Health and Safety Skills: Benchmarking

Course Overview

This thoroughly practical programme will help you maximise the benefits of the benchmarking process - improved systems, reduced injuries and associated costs, better and cheaper compliance and enhanced reputation (both internally and externally).

Audience

This course is designed for anyone with responsibility for health and safety, including:

• Health and safety managers and advisers
• HR directors and managers
• Facilities, maintenance and engineering managers

Course Outline

What is benchmarking?

• Definition of benchmarking
• Aims and objectives of benchmarking
• Principal features of the benchmarking process
• Identifying best practice
• Identifying your current position and problem areas
• Selecting benchmarking partners: internally and externally
• Setting performance indicators
• Measuring and comparing performance
• Learning and acting on lessons learned
• Monitoring for continuing improvement
• The cost of benchmarking

Health and safety benchmarking

• Definition
• Health and safety benchmarking policies
• Objectives
• The significance of well-defined performance indicators
• Involving senior management

Deciding what to benchmark

• Selecting aspects of health and safety for benchmarking
• Premises
• Processes
• Work activities
• Work groups
• Specific examples of benchmarking topics

Getting started

• Auditing the current health and safety management system
• Safety audits
• Organising reference sources
• Regulations, Approved Codes of Practice, HSE Guidance
• Industry health and safety standards
• Risk assessment information
• Internal and external injury and ill-health data
• Feedback from safety monitoring activities
• Safety audits
• Safety inspections
• Safety sampling exercises
• Example of a safety sampling document
• Establishing performance indicators
• The limitations of accident data as a sole measure of performance

Selecting partners

• Internal and external partners
• Advantages and disadvantages of internal and external benchmarking
• Agreeing a benchmarking partnership

Working with your partner

• Understanding your partner's operations
• Joint information requirements
• Exchanging information
• Agreeing performance indicators
• Corporate Health and Safety Performance Index (CHaSPI) (HSE)
• Agreeing individual responsibilities for the benchmarking partnership
• Procedures for site visits

Learning - and acting on lessons learned

• Learning from others
• Devising an action plan
• Setting individual responsibilities and getting commitment
• Implementing your action plan
• Monitoring progress in the action plan
• Pointers to success

The benefits

• Enhanced reputation
• Reduced injury and ill-health costs
• Improved health and safety management systems

Benchmarking technique

• The final session involves a syndicate exercise in benchmarking techniques