Comparing Various Types Awards for BBS Safety Systems

Choosing an award for your BBS safety system is an important consideration.  You need to choose the award that provides a high degree of motivation while still being cost effective.  It needs to be the type of award that your employees want to achieve.      

When comparing awards for BBS programs we feel you should ask four basic questions: 

Is the award of value to the recipient and cost effective for the company?

Does the award provide a choice to the award winner?

Is the award easy to use without requiring undo internal administration?

Is the award flexible enough to be used in a continuous and consistent BBS award system? 

Over the years we have seen various types awards used for safety programs.  Which of these is best suited for a BBS program?

Cash

Research shows that you need 3 to 4 times the cash over non- cash to motivate the same result.  Cash no memorable recognition value and easily gets lost in the paycheck. It is difficult to issue on the spot cash in a BBS system.

Single Merchandise Items

Has little motivational appeal, and doesn’t capture the attention of the employee unless they specifically desire the item.  Mainly used in sweepstakes or contests this is the lowest form of employee motivation. Pricing and value can be good if purchased at wholesale. Not suited for BBS awards which are repetitive in nature.

Catalogs of Merchandise Items

More motivational appeal because of the greater choice, and if used with “points” or some other media like “cards that are collectible for future redemption, this award can be used in BBS programs.  Ability to accumulate points toward future awards can be good, but as most catalog merchandise is priced substantially over retail, the value to cost relationship is very poor. Per observation awards found in BBS programs are relatively small so having large items of merchandise may have motivation appeal but reality shows that it can take too long to collect enough “points” to redeem for the meaningful award. Managing catalog merchandise programs will take more administration than other types of awards.

Company Identified Items (Tee shirts, caps etc.)

These are more communication types of awards than motivational awards.  They are low cost and can be used as a BBS award, but are difficult to sustain.  How many tees or caps do your employees really want? Probably more of these types of awards in safety cultures than any other type, but are they really an award?

Individual or Group Travel

Very difficult to use any type of travel as a BBS award.  We’ve seen these used when media is issued and collected toward earing the award, the cost of the award is usually prohibitive.

Gift Cards

Gift cards are the most often used award in BBS programs because they are $ for $ and provided the highest choice.  They come in low denominations, are easily issued in BBS programs and can be accumulated for higher awards.  When you give your employees a large number of gift cards to choose from, you can provide virtually unlimited choice.

For every type of non-cash award considered, a part of the award cost will go to the fees necessary to support the delivery of the award.  If you have a gift card source that you can obtain without fees, almost 100% of your BBS safety award budget will get into the hands of your employees…where it belongs.

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

Safety Behavior is a Function of Its Consequences

A person does something because of what happens to them when they do it.  The cause of the behavior doesn’t happen because of what you tell them or train them to do; it happens because of what they experience immediately after the behavior…the consequence.

Behavioral research has shown that… 

A small, positive, immediate consequence has more impact on behavior than a large, future and uncertain one.

By consistently and continuously reinforcing behavior change with positive consequences you will change behavior.

Research also indicates that managers spend 85% of their time either telling people what to do, figuring out what to tell them to do, or deciding what to do because employees didn’t do what they were told to do in the first place. Safety managers still spend a great deal of their time telling workers want them to do and not enough time on the consequences. If the behavior is a function of the consequence wouldn’t it just make sense to put an equal amount of time into that side?

Understanding Consequences

Every behavior has multiple consequences, even the simplest ones, and a negative consequence to one may be a positive consequence to another.  It would take a course in behavioral science to understand all the nuances, but some fundamentals are necessary to help apply safety awards to get better results.  Unsafe behaviors are being repeated regardless of how often you tell employees not to do them.  It’s the characteristics of the consequences that give them their power.  When virtually everyone knows that smoking or being overweight is proven to be bad for you, do you ever ask yourself why people smoke or don’t lose weight?  Understanding these characteristics help to answering that question.

Positive vs. Negative

These are two sides to the same coin.  Positive consequences encourage more of the same behavior; negative consequences discourage more of the same behavior.  Positive consequences can be sustained over time, negative consequences cannot.

Example:  Public praise can be very positive for some and they strive to get more.  Others may be embarrassed by it (they don’t like it especially in a public forum) it and it will discourage the repeat behavior that achieved it.

Immediate vs. Future

Immediate consequences are much more powerful than future consequences.  The further away the consequence the weaker the influence. 

Example:  Threatening the negative consequences of smoking to a teenager

Certain vs. Uncertain

Certain consequences are much more powerful than uncertain ones.  When it is uncertain it will ever happen, it is not very powerful.  Consider the behavioral motivation of a sweepstakes where anyone that doesn’t have a reportable accident is put into a sweepstakes for a truck at the end of the year.  This type of incentive will not change the behavior of the majority of your people because while it may be positive to a few, most will view it as negative (they act accordingly but have little chance of getting the prize.)  is not immediate or certain).

