Safety Incentive & Recognition ProgramsSuccessful safety programs focus on behaviors – what people must do to be safe. Rewards should be positioned as management’s expression of appreciation to workers for being safe. Rewards should focus on successes and should be issued immediately to maximize reinforcement of the behavior. Rewards with some showcase value work better than rewards that employees pocket or put away. Such behaviors include one employee coaching another about a specific safe practice, or daily notices and reminders about upcoming situations that may need a heads-up. Such behaviors include safety audits of specific environments to measure progress toward objectives. But the reporting of near misses must also be a targeted and encouraged behavior. All safety programs must have management front and center as the sponsors of the campaign. Such programs work when employees see their supervisors and top management as serious about safety, and when management views employees as the key players on the safety team. After all, the employees can probably list countless safety concerns with little provocation. The question: why aren’t they coming forward with the list? Not only may there be no incentive for them to do so, they may also be scared to cite safety problems. This reluctance is often the biggest hurdle to changing the workplace safety culture for the better. How safety programs go wrong-are these too familiar?A faulty definition of safety: Organizations that define safety as loss prevention are not serious about safety. Safety signs alone will not work. The culture must change, not the signage, and the focus must be on achievement and success, not losses and costs. Accidents can no longer be seen as acts of God; they are a breakdown of the safety system No teamwork: An effective safety and health program is a three-legged stool: employees, their supervisors, and management. But take one leg out and the program collapses. Proactive participation is needed all around. Each member of the team is motivated to change the culture toward zero tolerance Unitended results: Programs that focus merely on accident free days may actually discourage incident reporting, leaving unsafe conditions to prevail unchecked. Such incentives can infect employee morale with the notion that management cares more about OSHA reports rather than real safety. Poorly constructed objectives: Safety programs that have no clear objectives cannot work well because employees do not know what is expected of them. What’s more, the safety manager cannot measure progress if no benchmark goals and objectives are established at the beginning. According to the American Society of Safety Engineers, the greatest problem with safety programs is measurement. When money doesn’t talk: Monetary rewards are not effective. Employees subconsciously perceive it as a payoff for being safe. Safety program successes around the country – Could these ideas work for you?Successful safety programs are using unique incentives to help change the workplace culture:
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