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