Another example:  When children play with matches and get burned they get a certain and immediate consequence which will not likely be repeated.  When you speed for years and don’t get a ticket, because the threat of being pulled over and getting a ticket are so uncertain.

According to Dr. Aubrey Daniels, a well-known psychologist in the study of human behavior...“Consequences that are both immediate and certain (regardless of whether they are positive or negative) are the most powerful.  Consequences that are positive, immediate but uncertain are the next most powerful....consequences that are negative, immediate but uncertain are less powerful.  Those consequences that are certain but future (whether positive or negative) are also less powerful.  Consequences that are both future and uncertain are the weakest of all.”

Think about past safety award programs you may have been involved with.  How many of them have been programs that awarded employees in some form at the end of a quarter or year if they didn’t have an accident?  In other words, how many of those programs were in the PFU (positive, future but uncertain) category?  

The Award of Choice award system gives you a tool to provide reinforcement on a PIC basis (positive, immediate and certain.)  Your objective should be to change the behavior of your people, build long lasting, safe habits that reduce your incidents of accidents and injuries. 

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

Eliminating Safety Reward Programs In Sales Downturns

There are sales and revenue downturns in every industry and every company.  It is rare for any company to have constant profit growth year to year, and when slumps exist executive and financial management look for ways to cut expenses.  When your budget contains a line item titled “safety incentive” executive can view it as “nice to have” rather than “need to have.” When that happens what does it say about the way upper management views your safety award system? 

We have recommended for some time that you take the word “incentive” out of your safety culture.  It’s not an incentive; it’s reinforcement after the fact and a valid tactic to be used within the proven effective behavior model to change bad safety habits into good ones.  Reducing or eliminating bad safety performance will reduce your overall cost of safety, and improve bottom line results.  In difficult economic times isn’t that exactly what you need to do?  If upper management wants to cut safety award programs in difficult times, why would they want to keep them in good economic times?  It’s not the economy that should drive your safety award efforts, it’s the safety performance. 

We have a great deal of respect for safety management who try to retain their safety award efforts.  They fight that battle because they know these award programs help to cement all the other pieces of your safety effort, the training, communications, measurement, reporting etc. and build a culture of safety success.  And it helps upper management understand and support these efforts. 

Unfortunately when you are in market slump executives have a very hard time drawing a straight line between the cost of safety awards on a short term basis and short term bottom line results.  But the use of safety awards as behavior change tactics are long term strategies.  It takes time to change behavior and when one behavior is changed, another can take its place. 

It is incumbent on safety management to assist top management in understanding the importance of a complete safety effort that includes awards. In the planning stage make sure your management understands these four simple questions: 

What objective(s) do you intend to achieve by implementing a safety award system? 

What metrics do you intend to use to measure the performance toward that objective?

What will be the bottom line result for the company when you achieve the objective?

What is the bottom line consequence if you don’t achieve the objective.

If management doesn’t concur with the answer to these questions, your program will be vulnerable in bad economic times and subject to the budget cutting.  Employee safety award programs need to be viewed as irrefutably producing results.  And then it’s the finance department helping safety management trying to save them from the axe.

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

Communication Keys in Safety Award Systems

Safety award programs create a forum for open communications in a positive manner and offer excellent cross functional coaching opportunities!  No other company planned communication event will be more readily accepted than a program where the employee can receive something tangible for their efforts. People will pay attention when they know there’s something in it for them. That’s just human nature.

Good communications within your award system are crucial.  Some keys to making the communications effective are:

Make sure your safety incentive program is tailored to the realities of your company and specific to your physical location.

Active and involved commitment from the “top-down” and from the “bottom-up” is a requirement not an option!

Communicate with consistency and continuity.  Make the pledge to safety as “Our Way of Conducting Business” on a day-to-day basis throughout the organization from the top down and it will become a reality from the bottom up. 

Communicate your safety performance successes …share your lessons learned and celebrate those individuals at all levels, who standout as safety models and safety leaders!

Make sharing safety realities, performance, and outcomes a way of life and a way of thinking” every day and at every opportunity to do so … weekly safety meetings, brown-bag safety gatherings, union meetings, informal gatherings, on-site JSA gatherings, etc. everyplace, everywhere, and every occasion with everyone!

Make a commitment to take the time to listen and respond to one another about safety issues.The most frequent complaint heard from individuals that experience the dysfunction of organizations struggling with safety compliance, safety performance, and safety outcomes is: “No one takes the time to listen to what is really going on.”  And … “If and when they do, I rarely hear back from anyone who truly cares!  Why should I bother?”

Make sure you reward those small positive safety behaviors on a consistent basis so you will change them into a habit.  Use rewards that are consistent with your message

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