Organization Effectiveness and Efficiency Scale
What is the OEES?
The Organization Effectiveness and Efficiency Scale (OEES) is a scale designed to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization, with a focus on improving the Quality of Life of its clients. This scale was developed by the International Research Consortium on Evidence-Based Practices (2013) to help non-profit organizations meet the increasing need to be more effective in achieving desired outcomes, more efficient in terms of resource use, and more sustainable as care providers by adapting to changes and offering a (healthy) range of opportunities and practices.
The OEES measures four (performance-based) perspectives that reflect a balanced approach to performance evaluation and management: the client perspective, the growth perspective, the financial perspective, and the internal processes perspective.
– The Client Perspective includes: (a) aligning services/support with identified support needs, (b) reporting the number of clients engaged in more independent, productive, and integrated initiatives within society, (c) measuring personal outcomes, (d) reporting and analyzing aggregated personal outcomes, and (e) using technology to enhance personal outcomes.
– The Growth Perspective includes: (a) articulating the organization’s mission and intended outcomes, (b) establishing partnerships, (c) developing program options, (d) utilizing high-performance teams, and (e) monitoring job satisfaction and developing job enrichment programs.
– The Internal Processes Perspective includes: (a) horizontally aligning input, throughput, and output components, (b) vertically aligning these components within the organization with corresponding components at the individual level, (c) demonstrating the relationship between provided services/support and the measured support needs of clients, (d) using data related to personal outcomes and organizational outputs for multiple purposes, and (e) applying evidence-based indicators for continuous quality improvement.
– The Financial Perspective includes: (a) comparing unit costs across locations and platforms, (b) reporting the percentage of the budget allocated to client-oriented support, (c) monitoring the relationship between social capital and organization-related capital, (d) using fixed and variable costs to determine a baseline, and (e) analyzing overhead costs to promote efficiency.
Scores obtained from an OEES assessment result in profiles with scores for each of these four perspectives and three evidence-based indices: (a) an Effectiveness Index based on measurements related to clients and organizational growth; (b) an Efficiency Index based on measures related to financial analyses and internal processes of the organization; and (c) a Sustainability Index, which is the sum of the effectiveness and efficiency indices. These four perspectives and three indices also reflect a balanced scorecard approach for evaluating and managing organizational performance (Schalock & Verdugo, 2012; Tsai et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2011).
The OEES is based on the top 20 best practice indicators and can be used for various purposes, such as self-evaluation and continuous quality improvement. Full details regarding development, standardization, multiple language versions, and online administration and scoring will be available soon.
As discussed in more detail in the OEES Handbook (International Consortium on Evidence-Based Practices, 2013b), the OEES was developed following a thorough literature review of the most commonly identified practice indicators used to evaluate organizations.
Indicators were selected based on criteria related to the validity of the indicator, relevance, applicability to organizations, reliability, sensitivity, robustness, clarity and ease of understanding, and availability or ease of collection (Brown, Hatton, & Emerson, 2013; International Consortium on Evidence-Based Practices, 2013b).