UK Employees Benchmarking Database

Employee research specialist, ORC International, has just calculated that its 'Perspectives' benchmarking database - launched back in 1996 - now contains the opinions of nearly 1.1 million UK employees.

ORC International director, Rory MacNeill, who has been involved with the company's benchmarking programme since 1989, explains 'The staff data is submitted by members of each of our eight industry-sector benchmarking groups, and this is then entered into the database from which we produce standard reports. The data acts as a league table and is used to highlight organisations that are performing particularly well on each of the benchmarking questions.'

'Contributors are not identified (except within their own personalised report) unless they are one of the top performing organisations. Top performers are then asked to come to the group and present their approach to the issue in hand. Thus benchmarking is a learning experience that can lead to tangible improvement actions, and our groups have attracted many of the UK's principal organisations which have benefited from free access to our growing database.'

Adele Flint, stores client manager at Boots The Chemist confirms 'The benchmarking meetings are both informative and instructive, as they present the opportunity to gain access to comparative data, that is normally not readily available or free of charge. This helps us to measure our level of performance against both our competitors and against organisations across a whole range of both private and public market sectors. Not only do we get the opportunity to exchange data on key questions, and discuss best practice, the benchmarking groups also provide the forum to hear news on the latest developments and techniques in employee research.'

ORC International hosts eight industry-specific benchmarking groups, twice each year. These are retail, central government, local government, financial services, housing, NHS, Fmcg and Hi-tech.

Membership of the groups is free to organisations that submit their employee opinion survey data, and each meeting provides a forum for sharing experiences in running surveys. Information about these benchmarking groups can be obtained by calling Sayrian Connell at ORC International on 020 7675 1153.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

• ORC International
• All news
• MrWeb info