Do Safety Incentives Really Produce Results?

Many safety managers ask a great question …

“Do safety incentives really produce results?”

There are at least two schools of thought on the answer voiced by safety managers:

Tangibly appreciating and recognizing individual behaviors that improve specific safety performance and outcomes have a measurable and dramatic impact on the overall safety and financial performance of a company.

We pay our people to function in a safe manner and get the results the company wants.  They are already paid to work safe.

Before you determine which answer is the right one for your organization, there are certain aspects you need to consider.  These are founded in the answer to the following key question and the criteria stated below …

A Key Question:

Does your organization actively measure, analyze, and broadcast safety performance and outcomes in terms of …

• The related costs of workers compensation claims.
• Healthcare costs increases or decreases due to incidents and accidents.
• The impact on operating expenses due to lost time and added labor costs.
• Is there a well-communicated and understood correlation between safety behaviors, performance, and the overall financial performance of your organization?
• Do all of the individuals in your organization relate their personal safety behaviors on-the-job and daily performance to the above four safety issues?

If the answer to the above is YES! … You are in a great position to measurably and expediently improve your safety behaviors, performance, and related outcomes by implementing a safety incentive program using a valuable safety appreciation and recognition system like Award of choice. A safety incentive program based on the above criteria will provide tangible appreciation and results based on measurable improvements … and these results can be significant! 

If the answer to the above is No, Not Sure, Sometimes,  A Little, or Maybe …you might want to consider postponing your award program and start first by making improvements to items as noted above!

Tangible Safety Incentive Programs Address and Go Beyond the Safety Behaviors Addressed by Basic Compensation Plans!

          In numerous studies the number one driver that motivates people to excel is Appreciation for a job well done! and Recognition for making and taking that extra effort!

A safety program can be a highly effective performance improvement tool by answering, addressing, and linking three critical elements in getting the job done!

1^st

Do the individuals clearly understand the defined safety goals and the impact their safety behaviors have on the required functional and financial outcomes of the company?

2^nd

Do the individuals understand how he / she links and is connected to the defined safety goals and the impact their safety behaviors have on the required functional and financial outcomes?

3^rd

Does she / he realize and live every day the fact that her / his day-to-day safety behaviors on-the-job directly affect the ability of the organization to achieve the defined safety goals and the impact their safety behaviors have on the required functional and financial outcomes … And, does she / he understand how her / his safety behaviors are critical to their individual and team’s overall well-being and future security?

When this linkage and understanding is clear, your coworkers actively and aggressively seek ways to continuously improve their safety behaviors, performance, and company outcomes.  Appreciating and tangibly recognizing your coworkers for doing so is one of the keys to improving and sustaining safety performance and positive outcomes for all!

Experience shows that safety award systems have, do and will produce results!  But there is a caveat.  For your safety program to have the best chance at success it needs to be properly designed, implemented and communicated. 

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

Take the Subjectivity Out Of BBS Programs

As part of our ongoing program activity with our clients, we gather actual Leading Indicators that our clients use in their safety award systems.  The list that we have created is by no means meant to be an exhaustive combination of every possible leading indicator that have or can be used in BBS award systems.  It is designed to be a thought starter for indicators a company can use when they are considering moving from a traditional lagging indicator award system, “prize at the end”, to a program using safety awards to create safe behaviors and then turn them into habits. 

Our list is very simplistic when compared to H&S statistics and processes which cover data such as H&S tours, H&S meetings, training, induction, inspections, audits, drills etc. Those types of Objectively Verifiable Indicators (OVIs) are beyond our purview and allow clients to evaluate performance and identify gaps/malfunctions instantly.  But if you are going to move from one type of award structure to another, you need to start somewhere.

When you create OVIs in measurable and observable terms, they provide the basis for individual performance measurement suitable for project monitoring and evaluation.  They become the parameters of change or of results, indicating as to what extent the project objectives have been achieved.  They form the perfect structure from which to launch your award system and help your employees become successful in achieving results and earning awards.

Once you have achieved results in these OVIs, say for example over a six month period, it is then time for some new ones.  Don’t fall into the trap that everything is good, go find something that isn’t. 

The incentive industry has known for years that consistently and continuously rewarding behavior change with minimal awards will over the long run change behavior.  If you would like to see a paper on an award system that was designed for just these types of programs, we would be happy to send you an electronic copy.

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

The Relationship between Minor and Serious injuries

You can debate the validity of Heinrich’s accident ratios and numbers or the re-evaluation of them by Frank Bird in his Industrial Accident Prevention, but the bottom line in these discussions is that there are three important things we can learn from these powerful concepts:

First - there is a distinct mathematical relationship between incidents of similar type and how severe there are.  You can use technology to keep track of where your company is in relation to industry standards and even calculate this ratio for yourself. 

Second – it is not plant, equipment or location which accounts for the majority of safety incidents but employee behavior. 

Third – by reducing overall frequency of workplace injuries the number of severe or fatal injuries will consequently reduce.

Too Simplistic? 

Maybe, as there are scores of mathematicians and engineers out there who would love to delve deeply into these theories and discover the root causes of the minor injuries and deal with these then to uncover a proportionate effect on serious injuries. 

Ultimately the vast majority of underlying causes of minor and serious injuries have one thing in common: someone’s behavior. These may be the behaviors of operators, supervisors, managers or directors – or more likely a combination of all of these in a domino effect.

Sure, anyone can argue the validity of these models.  But they provide us with the very important point that by reporting near misses and minor injuries we can learn the lessons of why they occurred.  Most companies put too much focus on the top of the triangle (reactive) and not enough on the bottom (proactive).

As long as we don’t take these models too literally or get hung up on the numbers, they remain a very valuable safety tool.

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

Two Truths for Creating Most Effective Safety-Incentive Program

When your objective is to establish a safety culture that rewards active involvement by all employees in the effective execution of safety related practices, keep your safety awards simple.  Two truths about safety incentives will help you do just 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 small amounts of awards, you will change behavior

People do things for their own reasons and needs – not yours.  If you want to motivate change, then offer awards that appeal to those needs.  Within reason, let them have what they want, not what you think they want and not what you want them to have.

When you keep it simple you can achieve sustainable operational improvement in safety, environment, health and wellness and subsequently reduce costs.

Many companies are finding that gift card award systems are ideally suited to these small consistent types of awards because they are easy to administer, provide tremendous choice and are very cost effective. 

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

Creating Safety Habits

If you are trying to create safe work practices consider the following:

·       On average, an action becomes an "automatic" habit after 66 days of doing it

·       The subconscious mind rebels against big changes, but you can do it with gradual shifts

·       The more familiar a task is, the less scary it is. 

Incentive science has known for years that when you continuously and consistently reinforce behavior change with sincere appreciation and awards, you will change long term behavior.  It also teaches us that a small, positive, immediate consequence (the award) has more impact on behavior that a large, future and uncertain one.

Most safety award programs today aren’t effective in the long run.  You can spend a lot of money on employees for getting lucky for not having an accident during your program period, but they haven’t changed their behavior at all.  And that is very frustrating and the main reason many companies forego safety awards altogether.

Behavior based safety is based on the principle of creating habits and when efficiently implemented it can be very effective.

If you want to create new safety habits reinforce those positive behaviors whenever you see them.  The reinforcement doesn’t have to be an award of any tangible value; you can realize a great deal of change by simply recognizing and thanking your employees for the effort.  After repeating that recognition several times, you can then reinforce them with a small tangible award such as a gift card.

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