We
are constantly reviewing articles on the web that mention safety awards in the
workplace. Almost without exception, we
see daily mention of at least one company that has received a coveted safety
award from an industry association, from OSHA, from the state or city they are
in, etc.
Often
these articles mention that the award is based on one of the lagging indicators
of safety performance such as number of man hours without an incident, or the
reduction in incidents per the man hours worked etc.
Interestingly,
OSHA has been very vocal in repudiating reward and recognition programs that
are based on lagging indicators. It
would be nice to see these states, industry associations etc. start to measure
the performance of companies on leading indicators. Maybe they just assume that the workers are
just naturally working in a safe manner in order to produce these good
results. Unfortunately that’s not
always the case. A company can have long
periods without an incident, but that doesn’t mean that the employees are
working in a safe manner, it just means they haven’t had an accident.
For
safety awards to be effective, remember to set up a program that will provide
continuous and consistent recognition to all employees who work in a safe
manner day in and day out. When you do
this you create the habit of working safely.
It this type of behavior that creates hundreds of thousands of work hours
performed safely. The result didn’t
drive the achievement. The achievement
was driven by all employees performing the leading indicators in a safe manner.
For more
information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please
contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net
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