Does your company award safety incentives?
October 29, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Injuries, Latest News & Views
PDF Safety pros have debated for years the effectiveness of incentive programs that reward good safety records.
Some companies claim real success in reducing workplace injuries using incentives.
Those opposed say these programs cause workers and supervisors to under-report incidents.
Not reporting recordable injuries on OSHA 300A logs can lead to fines.
And the penalties can be even larger in court. here’s just one example:
Ron Hubbard tried to collect workers’ comp from his employer, Hills Materials, for carpal tunnel surgery.
The company’s safety director contacted its insurance company saying his claim should be denied.
Hubbard took two days off from work.
But Hills had a corporate goal of less than one day of lost time due to injury for every 100 employees.
And the company paid more than $800,000 in incentives to supervisors in its attempt to reach that goal.
Hubbard sued to get comp, and his lawyer uncovered 20 cases of lost time at the company that went unreported.
Result: A jury awarded Hubbard $65,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
Do you use safety incentives at your company? What are they? Have they been successful? How do you prevent workers from under-reporting injuries to get the incentives? Let us know in the Comments Box below.
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Tags: Injuries, OSHA 300A, safety incentives
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November 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I would like to read the case file on what took place…. Where do I get that info.. ? How did the court come to their decision ?
November 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Every quarter we have a drawing by department for a twentyfive dollar gas card. It’s based on zero recordable injuries, all departments have zero injuries we draw 2 gas cards per department. We have been very fortunate in truely being on our second year straight with zero injuries. Yes, I’m all over the facility, and it has payed off; I believe if your people see you out there “looking” they take the extra effort to practice the safety guidelines.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Response from editor to James: Unfortunately, since this was a jury trial, there is no judge’s decision available for this case. However, various legal publications have written about this case, understandably. You’ll find additional articles on this case at http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/3506139-1.html and at http://www.greedytriallawyer.com/torts-for-our-time/aiding-and-abetting-insurance-bad-faith.php
November 12th, 2008 at 11:53 am
We have a program that gives employees additional money for working safe. The project starts out with 20 cents per hour safety incentive and for everty 30 days without a recordable incident the entire project will get another 20 cents per hour up to 1.00 per hour maximum. At the end of each month our senior management officials will go around to any given project and personnally hand an employee their monthly incentive check at a Monday morning Tool Box Safety Talk.
We also encourage the reporting of all accidents especially cases that involve backs, necks, etc. We encourage all employees to be safe and get checked at our expense in an attempt to head off a worse injury down the line.
This program has proven to be successful and we have had no incidences of not reporting an incident. If a project does have a recordable incident the project will just go back to the 20 cents per hour and start building on that again. Employees love the program and they all say it helps with gas to and from work. of course there are many more details about the program but that’s a quick summary.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I take a little different approach to safety incentives by rewarding employees for their contribution in the creation of an injury-free workplace. How? I reward them for reporting hazards (a one-page form) and give a premium if they propose corrective actions. The rewards are given in the form of safety stamps and once the program caught on, wow.
Administration of the Hazard Spotting program can be time intensive, but worth it. One caution. Don’t go this route if your maintenance department is understaffed, it generates a lot of work orders.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Here we use a program where members of the safety team keep an eye out for team members who are seen doing the right thing, wiping up a spill, wiping their feet when coming in from the rain on break, to prevent others from slipping, cleaning up after themselves in the break room, pushing their chair out of the aisle-way, reporting other hazards to the right person, etc. Their names are posted on a electronic Marlin board in the break room, for recognition and the end of the month the persons are placed in a drawing for a prize. The safety team is charged with “seeing” 5 people each month, getting their name and thanking them for doing the right thing. Those who get their 5 also are included in a separate drawing. This places a positive impact on being personally responsible for not just our safety but everyone’s. General housekeeping has improved, which is directly related to Safety in an office environment.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:24 am
We use to use a safety points program that if you did not get any safety violation and that included either wriiten repriamands or accidents, you would get 500 points that you could redeem for t-shirts or Carhardt apparal, kives, or even a grill. The guys seemed to like it but we did get some complaints that they would rather the company give the money spent on the apparal. We did have some accidents/incidents but we also have some very safety conscious foreman and superintendents. They may not follow all of the safety rules but do try to eliminate the small and big hazards to prevent an incident. Now we have went to a Safety Pays Program which gives our employees a certain amount fro the same safety standards but not only gives consequenses to them but to the crew that they are on including the Superintendent. I have seen guys speak up more for safety this way then I seen them speak up using the old program. Its not alot of money to which somebody would risk lossing their job over for not reporting an incindent but just enough to make them more conscious of having a safe work place.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
We do have an incentive program and it has worked very successfully. We award our employees with 4 hours paid time off (to be used like vacation) every quarter if they fulfill their obligations, which include participation, housekeeping scores above 90%, rotate through inspection process and no recordable injuries. The employees are the only ones getting the incentive not management or supervisors. They are also in groups and the whole group must qualify, peer pressure is a wonderful thing, if one person on their committee gets hurt or violates a safety policy the whole group loses their incentive for the quarter.
