Abstract

Benchmarking is a popular management and organizational learning tool. It is a multifaceted technique that can be used to identify operational and strategic gaps, and in the search for best practices to close these gaps. Benchmarking use and popularity has increased in global efforts to improve occupational health and safety (OH&S) performance since the 1990s. The European Union Agency for Occupational Safety and Health EU-OSHA) defines benchmarking as follows:

a planned process by which an organisation compares health safety processes and performance with others to learn how to reduce accidents and ill health, improve compliance with health and safety law and/or cut compliance costs.