Safety Incentive Programs – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
A little collection of the best web articles to help you decide which safety incentives work the best – or at least help you avoid having to do any real work for a while
Battery Cables (one of my favourites)
Busy managers don’t have time to find out what gift would be truly reinforcing for each one of their people. In the 80s, a supervisor had 10 people reporting to him; in today’s downsized world, he might easily have to oversee 100. How is that poor supervisor or steering committee going to know what reinforcers work for their people? Answer: They don’t and they can’t. Even though that would be great, realistically there isn’t enough time to know. So what do most companies do? They succumb to the power of the Dark Side, the easy way out. They give people money or cash substitutes like gift cards. READ MORE
When can we fire our stupid workers? (another personal favourite)
“We are trying to reduce the stupid accidents that occur because employees are in a hurry, or they don’t follow the safety standards.” “Every time we have an accident, I get an email from my president asking if we can fire the injured employee. In their book, it’s always the employee’s fault…” ”I have the dumbest employees in the world! One of my guys reached into a conveyor belt without shutting it down . . . a deliberate violation of our safety rules! He almost got his arm ripped off. Boy was he dumb!” These are just a handful of the candid comments that a few safety people have made when I chat with them. The last one came from an ASSE meeting where the safety manager lamented people who are so “stupid” that they break obvious safety rules. I told that safety director that his people aren’t dumb. And while the worker with the missing arm won’t make the mistake again of reaching into the conveyor belt, others will make that mistake before long. READ MORE
Maximizing the Effective use of Incentives to improve safety performance
There are two areas of the brain that affect our responses to incentives. The nucleus accumbens, or pleasure center, activates when a financial incentive is offered. This area of the brain is focused solely on the value of the deal and has little to do with anything else. The pleasure center is also the same area that is responsible for addictive behavior and drives the need for the ever increasing amounts of stimuli which is needed to achieve the same pleasurable response. READ MORE
An Example of Incentives Gone Wrong
There is no more hotly-debated issue in safety than safety incentive programs. Are they good, bad, harmful to safety, flawed or just bad practice? There’s no question that incentive programs have mixed results. Some see the failures as reaffirmation that the concept of incentives is inherently flawed. I’ll render a quick sketch of that view. READ MORE
Don’t Incentivize Workplace Safety
Let’s say you work for one of these companies that has heavy machinery, sharp blades and furnaces. Sounds pretty cool, right? Okay, maybe that’s just me. I love industrial workplaces. Places where things are made, where real work gets done and you shake an employees hand and it feels like you just put your hand into a sandpaper vise. You wear safety glasses and a hard hat when you walk around but let’s face it: if something really went wrong, none of those things would protect you. READ MORE
The Truth about Safety Incentives
What does it take to motivate employees to work safe?
One of the great debates in workplace safety today is the role of incentives. Two philosophies seem to exist. One says that workers will not work safe unless we give them incentives to do so. The other says that incentives should not be required for workers to do their jobs without injury. Interestingly, safety and operational supervisors, managers, and directors who are working hard to find a way to focus employees on reducing injuries fuel the debate. READ MORE
The Great Motivational Debate
I’d just finished my workshop at the national meeting of the American Society of Safety Engineers. After my presentation, I was approached by a senior consultant with one of the biggest behavioral consulting firms; he immediately hit me with a really heavy behavioral question…. “Aren’t you worried about robbing people of their intrinsic motivation by giving them gifts like IPODS and other tangible reinforcers?” he asked, smiling slightly. “What about the jobs where there are NO intrinsic reinforcers?” I responded. He stared back at me, puzzled. For instance, what if I work at a theme park and the desired job behavior is for me to smile and make eye contact with guests, or voluntarily help co-workers (a core trait of engaged employees). I do this for awhile, but my supervisor never says “Thanks,” or notices my extra effort. What happens to INTRINSIC motivation then? The consultant’s theory of employee motivation had sadly met the real world of business—whether he liked it or not. The world of work positively and negatively reinforces us 24×7. How much intrinsic reinforcement can you feel when your good work is ignored? READ MORE
Reviewing safety incentive schemes
A tool to assist sites in reviewing safety incentive schemes during the transition to world-leading OHS in the
NSW mining and extractives industry. DOWNLOAD HERE: [download id=”41″]
Cash Incentives Not Always King When Motivating Employees
A new study from the Incentive Research Foundation and the Incentive Federation finds that tangible awards often are more effective than cash when trying to motivate employees. A new research review conducted by the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) and the Incentive Federation examines a wide variety of studies in various industries and reveals that non-cash awards actually can capture an employee’s imagination better than cash – thereby motivating them to increase performance. READ MORE
Safety incentives that don’t discourage injury reporting
Now that OSHA is keeping an eye out for incentive programs that discourage workers from reporting injuries, what can you do to encourage safe practices? READ MORE
Safety Incentive Programs: A Critical Assessment
A majority of U.S. businesses use some sort of safety incentive. Nevertheless, the debate continues as to their effectiveness. Learn how such programs are designed, their pros and cons, caveats to implementation, and possible alternatives. The effect of rewards on motivation and performance is a well-studied subject in both management and safety literature. A majority of U.S. businesses use some sort of safety incentive, and most safety professionals believe that they are an important element in any safety and health program. Still, there is a vocal minority viewpoint contending that the ideologies surrounding the concept of safety incentives are based on flawed premises. READ MORE
Safety Incentive Schemes
For the 20 years I was in the mining industry we had a variety of safety incentives. There were stubby coolers, belt buckles, caps, jackets, sports bags and so on. Awards were given for various periods without a lost time accident, often a more valuable prize was given for greater periods without a lost time accident. At one job I gave out stickers for 1,2,3, years etc without a lost time accident. Between ordering different stickers for each year, keeping track of who was due for a sticker, placating those who could not get a sticker because they had had an accident and supplying extra stickers for peoples collections it sucked up a lot of time. READ MORE
Incentives: Savvy Strategy or Poor Plan?
“To say that incentives don’t work is hogwash,” offers Sims. Companies considering eliminating all rewards and incentives need to look first at executive compensation, which typically includes performance bonuses. “You can cling to your dogma if you’d like, and you’ll get there without incentives, but I’m going to get there about five times faster!” READ MORE
Dispelling Popular Myths about Safety Incentives
“By instituting reward programs, management ignores the true cause of the problem … rewards discourage changing the safety system.” W.R. Grace documented over 1800 bright ideas from it’s employees, with over 50% of these ideas centred on improving the process to enhance safety. “Safety rewards are unnecessary. All of us have intrinsic motivation. We should be willing to do a job safely for the money we receive.” READ MORE
Safety Incentives
The age old question and resulting debate continues to divide organisations across the globe: Should an employee be paid an incentive for working safely??. The answer may never be known but it is a heck of a lot of fun trying to sort it out. So whilst I can’t give you a definitive answer whether an incentive should be provided and should it be cash based I can certainly provide you with some things to think about when you do get around to the discussion. READ MORE
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below