Quality Climate for organisations

A prerequisite for the organ­isation and all its teams to meet the demands and expec­tations of others is that the employees both can and will do their best. In order to create a situation in which the employees commit themselves with both their hearts and their minds, to the suc­cess of the team, it is not enough for the team just to meet external demands and expec­tations.

The relation­ships in the team should also be such that demands and expec­tations from the team members are met.
It is not enough for the man­agers to focus on the quality of a team’s products, services, systems and procedures. It is necessary to focus on the people behind the performance of the team. It is not enough to mon­itor customer satisfaction. It is also necessary to mon­itor team member satisfac­tion.

“Quality climate” is a tool for mon­itoring and developing the relation­ships, culture and “climate” in the team so it can keep meeting the team members’ demands and expec­tations for a “3-star workplace”.  The internal quality in the team puts an upper limit on the quality the team can deliver. The tool contains 15 carefully selected factors.

Our experience shows that team performance within these areas, in particular, determines whether the members evaluate that it is good or bad to be a member of their team.

[col2 ]1. Goals
2. Organisation/sharing responsibility
3. Effectiveness/productivity
4. Decisions
5. Delegation
6. Internal communication and co-ordination
7. External communication and co-ordination[/col2][col2 ]8. Physical environment
9. Quality awareness
10. Creativity and innovation
11. Commitment
12. Recognition and rewards
13. Personal development
14. Other psychological environment (relationships)
15. Implementation[/col2]

How you as an individual can use the tool

Every employee should carefully study the Quality Climate. This will increase awareness of the areas in which the quality culture needs to be developed from the team’s point of view. They can get an idea of how well his/her evaluation corresponds with the evaluation of their colleagues. With this new awareness, everyone will be better equipped to contribute to developing Team Quality.

How the organisation can use the tool

The Quality Climate tool should be used by all teams in the organisation. Results from the different teams should be compared to achieve improvements throughout the organisation. Senior management can use the Quality Climate tool to identify those teams, which need additional help, or those teams from which the whole organisation can learn something. It is possible to get an idea of the strong and weak points of the entire organisation by looking at those factors for which all teams get a similar evaluation.

The Quality Climate test should be used by all teams at least once a year and also when structural changes occur in the market and within the organisation; it will function as a benchmarking tool to determine any changes and successes.