How to Stop Workplace Hazards Before They Happen

It is essential that the employees report safety hazards when they are encountered. Employees are the most familiar with the detail and functions of the job or the jobsite and it is critical that they become the communications conduit to maintaining the safety of that job function. 

However, many employees are reluctant to report the dangers that may be encountered.  They can fear reprisals from management or simply don’t feel comfortable approaching higher management in these situations.  While this  may seem unlikely to most management, it nevertheless can happen and often does…as attested by studies for the last few years showing that the number of complaints filed with OSHA by workers who claimed to have been penalized increased by 50%.    Of course, reporting hazards is not only helpful, it is mandatory by the clear rules set up by OSHA in VPP in 2015.

Some Fundamentals Things You Can Do To Encourage Reporting

For the last few months, we interviewed several client safety professionals who had implemented hazard abatement programs in their companies.  Following is list of several of the ideas they shared with us about their progams:

• Assure employees that management will not retaliate in any way when a hazard is reported.  In fact consider this action as a time for recognition and reward

• Set up an easy process for reporting, don’t make it arduous or time consuming and clearly set up the chain of command involved.

• Have a sense of urgency and set up a timeline from reporting to the rectification

• Make sure your employees understand the consequences of not reporting hazards, which could
  
  include illness, injury or loss of life and in addition lead to financial penalties for themselves or their employers

• Set up a feedback mechanism so employees can see that their reporting results in a positive action of the hazard being removed and dangerous workplace habits corrected

• Publically acknowledge and recognize the employees’ and/or department’s initiative to report, with special mention in company communications, visits and meetings with appropriate executives, special celebrations etc.

• Positively issue each employee involved with an appropriate tangible award in recognition of their accomplishment in correcting serious hazards and as a reminder that they all share the responsibility of the wellbeing of their co-workers

• Institute recertification or re-training sessions with emphasis on best practices and new strategies now being employed

When you put these steps into action you are completely changing the dynamics about a subject that could have easily been a difficult negative turning it into something that is completely positive. 

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

Safety Incentives, the Insurance Policy on Your Safety Initiative

How much time do you spend on building an OSH culture?  How much money do you spend on safety training; on analytical assessments; PPE; safety committees; safety communication; and  host of other safety expenses?  These and many other things are what make up the pieces in your safety initiative.

Do you buy insurance to make those sections of your culture work together effectively? 

A well designed safety incentive campaign will act as an insurance policy to motivate your

employees to follow all the pieces of your safety initiative.  It can be the final ingredient that can help all the other pieces work smoothly.

Safety awards should be designed to reinforce good safety behaviors and change bad behavior. Don’t just look at them to recognize the results at the end, look at them to help drive results along the way.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

How Safety Awards are Taxed

Of all the questions we get, this is one of the most often asked.  The reason is that the IRS rulings on the taxation of awards are not as clear as they should be, and because there are some incentive companies that twist these rulings to say that their award systems are not taxable.  Of course like anything else these days, especially in the favorite national pastime, American politics, the real answer is somewhere in between all the misc. rhetoric that we hear.   The trick is to sort out the rhetoric and find the truth for your own circumstances. 
The facts are that some safety awards are not taxable, some are.  

We have clients who do not include them as taxable income and we have clients that do, click here to read an article by the legal lobbyist for the incentive industry to get an overview of the IRS rulings.  With this information you will be able to determine for yourself whether you want to implement a taxable program, or one that is non taxable.  

Just remember not to pay too much attention to the rhetoric of some companies who would

have you believe that their programs are not taxable and therefore less expensive.  Actually nothing could be further from the truth.  With the ridiculous pricing they use for their merchandise awards, your program may be costing you more and your employees receiving less in value for the same budget dollars.


We will be happy to show you the comparison of taxable and non taxable award systems, that will give you more information to make an educated decision on what's right for you.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

Why Communications Are Key In Safety Incentive Programs

Thorough and well-structured safety incentive programs provide a great way to effectively communicate your safety culture.  They can communicate the commitment to continuous improvements to safety performance, and most importantly to each individual in your organization, who keeps and is dedicated to one another’s safety on-and-off-the-job!  

For a white paper that discusses the importance of communications in your safety award system, please click here.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

Millennials Love Gift Cards

If you want to motivate or recognize the safety performance of millennials, give them a choice of gift cards. 

Recent research conducted by NPD Group and the Wharton School finds that gift cards are particularly popular with the younger generation.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that this group is “wired”, they grew up online, are connected always through various devices, and when they shop they prefer to use gift cards, and specifically electronic gift cards.

While various groups can agree or disagree on traditional vs electronic gift cards, in general, many of the younger age groups, and even many Boomers, prefer general purpose bank cards vs specific store cards because they can be used almost anywhere.  Unfortunately, from the perspective of a buyer of employee recognition programs, these bank cards can charge purchase fees from $3.95 to $6.95 per card.  And, as the vast majority of gift cards used in safety incentive programs are valued at $25, these fees can amount to an additional 15% to 30% added to your budget.

