5 Must Haves for a Successful Safety Incentive Program
Safety incentive programs are a hot button topic in the health and safety community. Every manufacturer and field service company dreads seeing their employees injured and jobs delayed due to preventable accidents. Having to go back and fix a job a second time always takes more time than doing the job right the first time. But how do supervisors and managers balance the demands of a production schedule or the needs of the customer with ensuring a safe work environment? The answer is the most ambiguous or cliché of terms in the health and safety profession: A Safety Culture. Starting or changing an existing safety culture at a company is a huge endeavor. A safety incentive program is a great way to get the ball rolling or to shake up an existing safety culture. Here are five must haves for a successful safety incentive program would be:
- Make a Goal
You’re starting a safety incentive program because something has gone wrong; usually a recordable injury or a near miss has made you realize that something has to change. Set a goal that corrects the deficiency in work practices or attitudes among workers. For instance, if you’ve had a recent rash of incidents involving fork lift accidents, make your goal to eliminate those accidents. What’s it worth to the company to eliminate these accidents? Knowing how costly these accidents are means you also know how valuable a successful safety incentive program is to the company and to management.
- Measure and Report Results
Make sure that you can document improvement or decline along the way to your goal. You need numbers to validate the incentive program to workers and management. The simpler the method of record keeping, the better; don’t make a new position or hire just to keep up with the safety incentive program. As one industrialist once commented, “The company bureaucracy should not grow to meet the needs of the growing bureaucracy.” Find the people that have the most to gain from a successful program in the short term and get buy in from them to support record keeping. Let’s be honest, if you’re reading this, then you’re that person. If you can’t convince yourself record keeping is worthwhile, good luck convincing anyone else to follow the program.
Once you’ve started tracking results, make sure that there’s a way to regularly report and inform the entire company of the program’s progress. If you don’t have a regular safety meeting, this is a good reason to start one. Make sure to make this as a positive and succinct meeting as possible, 15-30 minutes at most. Make a board that displays results in the break area. The results of the safety incentive program should not be a secret.
- Focus on Leading Indicators
What you measure is as important as how you measure and report it. Don’t focus on lagging indicators of safety, instead focus on leading indicators. For the forklift example, you absolutely would not want to use accidents as the indicator you track. Yes, that’s your ultimate goal of eliminating incidents, but if you only measure accidents after they’ve happened a funny thing will occur. Accidents will continue to happen, but no one will report them. That’s how equipment mysteriously gets demolished and someone says, “It was like that when I found it.” Don’t encourage your workers to act and sound like three year olds.
Instead focus on leading indicators, the things that prevent accidents in the first place. For instance measure training and maintenance compliance. Has everyone received a recent update on their forklift training? When was the last time the preventive maintenance inspection was performed? Were those inspections checked by a supervisor? Who attends the most safety meetings? Measuring leading indicators will make you proactive in preventing accidents instead of being reactive to accidents that have already happened. Measuring leading indicators makes it easier to reward good behavior, whereas measuring lagging indicators usually mean punishing bad behavior. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a reward for having an accident or reporting a near miss. Usually that just results in paperwork, training, and long talks that discourage responsible reporting.
- Avoid Financial Rewards
The point of a safety incentive program is to lead with more carrot than stick and reward rather than punish. Stay focused on the positivity of improving leading indicators and resist direct financial rewards. Of course everyone likes money, that’s why people leave their family and go to work every day. However, it’s harder to get buy in from management when there’s a potentially large price tag associated with a safety incentive program. You don’t want to pay people to do the right, safe thing, you want to encourage and promote that behavior.
Make sure to identify individuals that are responsible for improving leading indicators in your new safety meetings. You can even put their picture on the wall and update it monthly. I’ve always found that an extra half day or full day of paid time off does wonders for morale when goals are met. Management might see this as a financial burden but often the employee is unusually productive before and after paid time off, and little to no production is lost. The workers that go above and beyond to take care of their equipment and look out for their co-workers are usually your strongest and most reliable workers. Have those people lead training or meetings; this is a good opportunity to develop leadership skills among your best and allow them to shine in front of others. That recognition and trust is priceless in the eyes of someone who has spent years doing the right thing without reward or recognition. Don’t tarnish that behavior by paying for it, because if you ever stop paying then you might just lose what you already got for free.
- Management Buy In
It’s been touched on previously, but if the company management doesn’t buy into the safety incentive program then no one else will either. Leadership by example is always a key to success in any business. If the shift supervisor or company owner is willing to jump on a forklift to drive without going through a pre-operating checklist why expect different from anyone else? Often senior leadership in a company has spent years or decades in their industry and knows the right thing to do, but are so familiar with the day to day activity that they neglect the basics. This isn’t because they’re lazy or forgetful, but because they don’t see themselves as prone to an accident. You could argue that they’ve been around long enough to see that accidents happen to anyone at any time, but that isn’t the most compelling argument. Instead leaders need to realize that everyone is watching them whether they like it or not. If they skip one step in safe operations, then the new guy watching from across the shop floor is going to skip 10 things the next time he uses that piece of equipment. Leading by example isn’t about what’s best for the leader; it’s about what best for the people that they lead.
Safety incentive programs most often have gotten a bad reputation not because of bad intentions, but rather poor execution. Be flexible as you begin and be responsive to worker attitudes. Don’t be afraid to use that carrot and reward employees by having good food or snacks at safety meetings; remember to use the carrot more than punish with the stick. Often times improving one indicator or achieving one goal causes other unintended issues. Be ready to address those issues and when you accomplish your goal, keep up the momentum and identify the next goal. Beginning or changing a safety culture is difficult, but is worthwhile for employee safety and the prosperity of the business. A safety incentive program is the best place to start; keep these steps in mind as you go. Good luck.
Kevin Doffing
President
Sam’s Safety Equipment
[email protected]
www.sams-safety.com