Levels of Recognition

Quality Award

The Quality Award process is the key stimulator of business excellence for role model organisations on the island of Ireland and internationally. The overall winners of awards have developed a mature approach to continuous performance improvement and international competitiveness.

Organisations who have achieved the highest levels:

• will have applied the fundamental concepts of excellence throughout the organisation
• will have Introduced an organisational wide business improvement programme
• can demonstrate positive trend based results
• use external competitive benchmarks and comparisons as the basis for setting business goals

Mark of Excellence

The “Mark of Excellence” recognises organisations that have reached the level that is co-branded with the EFQM - the  "European Recognised for Excellence" level of recognition with an EFQM score of more than 400 points.

• it provides a continuation to the  Gold, Silver and Bronze levels...and
• it is available to all organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors

Organisations that meet the Mark of Excellence and European Recognised for Excellence criteria;

• are a role model organisation in at least one area of performance
• have a clear understanding of what influences their consistent level of good performance
  

Steps to Excellence - Gold, Silver, Bronze

STEPS was developed in 2000 initially for the public sector in partnership with the private sector specifically to promote and encourage Excellence while, at the same time, providing the public sector with a framework against which they could benchmark their performance and continuously improve.

There has been such a healthy response from across spectrum of public sector organisations that the scheme now incorporates the Private sector as well.

STEPS recognition falls into three categories   – Gold, Silver and Bronze. These relate to different EFQM scoring levels between 250 and 400 points and although important, it is the improvement of activities that influence scores that is the key.

Committed to Excellence

Designed for organisations or business units that are beginning their journey to excellence. A light touch assessment provides feedback on potential areas for improvement. These areas are then developed into business improvement projects. Committed to Excellence is ideal for creating momentum and building a culture of continuous improvement.