We have not had issues with non-reporting because that is cause for termination and loss of incentive for their whole group, and our employees are very good at reporting what they see and hear.
January 19th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Incentive programs can work well for some and are a waste of time and money for others, your safety programs and management buy- in are the key to a successfull safety program. One thing I teach all clients and thier personnel is that safety is part of the job, it is a condition of employment. If you are a Doctor, you are expected to practice medicine in a safe manner. If you are an employee you are expected to perform your job in a safe manner. I support team goals and incentives, like some of you have mentioned, I also promote leadership in people, awarding supervisors and forman for filing paperwork and other safety documentation correctly and completely, Annual and quarterly competition to have all inspections and safety meetings turned in for every day of the year, for example. the thing you must decide is what type of program is sustainable, often times people start handing out 25.00 gift cards every day for safety awards and pretty soon people are expecting it, Random awards in the field or on the floor keep people on thier toes, there are many programs out there and the key before you jump into one is to look at how you are going to implement it and how you can take it to a new phase. When introducing a new program you may want to give out many awards and then increase the criteria, When introducing a Behavior Based Safety Program with observations, it was like pulling teeth to get 20 cards out of 200 employees, I was giving out a 25.00 card in a drawing if we had 20/ month, once people started to participate better I gave out a 25.00 card at 100/ month, now I give out an award annually to the best observation and also to the Supervisor who’s people turn in the most for the year. My annual cost went from over 300. to about 100 just for this one program. It is important for employees to get recognition and there are many ways that can be affordable, but incentives should not be expected. When and Employee asked me” what do I get for being safe” I replied, you get to go home with all your parts and alive and you also get to have a position with our company, will that work for you?”
Keep up the good fight, and be safe out there.
Grandmaster of Safety Troy Bonar can be contacted Via Email at grandmasterofsafety at hotmail.com
April 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
We established a program starting in 2009 for all of our field employees and supervisors. Each employee “banks” $100 provided by the company at the beginning of each quarter. If the employee can meet certain requirements during the quarter, he receives the bonus less applicable taxes. If the employee makes it through the year, he receives a cut of all the forfeited incentive money. I am not an advocate of paying someone for something he should be doing anyway but this has really raised the awareness. The savings from insurance premiums should pay for the bonuses.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
We started our safety incentive in 07. It starts at $25/month for employees who have no recordable accidents, no safety related disciplinary actions, and attend the monthly safety training. It goes up by $5/month to a max of $50/month. However if an employee has a violation, they go back to $0 and start over. If it’s a recordable, the whole shift goes back to $25 and starts over. This group incentive has helped raise awareness for others on the shift. The supervisors also get a bonus starting at $25/month and going up by $25 to max at $125/month. But they will also loose the incentive if any of their crew has a recordable. The supervisors are also responsible for doing a 5 minute safety training each month. I provide the topics and info and they train their crew. It’s obvious which supervisors take it seriously by the frequency of accidents on their crews.
The only thing I’ve been able to find that helps prevent under reporting of accidents is to communicate a lot with the supervisors and employees. At each monthly safety training I talk to the employees about how they can report an accident. I can’t say that we haven’t had any unreported accidents because then they would be reported, right? But I have heard about a few that required further investigation. Thankfully local management has been very supportive in disciplining any supervisor who purposefully didn’t report an accident.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Do you also have incentives for mistake free work? 100% attendance? Courteous behavior? Efficiency in work? Participating in meetings? Keeping up with Email? Productivity?
Don’t you all think it is time to manage your employees and processes and stop abdicating your responsibilities to quaint safety incentives? Let’s move out of the 1950′s and into the 21st century.
Don’t say one thing (we encourage injuries to be reported) and do another (we pay for no injuries reported). Sounds schizophrenic.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Shame on the supervisor?
Shame on the INSURANCE company for denying the claim based on that phone call! I hope the company has since dropped them for coverage. This claim should never have been denied in the first place.
I have had EXTENSIVE conversations with my company’s insurance company re: claims and why we ARE responsible for paying for them. They have gone into great detail explaining it. Not once have they ever “dismissed” a claim based on my phone call.