Total Performance Scorecard in Police Practice
Geert Luypaert and Willy Smets of the local Police Force Heusden-Zolder in Belgium.
On 8 November 2004, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) awarded the local police force Heusden-Zolder in Belgium the distinction Recognized for Excellence. The Local and Regional Government Prize encouraged local and regional governments to work on the highest quality standards internally, and to distinguish themselves from their colleagues. The advanced level Recognized for Excellence probes how organizations approach their way towards excellence in a systematic way, and step by step achieve their objectives, using the EFQM model, in combination with Dr. Hubert Rampersad’s Total Performance Scorecard (TPS) and Personal Balanced Scorecard Methodologies. This recognition is an important milestone in the total police environment in Belgium.
The local police force Heusden-Zolder counts 55 employees. The management consists a chief commissioner (head of the force), two commissioners, a level A advisor, a member of the management staff and an inspector from the basic force. Chief of Police, Area Commander at Local Police Heusden-Zolder is Geert Luypaert and chief inspector is Willy Smets.
EFQM and Total Performance Scorecard
In December 2001 Geert Luypaert was appointed the new zone chief in Heusden-Zolder. He immediately recognized that a high performance culture was needed in order to improve the citizen’s perception of his police department and to build public trust and a safer community. He noticed that a change was desperately needed because of: Inefficiency, Low employee satisfaction, Poor leadership skills, Low employee performance, and Low employee retention in his police department.
Willy Smets and Geert Luypaert: ” EFQM and Total Performance Scorecard/Personal Balanced Scorecard have helped us to manage our police force more effectively. We used dashboards to map the performances and to define action plans related to, amongst others, home burglaries, car theft, traffic safety, treatment of victims, etc. By making performance management measurable it’s now much easier to manage our police force effectively and to steer improvement actions systematically, always aiming for higher levels of personal and business excellence. We used Dr. Rampersad’s Personal Balanced Scorecard system to coach the police officers to work smarter and to manage themselves effectively. With this approach we have found the right balance between the procedural and the people oriented approaches. TPS Life Cycle ScanWe also used the related TPS Life Cycle Scan. This is a unique online performance excellence assessment instrument that focuses on the overall performance of an organization. We used this tool to identify which aspects of our organization were eligible for performance improvement and how this can be achieved. The scan is a performance excellence model aimed at continuous performance and process improvement in the direction of Total Performance. By making performance management measurable in this way, it will be easier to manage related performance processes and to increase the score year by year. This makes it possible to steer improvement actions systematically, always aiming for higher levels of personal and business excellence.
The Results
Geert Luypaert: We are extremely happy with the implementation results. We became the First Belgian Police Force to receive the European Baldridge award – EFQM- award. Within 6 months after the implementation we experienced the following results:- Higher employee retention
- Reduced human failures and working smarter.
- Improved performance, leadership skills, and motivation.
- High performance culture
- Optimal fit between personal and organizational objectives
- Higher customer satisfaction.
- Higher labor productivity.
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Higher efficiency
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