Running an Incentive-Disciplinary Program
Sunday, October 31, 2010
By Daniel C Brown
“Most of the workers out there are trying to do things right. But when the safety department or the enforcement team comes to the job, they usually put heavy emphasis on an issue that was not performed safely, and they tend not to put a whole lot of emphasis on safe behavior,” says Brian Gawlik, technical instructor with the Chicagoland Construction Safety Council.
“You need to recognize the good things that are going on,” says Gawlik, who has 18 years of experience in the safety profession. “We walk by 10 people who are doing things right and go right to the one person that did something wrong. We don’t say anything to the 10 safe performers.”
Gawlik advocates the use of a safety incentive program coupled with disciplinary actions for unsafe behavior. “You have to put those two together,” says Gawlik. “And if you show favoritism on the disciplinary side—or on the incentives side—that can cause your program to lose credibility and fail. People will not be motivated and they think, ‘Those guys can do that and we can’t, so where is the bar set at?’”
Here are the top 10 reasons why safety culture plans fail, Gawlik says:
10. Minimal promotion and communication of rules and incentives
9. Lack of proper funding
8. Micromanagement
7. Project management not pulling its weight
6. Plans or execution encourages hiding incidents and injuries
5. Lack of doing job-hazard analyses
4. Lack of follow-through
3. Lack of enforcement
2. Lack of impartial enforcement
1. Lack of support from the team or
management
You should get buy-in from the workers, and management has to be committed to making the program work. Rules must be communicated early and often—at pre-bid meetings, during new employee orientation, at weekly meetings of the crew, and so forth. And people must understand why the rules are what they are. “You sit down with them and explain what is going on,” says Gawlik.
Surprise Parties
Major awards or such incentives as a party for all workers should not be announced ahead of time. If you announce that you’ll have a party at 100 days with no recordable accidents, workers may be encouraged to hide accidents. “I wouldn’t even let them know ahead of time,” says Gawlik. “Keep those numbers to yourself. You reach a certain milestone, and you surprise them and say ‘thank you.’”
Management should lead by example. Managers should wear proper personal protective equipment (PPE) when walking the job site. And micromanagement will have a negative influence on your program. “In some cases individuals are waiting for someone to make a mistake,” says Gawlik. “So when the person makes a mistake, the foreman or manager pounds on that. You can watch closely, but bird-dogging the project and being hypercritical doesn’t work.”
Following are the golden rules of incentive/disciplinary management, according to Gawlik:
- Clear communication of site rules and expectations
- Fair and impartial enforcement—no favoritism
- Gain team support
- Inspect what you expect (things that you measure should tend to improve)
Everyone on each crew—across the company—must accept the safety plan and be willing to follow it. If even one superintendent or one project manager or one safety person is not on the team, the plan can break down and confusion will result. And incentives and disciplinary actions should be communicated to the whole team.
“If somebody from Contractor A was written up, or the person did something that deserved recognition, that needs to be immediately communicated to the project team,” says Gawlik. “From a team standpoint, the whole is interacting, and they are recognizing, one way or another, the activity.”
You need to inspect and measure behaviors that are important to the plan. The number of safety meetings held on time, job hazard analyses performed, pre-task planning, turning the paperwork in, and reporting accidents are all examples of things you can inspect and measure.
Above and Beyond
Naturally, many communications on a job site center on production. There are more questions surrounding production than safety. But an incentive and disciplinary program—directed at safety—helps promote safe behavior because people will talk about it. Safety expectations will be discussed by the whole project team, and people will be encouraged to follow the rules.
Safety has to be treated as a value, not just a goal, Gawlik says. Goals change, but values stay the same. “So you want to make safety a value. It is the way we do business,” he says. “We are not just endorsing safety as a goal to get the job done safely; it is a value of how we do business.”
An effective incentive/disciplinary program will encourage a can-do attitude. “We always like to see contractors say we can go above and beyond the immediate goals,” says Gawlik. “I think a well run safety program encourages contractors to look outside the box and ask themselves how they will accomplish this.”
In terms of enforcement, the disciplinary portion of your program can fail if you don’t adequately communicate the rules. “If you expect everyone to wear safety glasses, or do pre-task planning, or have forms for every activity you do—wherever you go above and beyond OSHA rules—you should spell out those rules to each individual during orientation, so that they are fully aware of them,” says Gawlik. “I have seen cases where a subcontractor is not aware of some rules and then you hit them with it. Surprises like that are not fair treatment.”
Reward Examples
There are many rewards that can be given for safe behavior. Examples include T-shirts and hats, site/team/individual lunches, gift certificates to Home Depot or movie tickets, food such as a turkey, silver dollars, sports tickets, time-off with pay, tools, a plaque or award, a letter sent to the company owner or boss, site parking for a month, or doughnuts and bagels for the whole crew.
Disciplinary programs are aimed at problem people, Gawlik says:
- For the repeat and habitual offenders
- For the disobedient
- For the dishonest people
- For those who instruct their crews to disobey the rules
- For those who undermine the safety culture of the project
- For those who put themselves and others at risk
Discipline should be administered on a progressive basis. For a first-time violation, a verbal warning might be enough. For a second violation you might write up a warning that a penalty will occur on the next violation. The third time you hand out the penalty. “There is a point where upper management will get involved, such as if a foreman or a whole crew needs to be dismissed,” says Gawlik. “It is difficult to do in some cases, but holding up a pay application will get their attention as well. This is where you do not show favoritism; you look at it from the crew’s safety perspective.”
Author's Bio: Daniel C. Brown writes on safety and technology in the construction industry. |
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