GLOBAL BENCHMARKING

Matt Cox – FIIRSMChairman IIRSM UAEDate: 15th January, 2017

Content

• What is Benchmarking?• Old School Thinking and Pitfalls• The Goals• The Process• Advantages and Disadvantages• Common Slips, Trips and Falls • A Simple Road Map

What is benchmarking?

The Process of identifying, learning, and adopting outstanding practices, methods and processes* to help an organisation improve its performance.

*from any organisation, anywhere in the world

Old School Thinking• Ask a CEO : Business Performance -

Measurement solely based on ‘positive measures’ eg: profits, market share etc

• Same CEO : H&S Performance -

Measurement solely based on ‘negative outcomes’ eg: injury/ill-health statistics

‘Measures of failures’

The Pitfalls• Global benchmarking sounds like a fantastic

idea in the boardroom but….

• Do you know where you want to go? Do you have a vision?

• Has any internal benchmarking been done?

• Do your people understand and deliver existing processes?

The Pitfalls• Do you know what/who you want to benchmark

performance of/against and Why?

• What is the appetite of the organisation to improve H&S performance?

• Is your organisation ready to ‘face facts’?

• Are your systems mature enough to warrant benchmarking?

The Goals ???

• To determine what, and where improvements are required

• Analyse how other organisations/regions achieve THEIR performance

• Improve performance of the organisation

• Improve or enhance reputation

The Process• Understand YOUR business processes.

• Analyse performance of others

• Compare YOUR business with results of others from data received

• Implement steps to close performance gaps

• Monitor & measure progress

Advantages• Can reduce accidents and Ill-health

• Can improve overall H&S performance, in support the organisations' objectives

Peripheral Benefits:• Can Improve reputation• Can avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’• Can develop or enhance relationships with

interested parties (clients, suppliers etc)• Can save money• Reinforces top management commitment

Disadvantages• Can require significant planning

• Data collected and published, open to scrutiny by ‘others’

• Data analysis can be subjective leading to inaccurate conclusions.

• Difficult for good performers to continually improve.

Disadvantages

• Competitors can identify (and exploit) weaknesses

• Potentially significant administration required

• Data verification is a significant weak point

• Can breed complacency if results observed are positive

Flaws in Old Model• Can promote under reporting of incidents to

manipulate statistics

• Injury rates/statistics may be reliant on ‘luck’

• Low injury rates means less data to analyse

• There has to be a failure to get ‘a result’

• Incident statistics reflect outcomes, not causes

Common Slips, Trips & Falls

• Where is the data sourced from?

• Does it stand up to scrutiny/peer review?

• Legislative framework applicable?

• Are truly like for like processes being analysed?

• Culture and background of country/workforce?

• Lack of context to data being analysed

A simple example (Global)

• Average hours driven per capita?• Average distances driven per capita?• Average driving experience per driver?• Data on road conditions?• Data on vehicle conditions?• Data on driver training/licensing programs?• Data on traffic volumes?• Data on weather conditions?

Road Deaths per Capita:Easily comparable number but……

Context is Key!!!

A Simple Road Map• Validate your own systems – Do your audit

programs add value? (Internal/External)

• Communicate with, and involve all levels of the organization to achieve shared goals

• Challenge and correct ‘at risk’ behaviours

• Implement active reward and recognition schemes

• Demonstrate visible and supportive leadership behaviours

A Simple Road Map

40%

35%

25%

Process Monitoring - Stage 1Fully Compliant Partially Compliant Non - Compliant

A Simple Road Map

60%25%

15%

Process Monitoring - Stage 2Fully Compliant Partially Compliant Non - Compliant

A Simple Road Map

80%

15%

5%

Process Monitoring - Stage 3Fully Compliant Partially Compliant Non - Compliant

Any questions?

Thank you

uaebranch@iirsm.org