What is the Organizational Effectiveness Profile?

• The OEP is a standardized assessment tool that measures 31 elements of organizational culture and effectiveness. It can quickly and objectively scan an organization’s health and culture. Commonly, it is given to employees who are asked to evaluate the organizations characteristics and features, such as morale, growth management, trust, and teamwork.

• It contains 294 items that can be answered using a 5 point scale from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree". These items are combined into 31 scales measuring 31 elements of organization culture. Each of these scales varies in length, with an average of 9 items per scale.

• We report the results by graphing the organization’s average scale scores for all of the items on each of the 31 scales, and standard scores for normative comparison with other organizations. We also report the 25 highest and lowest rated items to give more specific insight into the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. For each of the 31 scales, items that make up the scale are sorted from highest (most positive) to lowest.

How was the OEP constructed?

• Since 1984, Hcg has done organization development for over 75 organizations. On many occasions this has been part of a team building effort. At other times we have assessed organizational health or culture. During the process of each of these interventions, we conducted interviews to identify organizational strengths, weaknesses and cultural characteristics. Content analysis of these interviews yielded consistent, recurring themes such as the level of morale, trust, commitment and motivation of employees, the quality of communications processes, the existence or absence of infrastructure, etc. We distilled these recurring themes down to the original 29 scales.

• We then conducted a review of the research literature on each of these scales. This helped to identify key component behaviors or attributes of a given scale (i.e. trust). We then wrote test items to reflect the many components of a construct.

• We generated over 900 items, representing approximately 30 items per scale. Beta testing on several organizations and item analysis helped to boil down the original 900 items to the current 294.

• After 1 year of use, we conducted additional item analysis and further refined the instrument. We revised items and developed several new scales. Using statistical measurement of internal consistency, scale inter correlation and factor analysis, we developed the current version of the OEP, which contains 31 scales.

How do organizations use the OEP?

The OEP can be used in a variety of ways:

• To identify the organization’s strengths and weaknesses
• To identify key elements of the organizations culture
• To compare the cultures of multiple organizations and identify important issues that must be addressed if they are to be integrated.
• To compare an existing culture with an "ideal" culture
• To surface themes that can be explored further through interviews or focus groups
• To assess the health of different organizations relative to each other
• To objectively measure the effects of an action, intervention or decision on the organization
• To evaluate changes in an organization over time
• To assess the impact of a manager or leader on an organization
• To identify issues to be discussed in team building

How is the OEP different from other employee attitude or culture surveys?

(1) Normative data enables you to compare your organization to others

• Unlike other surveys, the OEP utilizes normative data collected from a wide variety of organizations to enable you to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of your organization to those in our norm group. This enables you to assess the extent or severity of any problems that are surfaced and the magnitude of strengths or assets that may be unappreciated.

(2) Reports both item data and data on 31 scales

• Most employees attitude and culture surveys simply report statistical results on individual survey items, while the OEP reports both item data and data on 31 scales and global factors. This allows the organization to see broader trends and identify underlying themes and issues.

(3) Easier to Interpret

• The graphic presentation of the OEP is much easier to interpret than typical employee attitude or culture surveys. Color graphs and unique grouping of data provide quick, intuitive understanding.

How can the OEP add value to my organization?

• Identifies organizational strengths and weaknesses
• Objectively quantifies elements of organizational culture
• Surfaces similarities and differences between organizational cultures to aid in the development of an integration plan
• Provides employees with a voice and an opportunity to tell management about their concerns
• Aids in planning of change interventions
• Surfaces blind spots
• Assesses the impact of a reorganization, program or intervention
• Determines the impact of management

How long will the OEP take for my employees to complete?

How do we interpret the OEP results?

• Start by looking at page 2 of the OEP sample, the Standard Score Means (Sorted High to Low). This will give you a quick overview of organizational strengths and weaknesses. The line down the middle of the chart (a standard score of 50) represents the average score of our norm group. Scores to the right of this mid-line are strengths and scores to the left of the mid-line are weaknesses. Because scores are sorted from highest to lowest, the scores at the top represent the organization’s greatest strengths and the scores at the bottom represent the greatest weaknesses. Note whether there are more strengths than weaknesses. This chart is usually more valuable in developing an understanding of the results than the chart of Raw Score Means on page 3. Raw score means are simply the average score on all items of a given scale. However, this can be misleading because certain scales are almost always rated high or low by employees. Comparing averages to normative data is therefore much more useful.
• Next, look at the chart in Section II showing the 25 items that were rated highest. This chart is also sorted from highest to lowest. The items at the top are those items that were most favorably rated. The scale that the item loads on is also shown at the left and the number of raters is shown at the right.
• The chart showing the 25 lowest rated items will give you a more detailed indication of the biggest problems faced by the organization. Items at the top represent the items that are most negatively rated. Any score below 3 should be considered a problem to be understood.
• For each of the 31 scales there is a frequency distribution and sorted list of item means. As a result, you can look at a given scales and determine which items (behaviors or characteristics) were viewed positively by employees and which were viewed negatively. The items at the bottom of each list represent problems that could be addressed or behaviors that had a negative effect on the domain.

Can I add, delete or change scales or items?

The OEP is constructed with "open architecture" so that an organization can delete or add scales or items that are pertinent to its unique situation. However, if scales or items are added, norms are no longer relevant and only raw score averages will be available. If the new scales or items are administered to multiple groups within the organization or re administered over time, norms can be developed for our organization.