Type of Project: In-house project Scientific Work
WfbM benchmarking of participation in working life

The "WfbM-Benchmarking der Teilhabe am Arbeitsleben" is based on the previous project Benchmarking the quality of support and rehabilitation in workshops for people with disabilities (rehab benchmarking) and was fundamentally further developed in 2013 and 2014 under the scientific direction of the ITA in close cooperation with participating workshops. Benchmarking is the systematic, data-based comparison of organizations with the aim of learning "from the best" and continuously improving the quality of their own service provision. The "WfbM benchmarking of participation in working life" is a management tool that enables workshops to assess the quality of their contribution to the participation of people with disabilities in working life, to evaluate it in comparison with other workshops and to further develop it on the basis of data. Participating workshops measure the quality of their service provision - based on a jointly agreed quality definition of participation in working life - using both key figures and employee surveys. According to the cooperation partners, the subjective assessment by employees is just as much a part of quality assessment as objective measurement. This means that each quality objective, for example "enabling lifelong learning through differentiated educational opportunities" or "participation in working life through differentiated job opportunities", can be assessed from two perspectives. In addition, so-called "checklists" enable a structured exchange on selected topics such as integration management and inclusion. The quality measurements are designed as standardized self-measurements. Employees are also surveyed by trained interviewers in the workshop itself. Both promote the awareness of specialist staff for potential improvements within their own workshop and support the quality promotion process. Intensive training, standardized measuring instruments and binding guidelines for implementing the measurement ensure high data quality. This is the only way to guarantee a high level of validity and comparability of the data. The central evaluation unit at the ITA is responsible for the statistical evaluation and processing of the data. Both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal design are used. The data is evaluated anonymously so that the identity of a workshop is only revealed if it so wishes. If they are interested in learning from each other or "learning from the best", WfbM can either take part in moderated, two-day workshops or be placed in a learning partnership with a workshop of their choice. While the learning partnerships involve an exchange between two workshops without external support, the workshop enables a structured analysis of selected evaluation results from the participating workshops in an open and learning-oriented atmosphere. Processes and structures on which the results are based can be discussed in detail within this framework. In the regular "Benchmarking Forum", the need for research into the key performance indicator system and project implementation is systematically recorded and discussed. Necessary adaptations are developed in dedicated working groups with scientific input from the ITA. This procedure ensures that the measurement continues to meet the needs of the workshops, while maintaining a balance between knowledge-induced adaptations and stability. Workshops thus have an important tool to support quality management, which provides detailed information on the strengths and potential for improvement of rehabilitation and participation services in the workshop and enables a comparison with the strategic orientation of the workshop.