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