When Safety Slogans and Signs Can be Harmful.

Do the signs that track the number of days without an accident really encourage safe work performance?

They’ve been around for years, and can’t do any harm.  Right?  They are important because they clearly depict the company’s safety objective.  Right?  This is meaningful and motivational information.  Right?

We respectfully disagree that any of the above statements are true!  These signs can be harmful.  They merely communicate the fact that the plant has not had an injury, but do nothing about teaching the meaning of safe practices.  They do reinforce the goal we all have of no accidents, but frankly any system that focuses on that goal alone is  flawed and will unintentionally reward luck. 

When your culture rewards only the decrease of accidents, you will encourage employees not to report incidents which can lead to other problems that can be worse than the accident.  This may also result in unsafe and unethical behavior.  In addition, in this type of culture employees often fail to report safety issues because they fear negative fallout from management.

This type of communication does not motivate improved safety performance or to develop sound safe behaviors to produce lasting change.  If you want to motivate change, design your safety effort around the behaviors that when performed in a safe manner will accumulatively result in a decrease of incidents. 

When you use compliance signs that promote specific behaviors, and then reward your employees for displaying those behaviors you can and will build safe work habits in your organization. 

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