FBEA aims for world-class workforce

The organizers of the Fiji Business Excellence Awards are aiming to create a world-class workforce and to bring about a better quality of life for our people in the near future.

Director National Training and Productivity Kamlesh Prakash says one of the principal strategies for achieving this vision is to encourage organizations to use the Awards criteria and assessment process for organizational improvement.

FBEA which is organized by the Fiji National University is aimed to stimulate Fijian organizations to accelerate improvement so that they could achieve sustainable performance through business excellence.

Prakash said this year, FNU provided training for 67 evaluators from the public and private sectors based on the Malcolm Baldrige framework by the world renowned juror, assessor and facilitator, Paul Steel.

“Since Fiji has moved away from the Australian based business excellence model to adopt the American Baldrige awards framework, there is greater emphasis on the results that organizations generate in terms of improvement and performance in all key areas like product and process outcomes, customer focused outcomes, workforce focused outcomes, leadership and governance outcomes, and financial and market outcomes,” he said.

The future plans for the FBEA include organizing a winner’s conference to share best practices from Fiji, provide specialized training for the Panel of Review, facilitate advanced training for SEA and FBEA evaluators, organize workshop on how to effectively utilize the feedback reports to improve performance and making improvements through self improvements.

There are also plans to send a study mission for participating organizations to the US to study firsthand from Baldrige award winners.

FBEA also aims to provide assistance to selected government agencies to improve their level of excellence.

By Reginald Chandar