Safety Incentives: Myths and Realities
- By Dennis R. Downing, Dr. J. Renae Norton
- Jan 01, 2004
The question we should be asking is: How can we capitalize on the motivational factors of incentives to more effectively market safety programs to employees?
DO safety incentive programs work? This is a multimillion-dollar question when you consider the costs that unsafe practices can have for your organization. The simple answer is, it depends primarily on the focus of your safety program and secondarily on how well you implement your incentive program.
Focus: Reactive or Proactive
Given that 96 percent of all workplace accidents are triggered by unsafe behavior, it is no wonder the focus often has been on reducing the number of accidents by eliminating unsafe behaviors instead of on preventing accidents by rewarding instances of safe behavior.
The problem with focusing on reducing accident rates by eliminating unsafe behaviors is it is reactive rather than proactive, e.g. once the problem is resolved and the accident rate goes back down, management tends to divert its focus and direct its resources toward other organizational issues. If the accident rate rises again--and it almost always does when the approach is reactive--management once again turns its attention to eliminating unsafe behaviors. Under these circumstances, the cycle will repeat again and again.
Conversely, when "safety behavior" is the focus of the incentive program, a collaborative, problem-solving approach involving both management and employees is adopted to identify critical sets of safe and unsafe behaviors. This allows for the creation of incentives for the specific behaviors or sets of behaviors that prevent accidents from occurring in the first place. It significantly reduces the incidences of behaviors that lead to accidents. It also creates a culture of safety.
There is considerable debate over whether or not safety incentives work. This is the wrong question. It is obvious that incentives do work. We all participate in incentive programs every day, some of which are more obvious than others. For example:
- Frequent flyer miles
- Coupons
- Discounts/sales prices
- Traffic fines
- Wages/salaries
- Overtime pay
- Production and sales bonuses
When Are Incentives Most Effective?
The question is not whether incentives work; of course they do. The question is when are they most effective at preventing unsafe behavior? But to answer that question, we must first ask why incentives work at all. Behavioral scientists tell us several important things about behavior change:
- Behavior that is reinforced (incentivized) will occur more frequently than behavior that is not reinforced. According to researchers, for every 330 unsafe acts, only one will result in a lost time incident (although 29 minor injuries also will occur). What actually gets reinforced, and is therefore more likely to occur, is the shortcut the person who is behaving unsafely took to save time. The only thing that will counter this effectively is to reinforce the safe behavior that would prevent the unsafe behavior from occurring.
- Punishment (reprimands, fines, dismissals) are ineffective ways of preventing unsafe behavior. What they do instead is reinforce non-reporting, which increases the likelihood the behavior will occur again--and along with it, the increased risk of injury or accident.
- It is easier to change behavior than it is to change people's attitudes because attitudes involve three elements (thinking, feeling, and intention to act) and behaviors involve only one element (the behavior). However, when safe behavior is rewarded and increases as a result, the attitude is more likely than not to change, as well. What this also means is that selling safety is much less effective than creating a culture where it is the norm to be safe.
Onward and Upward, or . . . ?
Safety is like a journey on an endless escalator. If you don't keep moving onward and upward, you'll be going backward as well as down and out. The question is, are you and your company on that journey and, more importantly, are your employees moving with you, or are you just dragging them along for the ride?
When attempting to motivate people to change, there is a factor called the "10-80-10 rule":
- 10 percent of the people will do it just because it is the right thing to do.
- 80 percent of the people will do it but require some motivating factor.
- 10 percent of the people won't do it no matter what.
The target of any incentive program should be the 80 percent. If you can successfully motivate this group, you will have 90 percent of your company involved in achieving your safety goals. Incentive programs should be designed to provide that level of motivation. The question we should be asking is: How can we capitalize on the motivational factors of incentives to more effectively market safety programs to employees?
This article originally appeared in the January 2004 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.