Section Sixquestionnaires were completed by 11,300 respondents in 91
companies. Of the respondents, 1,315 were human resource
professionals while 9,985 were from associates of these
professionals from various functional areas throughout their
companies. The data provided by this large number of
respondents provide benchmarks for various human resource
practices in 10 different industries. Much of the data concern
practices and perceptions of the human resource function’s
competencies in such areas as recruitment, training, and
designing benefit programs. The data also provide benchmarks
of perceived competencies across the various other functional
areas (e.g., finance, marketing, research and development) and
allow a comparison with the human resource function on
competencies in such areas as business knowledge, change
management, and the like.^24
Through benchmarking, a company can compare its
human resource practices and competencies with other
companies. In addition to some of the benefits of evaluation
noted earlier, bench-marking can also enable a company to see
how its competencies in human resource practices stack up
against those of world-class competitors and whether it has
improved over time when longitudinal data are collected. An
implication of benchmarking of particular relevance to human
resource management’s strategic role is that it enables a