How good do you think you are? Better yet, how do you know how good you are? These are questions that safety professionals, management, government and unions get asked all the time, although the phrasing isn't always this colloquial. So if you're involved in safety, you better be prepared for this question and have a good answer. That means you better have some way to gauge the level of safety performance.

You may seek to establish performance indicators that you can rely on to measure internal safety performance. This is all well and good. But be aware that looking inward may leave a blind spot rendering it hard to answer another critical question: How does your safety performance compare with other organizations?

How can you compare your record to that of others? One answer: By using a process called benchmarking. Used by many safety people, benchmarking involves looking outside your own business and focusing on other companies within your industry and perhaps outside it. Here's how to use it.

What Is Benchmarking and Why Should You Use It?

To answer these questions, let me quote Joe Crunk, then corporate Manager, Safety and Ergonomics at Intel, during a 1994 conference in Toronto:

The essence of benchmarking is to seek out, learn and incorporate new operational approaches by exchanging information with top performing non-competitors. Benchmarking is the formal process of measuring and comparing your performance against those of top performers.

Someone has said it's share and share alike. Benchmarking is a discovery process, a learning experience - a structured approach for looking outside and adapting the best you find to complement your internal and creative ideas. It can direct your company's focus outside of its four walls.

The key is to act on your learnings, using benchmarking as a motivation for change and implementing your findings.

The BPH Benchmarking Study

In 1995, BPH Minerals conducted one of the largest safety benchmarking surveys in an attempt to define or establish some "best in class" characteristics regarding safety performance. The study identified a number of common characteristics of organizations successful in the safety realm including:

• Strong management commitment to safety, reflected by a clear corporate policy statement, and the application of a consistent safety system;
• The use of select experts at the managerial level to strategically target safety improvement initiatives; and
• A close relationship between staff safety professionals ands senior management.

The study also identified some very specific issues with respect to accountability for safety. Best-in-class companies in safety accountability, the study found, ensure accountability by:

• Requiring quality safety performances as a condition of employment for managers, supervisors and employees;
• Including safety in performance evaluations for managers, supervisors and employees;
• Clearly defining lines of responsibility with respect to safety;
• Establishing safety goals and targets; and
• Conducting safety audits.

Limitations of Benchmarking

Although it can unearth a wealth of useful information, benchmarking helps only to the extent companies know how to apply that information to their own organizations. You can't simply duplicate the supposed successes of other organizations. Just because a program or idea works for one business doesn't necessarily mean it will work for yours. You first need to consider your own organization. Your company's current economic and business situation and safety culture may force you to modify or change practices before you adopt them - or even preclude you from adopting them at all.

Benchmarking also works better for some companies than for others. For example, a 1992 quality study conducted by Ernst and Young management consultants and the American Quality Foundation found that a benchmarking approach of comparing a company's performance with leaders in the industry worked well with high performers but not with low performers. According to the study, benchmarking and employee empowerment were especially appropriate for high performers whose marketing emphasized product quality, safety, reliability and reputation.

By contrast, the study found that low performers did better by increasing teamwork, challenging the status quo and shifting corporate culture. The study also found that low performing companies did better by focusing on a few basics as opposed to trying to imitate sophisticated practices of other companies.

Conclusion

Benchmarking can furnish a frame of reference that helps you compare your own internal safety performance against that of others. But while it's useful to consider how successful companies achieve success, you must filter the data and not simply try to apply formulae that might not fit the peculiar circumstances and culture of your own organization.

$AFETY & THE BOTTOM LINE

THE COST OF EYE INJURIES

Yesterday's issue of Best Practices Weekly on SafetyXChange featured an article on preventing eye injuries. How much money does the average eye injury cost a company in compensation and medical expenses?

a.  $976
b.  $1,450
c.  $3,600
d.  $8,750

Answer : c. Incidentally, $3,600 is enough to buy eyewear/face protection for about 100 workers.

Source : National Society to Prevent Blindness

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