Grading and Excavation Contractor

Safety Incentives: The Debate Continues

By Daniel C. Brown

Even though the majority of US companies use some type of safety incentive program, safety people still debate the effectiveness of such programs. “We see a lot of fear and misinformation, and a number of questions over safety recognition programs,” says David Sims, vice president of The Bill Sims Co., a South Carolina–based safety consultant.

“Why should I pay people to be safe? It’s part of their job,” skeptics say. “If we did a safety reward program, how would we prevent abuse and favoritism? Safety incentives do nothing more than cause under-reporting of injuries—they produce no real behavior change!”

In reply, Sims points to studies and companies that have shown the effectiveness of safety incentives. Plus, he says, such programs need to be carefully designed to avoid injury hiding. “You want to identify safe behaviors, measure them, and then reward them,” says Sims. “And the rewards should be as immediate as possible, and as certain as possible.”

Some years ago the American Society of Safety Engineers did a survey that tracked accidents at 300 construction firms for three years. Half of the firms did not implement a safety incentive program. But the half that did use an incentive program had 50% lower injury rates than the half that did not.

A major paper manufacturer, a Sims client, cut workers’ compensation claims on 1,200 employees from $2 million to just $34,000 in eight years, Sims says. A sawmill in the Southeast—an inherently dangerous facility with 300 employees—went for five years without one recordable injury. Both companies used safety incentive programs as part of their overall safety programs.

Management must support an incentive program and show it proactively.

Another company said a Sims incentive program was the biggest single factor in reducing workers compensation claims from $300,000 a year down to just $32,000. What’s more, the client could “guarantee” that nobody was hiding injuries.

Incentives work because employees want recognition even more than money, says Sims. Getting only limited recognition and praise is the number one reason people leave jobs, according to Robert Half International. The lack of recognition ranked higher than compensation, limited authority, personality conflicts, and all other responses.

Before setting up a safety incentive program, you should take five critical steps, says Ron Prichard, president of Indiana-based Arcanum Professional Services.

The first step is to have a properly functioning and complete safety program. A safety incentive is just one part of an effective safety program. Employees must be trained to be safe—they must know what’s expected of them.

Next, you must examine safety performance within the organization. If accidents are higher than average, the safety program is not working. Corrections must be made to reduce injuries prior to considering an incentive program, Prichard says.

Third, top management must support the incentive program and show it proactively. Workers must believe the program is fair and that they have a chance to win the award. The program must be well-administered.

The incentive program, fourth on the list, must be structured. Set goals, select rewards, and develop the administrative process. Goals must be set properly, because if they’re too high, early failure will discourage participation. If they’re too low, no effort is required and you won’t get a change in behavior.

And finally, ensure effective communications about the program as it is being implemented. Workers need to understand why the program is being implemented, the rules, how it works, and how progress is measured. Prichard says employees need to be continually reminded about the program, the reasons for it, and how they are doing.

Old School Versus New School
The old school of incentives, Sims says, calls for a safety incentive program that counts safe work hours and makes an award based on milestones. “We tell the story of one company whose plan was to place a bass boat in the parking lot and award it as an incentive,” says Sims. “If workers at the plant went 1 million safe work hours they would award that boat to one happy recipient.

“Were employees tempted to hide an injury?” Sims asks. “Sure they were.” With old school programs like that, peer pressure heats up as the program goes forward. Employees show up, work, and hide injuries so that they don’t spoil the program for fellow employees, he contends. “If Fred cuts his hand, fellow workers tell him to hide his hand in his pocket and bandage it at home—because everyone wants a shot at the bass boat.”

“We should celebrate the milestones,” says Sims. “But we shouldn’t make them the main point of the safety incentive program.” Instead, he says, incentive programs need to reward “upstream behaviors”—preventative actions that occur before accidents. Such behaviors require employees to participate in the safety program in order to win the incentives.

“Safety directors call upon employees to do a number of activities—day in and day out—and they fight to make sure these risk-assessing activities get done,” says Sims. It’s those things that we want to identify, measure, and reward.”

David Sims

Examples of such activities in construction include wearing your personal protective equipment; attending safety meetings; offering suggestions to improve the safety program; spotting hazards and correcting them; and doing your job hazard analyses every day.

“If all you talk about is getting to zero accidents you’ll never get there,” says Sims. “But if you focus on getting to zero unsafe acts, you can reach zero injuries, and we have clients who have done it.”

Rewarding preventive behavior is a sea change in attitude, Sims says. Employees must do something to get recognition. That requires training—clear and effective training that communicates what management expects of employees.

“Then we must recognize them when they go out and exhibit that changed behavior,” says Sims.

“That recognition is going to be as close to immediate as we can make it—and as close to certain as we can make it.”

An example of immediate recognition, he says, is the “You Did It Right Card.” It’s a card of recognition, with a small incentive attached to it. After the supervisor or safety director has done his training, he wanders around the job site and looks for people who are doing things right.

When the supervisor finds a worker exhibiting changed and correct behavior, he hands the worker a “You Did It Right Card,” and adds his thanks. The incentive card might carry rewards points toward merchandise in an outdoor sports catalog, for example, Sims says. The concept requires that management avoid favoritism in handing out such cards. “The supervisor can’t hand out a pocketful of them to his fishing buddy,” says Sims.

Some supervisors might not want to do such a program. Then the smart thing to do is to “give supervisors some skin in the game,” says Sims. If employees collect “You Did It Right Cards,” to earn chances at a trip, for example, management can carve out two or three trips and give supervisors a chance at winning one or more of them. Such awards could be made if a supervisor gains, say, a 70% participation rate from his crew or group of employees.

“All of a sudden, there’s something in it for the supervisor!” says Sims.

Prichard says he studied more than two dozen contractor safety incentive programs in his research. “When you examine individual programs in-depth,” says Prichard, “You find that incentives alone are not the reason for safety success. An effective safety management process is crucial to improved safety performance.”

Daniel C. Brown owns TechniComm, a communications business in Illinois.

GEC - February 2008

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