Any incentive program should be built to complement the company’s existing safety plan, goals, and objectives. Ideally, safety-based programs should be designed to emphasize positive reinforcement and leading indicators such as safe behaviors, and not lagging indicators such as recordable incidents or lost-time injury reduction goals.

Understanding the importance of recognition versus reward is key for managers to successfully implement any incentive program. Gifts and prizes are never substitutes for developing a genuine and meaningful operational system with the basic building blocks of employee health and safety at its core. For a safety program to be effective, it should not be simplistic or cookie-cutter. Using gift cards, free lunches or sports-themed hard hats are no longer acceptable forms of motivation to encourage accident-free days. By getting employees involved in the process of creating a safe work environment, one which is supported by top management, companies will be more likely to develop a program that truly encourages and promotes workplace safety.

Ultimately, safety incentive programs do work and are still an effective tool in the workplace, but only when executed in the right way with the right goals and outcomes. These programs are only one part of an overall safety-minded culture whose goal should be to mitigate unsafe acts and encourage safe worker behaviors.

Educate employees on the proper methods of safely completing their work tasks:

• Regularly have two way conversations on ways to improve the safety of the workplace
• Recognize the individuals who are actively working in a safe manner and improving the safety of the environment in which they work
• Measure both the actions and the results of these actions