Effective Safety Incentives

A typical safety incentive might be a rewards luncheon when no accidents were reported the previous month. The safety director is told that employees need praise and recognition, yet is cautioned against allowing payout for safety to become entitlement. Safety leaders have long believed that incenti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Professional safety 2004-02, Vol.49 (2), p.40
Main Author: Sheehy, Edward J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Awards & honors
Committees
Corporate culture
Effectiveness
Employee attitude
Employees
Experiments
Incentives
Injuries
Pilot projects
Safety programs
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Summary:A typical safety incentive might be a rewards luncheon when no accidents were reported the previous month. The safety director is told that employees need praise and recognition, yet is cautioned against allowing payout for safety to become entitlement. Safety leaders have long believed that incentives based on output measures encourage workers to not report injuries. Despite this, many organizations find it difficult to eliminate safety incentives because: 1. workers expect to receive them; 2. no agreement exists with respect to effective alternatives; and 3. OSHA's position on reactive incentives has been rather weak. An incentive program must be well-integrated into an organization's overall safety processes and culture. An organization's effort to eliminate a traditional incentive program in which awards were based solely on not having accidents is discussed.
ISSN:0099-0027