SOCIAL BENCHMARKING

An open and participatory process in which organizations evaluate social aspects and impacts of business to identify best practices (benchmarks), which can be used as models to plan and stimulate improvement.

Social benchmarking systems are monitoring devices, management and statistical tools used by communities and governments to define goals and values that are important to them, and measure progress towards their achievement.

Benchmarking in Management

Benchmarking is a process used in management by organizations to evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practices. This then allows them to develop plans on how to adopt such best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance (e.g. production management, budgeting, personnel management, etc.).

Benchmarking has been extended to include the evaluation of an organization's social impact on its customers, workers, and society in general.

In the context of labour regulation, the idea of social benchmarking has emerged as a means to ensure fair labour standards in the global enterprise: "Social benchmarking is an appropriate instrument with which to mould social processes and social policy. To ensure that the benefits of progress are shared more equitably, it is not enough merely to defend minimum standards: rising standards must be promoted through benchmarking."
(European Trade Union Institute (ETUI-REHS), Benchmarking Working Europe 2002, visited 2011-06-22)


Social Benchmarking in Europe

"Since the launch of the Lisbon Strategy, the ETUC [European Union Trade Confederation] together with the ETUI-REHS [European Trade Union Institute] has produced an annual Benchmarking publication for the European Social Summit. Its aim is to establish what progress has been made in selected areas of importance to workers and which are of crucial significance for a Social Europe."

"The Benchmarking report provides detailed information on the following areas of particular relevance to the world of labour in the EU […]: Social Europe, employment, wages, income distribution and labour costs, working time, social protection and active ageing, lifelong learning, information, consultation and worker participation, European social dialogue and its implementation, macroeconomic dialogue, delocalization."
(European Trade Union Institute (ETUI-REHS), Benchmarking Working Europe 2002, visited 2011-06-22)

A Type of Social Benchmarking: Pay Benchmarking

Pay benchmarking compares pay levels for similar jobs in different companies and uses the results of these comparisons to set wages.