New Baldrige Eligibility Rules Impacts Indiana Organizations

On December 21, 2011, the national Baldrige program announced via its blog that the eligibility rules for 2012 have changed. Under the new rules, organizations interested in applying for the national Baldrige Award must meet six new conditions as follows:

1. Be a previous Baldrige Award recipient
2. Have received the top-tier award from an Alliance member award program within the past 5 years
3. Have received a site visit at the national level within the past 5 years
4. Have received a combined scoring band range of 8 or better (e.g., process band 4 and results band 4) in the past 5 years
5. Have 25% or more of your employees/staff outside of your organization's home state
6. Have no Alliance member program available for your organization.

This impacts interested Indiana organizations because Indiana now does have an Alliance member program  available: The Partnership for Excellence.

In other words, if your organization is just getting started with the Baldrige journey, it generally must win The Partnership for Excellence's not yet named Indiana award before it can apply for the national Baldrige award.

Given the amount and type of assistance The Partnership for Excellence makes available to organizations, this change will likely accelerate the Baldrige learning curve for an organization rather than slow down or delay progress towards excellence.

You can learn more about The Partnership for Excellence at its website: http://www.thepartnershipforexcellence.org/html/home.htm

You can learn more about the national Baldrige program at its website: http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/