What’s Your Most Effective Safety Tool?

Timothy Ludwig, Ph.D., the commissioner for Behavioral Safety Accreditation at the non-profit Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies noted that…

“Behavior is motivated by the consequences it produces especially when that consequence happens right after the behavior with high certainty. Thus, the most effective tools are those that deliver reinforcement to the worker immediately after the safe behavior.”

We would argue that your best safety tool is not the positive reinforcement but those who do the reinforcing, your front line supervisory management.  Without them, you wouldn’t have anyone to reinforce those positive safe behaviors when they happen.  The daily monitoring, encouragement, promotion, training, measure and feedback provided to your employees are critical to the success of any safety program.  If your front line supervisory personnel don’t support any of these efforts your programs won’t be as successful as you want them to be.

When you design your safety award system, don’t forget to include your front line management and provide part of your budget to award them as well.  Their inclusion can guarantee the program success.

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

Safety Award Tips for Frontline Supervisors

At the 2017 annual professional development conference for ASSE, Judy Agnew, PhD, Sr. VP for Aubrey Daniels International spoke in a session titled “Setting Frontline Supervisors Up for Success in Safety.”

Referring to frontline supervisors as “the linchpins of safety,” Agnew emphasized that creating a safe workplace requires active participation at all levels of the organization. Frontline supervisors, she said, play a key role in holding together the many moving parts of a safety program, from training and hazard identification to equipment inspections and recordkeeping.

In our opinion they play The Key Role in engaging your workforce.  They are on the spot

everyday making sure the employees contribute to a safer workplace by participating in safety discussions, planning for and anticipating hazards, actively working to keep peers safe, reporting hazards and near misses, and challenging decisions when appropriate.

And importantly, if you have any kind of behavior based award system, they are the ones most likely to be making the observations and issuing the small recognition awards so necessary to help turn that behavior into a habit. 

They are your safety coaches that deliver constructive feedback with a focus on helping people improve.  This coaching mindset leads to more positive interactions with frontline employees, which in turn facilitates engagement.

Encourage your supervisors to get to know their personnel asking for feedback and input rather than telling subordinates what to do; to use positive communications whenever possible; to promptly address issues raised by their employees, especially hazards; to focus on behaviors that with the highest hazard potential; and to have daily safety interactions that are specific and sincere.

And remember, when you recognizing and rewarding safe behavior, don’t forget to include all you safety supervisors as well.  Don’t assume that the higher pay is all they need for their efforts.  Recognition and reward strategies will be as effective with them as with all employees, maybe more so. 

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