Safety Awards Should be the Icing on the Cake

How much time and money needs to be invested to develop an overall safety culture that  will be effective in reducing incidents of injuries and accidents that keep your workers safe?  That question is never answered.  Instead the reverse is discussed.  What is the cost of not being safe? 

In 2012, OSHA said that:

“In addition to their social costs, workplace injuries and illnesses have a major impact on an employer's bottom line. It has been estimated that employers pay almost $1 billion per week for direct workers' compensation costs alone.”

If you had to make an extensive list of all the pieces necessary to build the best possible safety program to eliminate accidents, how many items would be on it?  Would awards to effect behavior change be on that list? 

In context with the overall $1 Billion a week for compensation costs, when added to the multi-millions spent for all the items on your list, the diminimous awards used to positive safe behavior would seem to be a major bargain.

We had a client once tell us that he looks at his safety awards as ‘icing on the cake.’  He said it caps off all the hard work, time energy and budget necessary to make the cake the best that it could be.  It helps communicate his message with the frosting that positively reinforced every aspect of the safety culture he was trying to build.

We recently read an article by Norman Umberger, an EHS Professor at the University of Missouri that discussed safety award plans.  Mr. Umberger has an excellent understanding of the intricacies of safety awards from the perspective of a seasoned safety professional.  His last statement in the article on preferring an effective safety culture over a perfect safety award plan is well taken, although from our perspective, it should not be a case of either or.  We’ve always recommended that clients have a solid safety culture in place before embarking on any safety award system.  Properly designed safety award plans will reinforce all the important elements of an effective safety culture, not take the place of them.

The next time you plan your safety programs, think of the awards as the icing on that cake! 

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