Assessments

One of the most urgent needs all organisations share is the validation that every investment has seen a sufficient return. A chief feature of the HeartMath programs is the depth of research done on their effectiveness. From scientific studies on executive health and performance, to psychometric studies on employee attitudes and stress, to ROI studies on employee retention, customer satisfaction and sales, HeartMath offers a range of assessment and analysis tools to show the impact of the HeartMath program

At the beginning of each engagement, HeartMath consultants do a thorough needs analysis to make certain we have identified the proper metrics inside the client organisation that are mission-critical and will demonstrate the program's success. These metrics will vary with each organisation. In all cases, in-depth ROI analysis is conducted to demonstrate value. Potential metrics include:

• Employee retention
• Sales
• Executive health
• Customer satisfaction
• Employee satisfaction
• Employee turnover
• Short-term disability
• Absenteeism
• Health care utilisation

Personal and Organisational Quality Assessment
In all HeartMath engagements, the Personal and Organisational Quality Assessment (POQA) is utilised as a pre and post-measure. The POQA is a proprietary instrument originally developed by the Institute of HeartMath in 1995. It has been validated and tested with thousands of participants in North America, Europe, and Asia. It is a self-report inventory designed to reflect the key psychological and workplace elements that contribute to the overall quality of an organisation. The instrument provides a concentrated yet comprehensive assessment in both personal and organisational quality metrics:

Personal Quality/Organisational Quality
• Positive Outlook • Depression • Strategic Understanding • Freedom of Expression• Gratitude • Anger Management • Confidence in the organisation • Communication Effectiveness • Motivation • Resentfulness • Manager Support • Morale• Calmness • Stress Symptoms • Goal Clarity • Work Attitude• Fatigue • Job Challenge • Value of Contribution• Anxiety • Work Intensity • Productivity• Time Pressure • Intention to Quit

Personal Quality scales directly reflect employees' day-to-day moods, attitudes and stress-related symptoms. The stress symptom items possess clinical relevance as valid measures of stress, which can exert a significant negative impact on employee health and work performance. organisational Quality scales are comprised of questions concerning such areas as Strategic Understanding, Goal Clarity and Work Attitude. Organisational Quality scales also examine key areas that influence employee job involvement, performance and important factors related to employee behavior, attitudes toward work, and ability to perform well.

Analysis
Two primary 7-point scales are used in the POQA. One asks about how frequently an item is experienced, ranging from "not at all" to "always". Percentages of responses at the top end of the scale, i.e. responses of "Often", "Very Often", or "Always" are reported. The other scale asks how much one disagrees or agrees with a particular statement, ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Percentages of persons that agree or strongly agree are combined and reported as the top end of the scale.

Benchmarking or reference value marks are placed on each item's graphed results and represent the percentage of persons in our reference database that also responded at the top end of the response scale. These reference values are presented only as a guide or reference to how individuals from other organisations have responded and should not be taken as an absolute reference of how your organisation should respond.

Reference Group
Although reference values used for this report are based on a large data set, research with the POQA is ongoing. The reference values may be updated from time to time as additional data is added to the database.

For Information
Telephone: (02) 9412 2500 (Australia)
Telephone: +61 2 9412 2500 (International)
E-Mail: info@macquarieinstitute.com.au

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