Just thinking out loud.

Safety Programs:  To Incent or not to Incent.  That is the question.

This discussion addresses safety programs, specifically incentive programs.  What is an incentive program?  It is a program providing tangible rewards to employees for observing the company’s safety program.

Some background. Business is a competitive creature and is constantly seeing the means and ways to improve operations, save money, reduce or eliminate losses, and safety, etc.  Since this discussion relates to safety we will stay address safety related topics.

Safety relates to accidents, workers compensation, lost work time, return to work, equipment damage, project slow down or stoppage, employee morale, insurance rates, insurability, eligibility to bid work or impair an existing contract.  Controlling safety translates into business profitability, eligibility to bid work and continuation in some instances.

So how does business execute the business component of safety?  One approach used in the USA is to implement an incentive program.  There are pluses and minuses with incentive programs; the primary challenge with an incentive program is its execution.

What is an incentive program? 

Basically, an incentive program rewards individuals, groups or crews achieving an identified goal during a fixed period of time (monthly, quarterly, etc.)  The rewards can be anything from cash, gift cards, bonuses, pens, knives, gift cards, big screens and even vehicles.  The “rewards” are made known upfront in the incentive program,  very like dangling the carrot in front of the horse.  It is this “reward” that represents the motivating effort to achieve the stated goal, namely safety performance.

4/5/18  See next chapter in 2 weeks.