Recognizing Reported Safe Work

Safe work actions and deeds should receive more recognition because they are opportunities to recognize employees own initiative safety actions. The form of recognition will differ from organization to organization and from safety culture to safety culture. Some institutions issue internal recognition certificates to the employee while others have safety watches that are awarded only on occasion of a big contribution to safety. 

I witnessed the presentation of a buck knife to the recipient of a lucky draw from the month s near miss reports. This was an effort to kick-start the underground near miss incident reporting system that met with a lot of resistance from the macho miner culture that prevailed. 

The next month the number of near miss reports trebled and not just in quantity, some really high potential events were reported that were rectified before a most likely accident occurred. 

An example of safe work reported reads as follows Tom Harper replaced the machine guard that contractors had left off of pump 43 at the entrance gate at Plant 5.  

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Where we can impel people toward safety we will then urge them forward and help them use their creative power to contribute to safety. Motivation is a two-way street and if we are not creating the environment that inspires employees to greater involvement in safety processes, we should not always point a finger at them and say they are not motivated. Our own personal test is do we always encourage, involve, inspire, and impel employees Do we do enough to recognize safe work reports and other near miss incident rqx)rts ... 

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