opportunity to create and leverage connections to NIST’s work related to
“smart cities,” supply-chain resilience, and community resilience.
 NIST's community resilience initiative recently recognized the inverse connection that
resilient communities require resilient organizations. Organizational resilience depends
on a robust/resilient ecosystem, which is why the Baldrige Program has been
integrating communities of excellence.

44.  The next revision of the Baldrige framework (including the health care and education
versions) is planned for release in 2025.
 As needed, revisions will incorporate changes to simplify, streamline, and improve its
ease of use; updates related to an additional focus on resilience; and other revisions
to reflect the leading edge of validated leadership and performance practices.
 Using the full set of Criteria questions in the framework to focus on improvement and
strive for excellence will continue to be valuable for an organization’s efforts toward
achieving role-model levels of performance.

45.  For the first time, the award criteria will not be identical to the Criteria for Performance
Excellence® found in the framework.
 The award criteria will be a narrowed set of questions that address organizational
resilience and long-term success derived from the content and concepts found in the
framework.