A safety incentive program is used to encourage employees to meet or exceed workplace safety goals. A successful safety incentive program will increase awareness of safety issues, reduce injuries without encouraging workers to cover up injuries, and instill positive behaviors that will create a culture of safety at work. Keep reading to find your next safety strategy below!
Proactive vs. Reactive Safety
In a proactive behavior program, companies reward behaviors that ultimately lead to good safety performance. The name may be obvious, but reactive safety measures deal with accidents as they occur. A healthy mix of both is needed for any given business to prepare for and adapt to change. Here is a quick list created by HASpod.
Proactive:
- Inspections
- Interviewing
- Audits
- Monitoring performance and behavior
- Checking procedures
- Safety sampling
Reactive:
- Accident reporting and investigation
- Incident investigation
- Ill health and sickness reviews
- Identifying trends
What Should Your Safety Program Do?
According to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), proactive safety programs should encourage and reward employees to report injuries, accidents, or illnesses while on the job. Such rewarding actions focus on the safety process, not the results. OSHA fears that rewarding employees for not getting hurt on the job could result in employees not reporting injuries out of fear of missing out on valuable rewards. Therefore, encouraging employee participation in reporting these situations can improve the overall safety program.
Make sure you put in place a reasonable incident reporting process and make relevant information accessible to all your employees. When implemented correctly, a safety program builds a well-functioning safety culture.
#1 Develop G & G: Guidelines and Goals
First, employees at all levels must engage, motivate, and participate in the overall safety program. It should include policies, rules, and procedures that clearly describe the measures that will be taken to provide workers with a safe and healthy work environment. The goal is to increase safety awareness, develop tips, and reward employees for safe behavior.
Most employers offering security incentive programs want to create a more positive overall environment, so the program must be attractive, useful, easy to understand and administer, flexible, and legal. A safety program that resonates with people creates a safety culture and can help prevent accidents. To encourage positive safety behaviors, successful health and safety managers must incorporate reward and recognition into their safety programs.
#2 Specify Rewards
The behavior required to receive a safety reward must be clearly articulated and perceived by the participants as achievable. Decide what activities justify rewards; what is offered, how, and when it is provided. It’s important to specify safe behavior, or else employees won't know what they need to do to earn a safety reward, and interest will soon fade.
Rewarding employees on a monthly or quarterly basis with lower rewards can keep them in the spotlight and give employees a chance to pick up a reward if they lost it earlier in the year. The promise of incentives and rewards should only serve as a reminder of the need for safe work. The presentation of such rewards should be seen by employees as a sign of appreciation for the implementation of the desired safe behavior.
#3 Find the Right Reward
If employees do not consider the rewards to be significant, the reward program will not be an incentive to work safely. If you don't have a good security and rewards program, your employees won't appreciate it. One company might offer a steak dinner to employees who spent the quarter without wasting time due to injury, while another might offer cash. Major users of corporate incentives find that gifts with a corporate logo are only 11% effective in changing a person's behavior, while cash, gift cards, and gifts work much better.
#4 Establishing Safety Behavior
OSHA recommends incentive programs to reward employees for participating in safety program activities and assessments, completing employee training, and following detailed safety and risk identification procedures. Some programs base incentives on no injuries or for a specified period. These programs are falling out of fashion, in part because they are tied to lagging rather than leading indicators. Peer pressure is also an effective motivator in safety programs. Finding and assigning safety advocates in each department could be an easy solution for companies struggling with motivation.
#5 Track How Your Program is Doing
To identify the areas most at risk to the company and develop an effective safety incentive program that will meet the needs of employees. Most safety-conscious employers collect historical data on various recorded risks, develop predictive trends, and determine ROI to protect employees.
By finding an effective OSHA-compliant safety incentive program, employers can gain the full support and engagement of their employees as they work every day to keep them safe while performing their duties with little or no interruption.
