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

Four Safety Truths that Reduce Workplace Incidents

A white paper written by Predictive Solutions, a leader in predictive safety software, reviewed recent results from their pioneering research in the development of their powerful safety prediction models and came up with the following four truths that can reduce workplace incidents.

On the surface these truths may seem somewhat rudimentary and obvious to the safety professionals who daily confront workplace safety.  But looking at them in depth may give pause for future consideration of inspections and safety observations that are a backbone of a successful safety culture.  The four truths are:

1.     More Inspections Predict a Safer Worksite

2.     More Inspections Specifically Outside the Safety Function Predict a Safer Worksite

3.     Too Many “100% Safe” Predicts and Unsafe Workplace

4.     Too Many Unsafe Observations Predicts an Unsafe Workplace

After a detailed analysis of all their data, some clear patterns emerged.  Here are some action steps that you can take:

• Make sure that your program includes rewards for high levels of inspections….the more the inspections the fewer the number of incidents. 
• Include as many people as you can in your inspections, specifically more from non-safety disciplines than from safety positions 
• Train for and reward the reporting of unsafe behaviors
• It’s obvious that too many unsafe behaviors will result in an unsafe workplace, so you need to assure that you commit the time and resources to fixing those unsafe behaviors.

Reward-Don’t Incentivize!

It is proven business tenet that  when you take the time to recognize and reward safe behaviors you will turn those behaviors into habits that will consistently result in lowering your incidents of accident and injury. Much has been said about the pros and cons of safety incentives, but rewards will help make your safety inspections and observations far more successful. 

The white paper above concludes that when the four safety truths were incorporated into the inspection and observations within your safety program, that worksites showed two to three times less incidents.  For a copy of the complete white paper, please click here.

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