Benchmarking to compare occupational health and safety performance
Benchmarking has developed into a valuable business improvement tool which can be applied to any area of an organisation’s work. When it comes to occupational health and safety, benchmarking is about identifying criteria which are key to occupational health and safety performance in your company and comparing these against the performance of other companies.
There is an increasing pressure on companies to produce comparative occupational health and safety performance data. This is partly a result of the pressures for improved company reporting arising from institutional investors, governmental and non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders.
In Occupational Health and Safety, if taken as part of a commitment towards continual improvement, benchmarking can lead to increased performance by the individual company and the other companies who are part of the comparative network (or data pool).
Ultimately, improved OH&S performance increases business performance whether through reducing lost time accidents or ill-health and effectively bringing people back into work as soon as possible.
EEF's online occupational health and safety benchmarking tools
EEF has developed two online tools to allow businesses to compare their performance with similar organisations.
Both tools have been developed to make it easy for companies to compare their occupational health and safety performance through the completion of a short questionnaire.
Work organisation assessment
EEF's new Work Organisation Assessment tool allows any UK manufacturing company with 20 or more employees to identify causes of stress in the workplace and suggests helpful interventions that may help tackle them.
Employees are asked to complete a short online questionnaire after which employers will receive a confidential comparitive report.
Unlike other tools, EEF's approach offers companies a balanced view, helping businesses to recognise where they are succeeding as well as where they may need to improve.
Work Organisation Assessment - an online tool for the management of workplace stress
Occupational Health and Safety Indicators
The Occupational Health & Safety KPI tool allows member companies to enter their annual occupational health and safety indicators and then to compare their results with others.
After completing a simple series of forms, member companies can then view their comparative report which looks at how their business performs in comparison to the other companies who have also entered their data. Of course, confidentiality is key so the tool will only report on averages without naming individual companies.
The report will help businesses to understand where they are doing well and where there is scope for improvement. Member companies can then contact their regional Association to discuss their results and to obtain further advice on how they can improve their business performance.
A new version of the tool is now available to allow member companies to enter their 2005 data.