Safety rewards programs

LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF A SAFETY REWARD PROGRAM IN OPEN-PIT MINING" ... 

Long-Term Effects of a Safety Reward Program in Open-Pit Mining 266... 

Figure 3.4 Safety reward programs should pass the "dead-man s test. "...

Proactive safety improvement programs that collect and reward the implemented safety improvements of all employees... 

X Safety rewards — Over 75 percent of all respondent carriers have safety award programs for individual drivers. Safe drivers get promoted over imsafe drivers in over 89 percent of companies. 

This is a key question when quantifying your reward program. Carriers that reward their drivers once a year, in the form of an annual safety banquet, tend to experience higher turnover than those with programs that continually reward and recognize drivers. There should be an immediacy to any reward program, and this is an area that should be fairly easy to measure. 

Since every operation is rmique, there is no one-size-fits-all incentive plan. Consequently, this manual will not recommend or provide a specific performance-based or safety reward plan. As the Safety Pro it will be up to you to review your companys performance and safety data, driver turnover rate, exit interview data, and goals to determine what programs will work best for you. 

A serious mistake members of some organizations make is believing they can have two separate systems for evaluating production and safety. This occurs when no measurement for safety is built into the normal evaluation system and a safety incentive program is initiated to reward safe performance. The line manager is rewarded in terms of salary and position for having an exemplary production record. At... 

The easiest option for creating a simple safety award program is to identify the criteria and a potential award or recognition event or perhaps a menu of awards and recognition events appropriate to the criteria. The idea is to strive for planned, yet spontaneous recognition. It is planned in that you know what pinpointed behavior or accomplishment you plan to reward, but it is spontaneous in that you do not know when the criteria will be met. These award programs resemble traditional safety awards except that employees earn the awards based on specific actions that promote safety, not by going a fixed period of time without an incident. 

Motivation and reward Occupational medicine Performance appraisal Performance measurement Policies, procedures, and rules Process safety Procurement Programs ... 

An incentive/reward program is useful here. Such a program attempts to motivate a certain target behavior by promising people a positive consequence if they perform it. The promise is the incentive and the consequence is the reward. In safety, this kind of motivational intervention is much less... 

I have been helping companies implement safety incentive programs for many decades, and one decision that is constantly underappreciated is the selection of specific rewards to use as incentives for safe behavior. Companies can choose from a wide variety of rewards cash, gift cards, awards/plaques/ certificates, special parking spaces, t-shirts and on and on. In case 1 get stuck, I actually have a book called 1001 Ways to Reward Employees to help me brainstorm for ideas. But the decision is not one to be taken lightly. There are important ramifications of this choice that many companies do not realize. 

Most incentive/reward programs for occupational safety do not specify behavior. Employees are rewarded for avoiding a work injury or for achieving a certain number of "safe work days." So, what behavior is motivated Not to report injuries. 

Here are seven basic guidelines for establishing an effective incentive/reward program to motivate the occurrence of safety-related behaviors and improve industrial health and safety. 

This successful mystery observee program illustrates an important principle in incentive/ reward programs. You get what you reinforce. Programs lhat reward employees for handing in a completed CBC will probably increase the number of checklists received, but how about tire quality of the CBC Will the number of constructive comments on a CBC decrease when a reward is given for quantity You can count on this for employees who view the reward as a "payoff" for their efforts. That is why it is important to educate people about the rationale and true value of a particular safety effort. Then the big payoff is injury prevention, and the extra reward can be perceived as a "token of appreciation" for heartfelt participation. 

As indicated previously, however, when referring to safety teams this fifth stage is really about transforming rather than adjourning. Circumstances might allow you to combine teams or team missions. AAftth less need for a formal safety incentive program, for example, an incentive/reward team could combine with the celebration team and/or the preventive active team, as discussed previously, or an ergonomics team could be combined with an incident analysis team. 

The last two principles relate to the critical issue of program evaluation (Chapter 18). In safety, the total recordable injury rate (TRIR) is the most popular evaluation number used to rank companies for safety rewards. It is calculated by multiplying the number of workplace injuries by 200,000 and dividing the answer by the total person-hours worked in that time period (U.S. Department of Labor, 1994). What an obvious example of an abstract number with little meaning. The most direct measure of ongoing safety performance comes from behavioral observations and, in Chapters 8,12, and 18,1 recommended ways to obtain meaningful feedback numbers from such process evaluation. 

This is the most effective way to attract active participation in any safety recognition program.This approach creates a competitive environment in which employees can vie for cash rewards. People tend to be serious about opportunities to win money, and the competition should create a safety conscious mindset. 

There are two main approaches to safety incentive programs. The first approach bases incentives on a specific goal, most commonly the number of days without a lost-time accident, and rewards a group at various intervals during that time period. This is called a reactive approach. 

Safety is the first priority of any inspection program, and appropriate precautions must be taken. Boiler inspections are vitally important and often technically rewarding, but the process usually is dirty, exhausting, hot, and sometimes wet work. 

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