Safety Benchmarking is Over-Hyped

Benchmarking can uncover gaps. I happen to believe benchmarking against other companies is over-hyped. I don’t believe as much of it goes on today as in the past. Today many major corporations see safety and health as a competitive advantage, and EHS insights and technology are locked down and protected more and more.

Instead, benchmark against yourself. Compare region versus region, facility versus facility, locations versus locations. Look at the scorecards or scoreboards you have set up internally.

Your assessment should include the climate and culture for safety through perception surveys. Climate is the perception, the mood, the feeling that you have when the ship being tossed about. It’s a bit superficial but it’s a reflection of your culture for safety. It can change like the weather, or with new programs and celebration events. It’s a snapshot in time. It’s what’s happening right now.

Culture runs like a submarine. It is much deeper. It turns slowly and deliberately. It can take five to seven years to change the movement of a culture. The beliefs and value structure of an organization are anchored deeply.

You can also set up a model for progression. Many companies do this. They break down the evolution of a safety culture into phases or stages. Various analyses, data inputs, survey results, audit findings and the like position a culture at one of the stages. This is communicated to everyone. The safety vision often encompasses the journey from stage one to stages three, four or five, however many you decide to have.

Through sensing sessions and interviews, plus surveys and simple observation, you can reassess what Peter Drucker calls the “critical factors of focus and concentration,” in our case on safety. “Performance requires clear focus and narrow concentration,” said Drucker. “Whenever an institution goes beyond a narrow focus, it ceases to perform,” he said.