Incentive Programs: Do They Really Work?
September 2000

Before you go investigating the various safety incentive programs out there, stop and ask yourself this very important question: What are you trying to accomplish?

Are your goals any or all of the following?

• To reduce OSHA recordables or lost-time incidents;

• To increase employee participation;

• To improve some area of your safety program;

• To build employee morale; or

• To build a sense of fun, awareness and team spirit.

A safety incentive program is just one tool in your whole safety system. Incentives alone can’t achieve your safety goals. But they should provide consistent and frequent recognition and motivation for doing better than before.

Constant improvement should be your battle cry.

Keys To Successful Incentive Programs

• Your employees must be able to visualize reaching the goal and receiving the award. The goals must not be perceived as too difficult to attain.

• Everyone must understand the goals, what must be achieved to get the reward, as well as what the specific reward will be.

• Participants must be continually informed of their progress toward reaching the award.

• Management and employees alike must buy into the program. The program must be viewed as an investment that directly affects the bottom line in a positive way.

• The ultimate goal should always be to reduce injuries and illnesses, but additional goals can be set for such things as improving the quality of safety meetings, increasing employee safety suggestions, or increasing participation in safety audits.

10 Tips For A Successful Program

Here are 10 tips for setting up a successful incentive program.

1. Never use a specific number of injuries, illnesses, or incidents as the sole criteria for winning awards. It’s best not to rely on record-keeping statistics at all. This can easily drive reporting underground and work against improving your safety performance.

2. Avoid using the same program for long periods of time. Programs tend to get dry and stale and lose their motivating punch. Pay attention to your program’s momentum. Thirty days may not be long enough to get it going, and after a year, it might have run its course.

3. Don’t stop your program because you had one bad performance period.

4. Be careful that you don’t set up employees for failure. This can happen if the program requires zero incidents.

5. Don’t have different levels of awards for different groups, such as one for supervisors, and another for hourly employees.

6. Don’t skew reporting in order to save a "safe streak." This must be combated with a strong reporting and investigation program. If not, the "walking wounded" will drive morale into the dirt.

7. Focus on rewarding desired behaviors and activities.

8. Behaviors and activities that get rewarded should be based on what your entire workforce does — from top management to line employees. Don’t let incentives be seen as a blame-the-worker program. Getting management involved will motivate everyone.

9. Focus on goals that involve all employees. The more involved employees become, the greater chance you have of improving safety performance.

10. Everyone must have an equal chance to win. Don’t create one winner and 300 losers. This is an easy way to lose participation.

S. Geier Fahmy, CSP, Vice President/Director of Safety