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The Lebow Company owns and maintains the largest
database on Shared Values worldwide. The Values
& Attitude StudyTM
(VAS) benchmarks an organization's work environment
within a world class context. Twenty-seven key factors
are indexed against organizational status, gender,
age and ethnicity. Subsequent VAS indexing quantifies
and monitors organizational change. The VAS tests
for Staff Motivation, Staff Engagement and Staff
Performance.
The VAS Quality Workplace Specification is defined
by three major areas: Group One, Heroic Values;
Group Two, Job Satisfaction; and Group Three,
People Systems & Processes.
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VAS GROUP ONE - Shared Values
Group One tests for the basic Shared Values that correlate
to Workplace Wellness. These eight Workplace
Wellness elements are the distillation of a leading American
university's initial findings. The university's data collection
began in 1972 on organizational values and attitudes of
17 million workers and managers from around the world,
but was never concluded and remained incomplete until
1987 when Lebow Research expanded this initial data inquiry
and created a robust database and study tool. From these
initial summary findings, Lebow Research crafted an instrument
called the Values & Attitude StudyTM
(VAS). Initially, the research encompassed 32 Standard
Industrial Code (SIC) areas. Over the past decade, a correlation
between the eight Shared Values and Workplace Wellness
has been established using data from over 2,300 sites
worldwide. Our findings suggest that the "gap" between
the "importance of these elements to people" and the "delivery
of these elements within an organization" forecasts the
best sources of data on productivity, turnover and long-term
financial performance. Scores are compared to "International
Benchmarks" and "World Class" levels of performance. |
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VAS GROUP TWO - Levels of Job Satisfaction
Group Two measures nine job satisfaction areas which directly
correlate to Workplace Wellness and are pivotal issues
in forcasting profitability and turnover.
Data from over 2,000 sites are the contrasting elements
in this analysis. Group Two's areas of focus are: control
of one's job, believing fairness exists, having fun on
the job, feeling valued by coworkers, feeling accepted
by others, feeling well-informed, feeling trusted by management,
having confidence in management and having pride in the
organization. Of all these nine factors, pride in the
organization is the most telling because it gives us important
insight into how people "feel" about their organization
and, therefore, how they will continue to perform in the
future regardless of changes in incentives, supervision,
organizational structure, systems or processes. |
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VAS GROUP THREE - People SystemsTM
& Processes
Group Three measures the organization's standards, infrastructure
and People Systems, or systemics, on a worldwide basis.
The ten elements consist of the following: leadership,
ethics, quality of products, customer services, hiring
practices, new employee orientation, appraisal, compensation,
promotional opportunities and intracompany communications.
In addition, the VAS quantifies your leaders' and managers'
empathy towards the employees, and we test for the leaders'
ability to balance the needs of the their people while
meeting the organization's objectives. Each group's self-esteem
is measured along with the levels of Decision-MakingTM
and Responsibility-TakingTM.
At a minimum demographic of ten employees, the VAS segments
departments, functional areas, shifts, gender, years of
experience and other diversity issues.
Additional sorting is available for regional comparisons.
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How the Values & Attitude instrument works.
The key to understanding this link between performance
and values is measuring the gap between the importance
these eight Shared Values hold to the people within a
particular organization and how well the organization
delivers on the expectations of those staff members. From
this gap (expectations versus organizational delivery
on these eight values), or difference in the two numbers
(the first number represents the expectations of staff
members, and the second number, which is normally lower,
represents the delivery of these eight Shared Values in
the workplace), a Values Tension IndexTM
(VTITM) for the organization
is calculated. From this gap, the Workplace Wellness IndexTM
is determined. The Values & Attitude Study, taken at regular
intervals [every 14 to 16 months], helps an organization
connect its performance to its Cultural ROI and predicts
future opportunities and challenges.
The Values Tension Index gives us insight into levels
of wellness in an organization.
Today, the Values Tension Index (VTITM)
is a leading indicator of an organization's future operational
performance and is used in the financial environment to
uncover fraud during audits. Both the U.S. Congressional
Act - Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) and SAS-99 regulations
(Statement of Auditing Standards) make the VAS a valuable
companion to any financial audit in uncovering fraudulent
practices. |
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