BEAT Assessment measures organizational maturity and progress toward equity

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Equity and social justice (ESJ) have been an integrated part of King County’s work since 2008. Some metrics measured progress; however, our organization needed a scoring process that measured qualitative data and fostered conversations. The Department of Executive Services (DES) developed the BEAT Assessment to fill this need to measure progress toward greater equity and social justice. BEAT stands for Beginning, Exploring, Applying and Transforming, four levels of organizational maturity in the equity and social justice journey. The BEAT Assessment measures eight areas of maturity, plus an overall assessment. The BEAT Assessment is designed to empower individuals and workgroups to gauge where they are in relation to equity and social justice goals. The scoring categories align with the county's annual employee engagement survey questions to measure changes in sentiment and compare the survey’s quantitative data with the BEAT Assessment’s qualitative data. Based on 2021 engagement survey results, scores in DES show significant improvement, more so than the rest of the county. All divisions showed improvement, with positive movement in each category. See “DES Division Beat Assessment Notation” for details. While the scores and the improvement are significant, it is the conversations around equity and social justice that drive progress, not the numbers.