When faced with this choice, buyers often consider using one of several gift card solutions that are available in the incentive industry.  These solutions allow them to award one card or certificate that can then be redeemed for large array of popular gift cards.  Many of these solutions also contain a fee per card, or other fees raising your budget.

There is one safety award system that does not charge any outward or hidden fees...the On The Spot safety award.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

OSHA Regulations & Safety Incentive Programs

With the recent OSHA regulations on reporting, there is again much discussion on safety incentives and how they are viewed by OSHA.  Clients and prospective customers ask about it almost daily.  Since the first OSHA report on safety incentives was published in 1998, we have read and researched many articles on this subject and rarely find anything written on it from the point of view of a safety award company.

So we reviewed all current research, had conferences with our panel of safety professionals across the country, and have written a paper that we feel will give you a better understanding of this discussion.

The paper is intended to be as transparent as possible regarding the subject; the opinions contained in it are based on reviewing hundreds of safety incentive programs that our clients have implemented over the years.  And from our perspective, at least 50% of all the programs reviewed contain at least some rules that can easily be considered by OSHA to be the kind that could cause the under reporting of incidents, and therefore place them in jeopardy of non-compliance.

In reality, we can recall only a small handful that were ever audited and were told they were not compliant. The white paper goes into detail how this happened, and how the incentive industry, while being complicit, was actually doing what they were trained to do. 

Today with the spotlight squarely on the OSHA reporting rules that were recently introduced, we believe that now is a great time to take a close look at your incentive programs and do what you need to do to make them compliant.

Please click here for this whitepaper.  It will provide you with the issues surrounding this subject, and ways to help you plan for better more productive safety incentive programs, please click here.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services please contact us here.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

Gift Card Safety Awards Compared to Cash

Every year Incentive magazine conducts their “Gift Card IQ” research.  One of the questions surveyed was how effective gift cards are compared to cash.

Following is a recap of that research and a comparison of those same questions to 2015.

Question	2016	2015
Gift Cards are More Effective than Cash	40.6%	33.9%
Gift Cards are Equally Effective as Cash	34.3%	40.3%
Gift Cards are Less Effective than Cash	9.8%	3.4%
Do Not Use Cash Rewards	15.3%	22.4%

There was a time, not so long ago that cash was considered king in the recognition and employee engagement field.  Today it is almost non-existent.

If you are sourcing your own gifts cards for your safety recognition programs and want to view a gift card system that was designed by the help of safety professionals for safety incentives, has $ for $ pricing with NO FEE and allows your participant to redeem for over 500 of the most popular brands of gift cards in the country, please let us know.

Here's just a few of the over 500 gift card brands in our award systems. Click here for a complete list of cards.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

  

Comparing OSHA Safety Incentive Regs. To Wells Fargo High Pressure Sales

What does Wells Fargo’s trouble with their high pressure sales programs, have to do OSHA regulations on safety incentive programs? 

They are both about incentive programs that have gone wrong!

Wells Fargo, used controversial sales goals, and then proceeded to use high pressure sales tactics with their employees to meet these goals.  It is estimated that because of this poor incentive planning that 5300 employees lost their jobs and Wells Fargo has subsequently been fined $185 million.

OSHA has for over fifteen years been warning the safety world not to create safety incentives that puts pressure on employees not to report incidents of accidents.  But there have been programs that did, and most likely still are.  While researching a client’s past safety incentives to ensure compliance an employee in confidence made the following remark: 

“It's only common sense, isn't it, that when you put so much pressure on a person to not have an injury, and show them the valuable awards they can receive if they do, that they'll be motivated to conceal it if they can”!

Neither sales incentives, nor safety incentives are inherently bad business strategies as attested by the tens of thousands of organizations of all sizes which have successfully implemented similar programs.  They all run the risk of being counter-productive or unethical behavior.  But you can’t blame speeding on the car; you have to blame it on the driver.

In our opinion the ill-advised Wells Fargo sales program places a shining light on the need for experts to design any program that motivates people in business.

We have been implementing safety incentive programs for years and constantly recommend solutions that focus on all the things that workers can do in their work day to promote a safe culture and never on achieving an award AFTER the fact based on safety measures.  These solutions have never drawn the attention of OSHA, and in fact have been praised by them.

We have years of experience and huge body of knowledge gathered from hundreds of successful safety programs.  

We design programs based on sound research and accumulated best practices supported by common sense.  We incorporate values, communication, learning and feedback, as well as rewards & recognition, into safety incentives to ensure your employees are capable, inspired and clear on how their efforts can contribute to your success?

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net