Improving Workplace

Safety with
Recognition and
Rewards Programs
A How-To Guide for
Long-Term
Behavior Change

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Improving Workplace Safety with
Recognition and Rewards Programs
A How-To Guide for Long-Term
Behavior Change
Rachel S. Permuth, PhD, MSPH - Sodexo | Michele W. Gazica, JD, MA

The Problem: Workplace Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities

Workplace injury is a widespread problem that affects organizational effectiveness
and employee health, safety, and well-being. According to the International Labour
Organization (ILO), each year there are 317 million non-fatal occupational accidents and
321,000 deaths from occupational accidents.3 The leading causes of fatal and non-fatal
workplace injuries are overexertion, transportation incidents, falls, slips and trips, and
contact with objects and equipment.
Organizations pay a heavy price for workplace injuries in terms of workers' compensation
costs, employee health decline, safety and morale, lost productivity, and an increase in
absenteeism. The ILO estimates that occupational accidents and diseases result in an
annual 4 percent loss in global gross domestic product (GDP), or about US$2.8 trillion,
in direct and indirect costs of injuries and diseases.3 Consequently, researchers and
organizations alike are striving to identify ways to reduce these workplace safety incidents
and their resultant injuries, illnesses and fatalities.

The Solution: Creating a Positive Safety Climate through

Safety

Recognition and Rewards Programs
One sure-fire way to decrease workplace safety incidents is to increase workplace safety
behaviors. Occupational health and safety research suggests that safety programs are
most effective at increasing safety behaviors long-term and reducing workplace safety
incidents if they serve to reinforce an organization's climate of safety and are designed to
proactively recognize and reward desirable safety behaviors.13, 15, 16

Recognize & Reward Safety Behaviors

Positive Reduced
Safety Workplace Safety
Incidents
Climate

Reinforce Workplace Climate of Safety

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Creating a Recognition & Rewards Program
for Workplace Safety

Ongoing Communication Around

Organizational Safety Climate

1.
Set Rate-Based
& Compliance-
Based Safety
Goals
2.
7. Pair Safety
Evaluate the Behaviors with
Program’s Recognition &
Success Rewards

Continuous
3.
6.
Analyze Results
Feedback Develop a
Tracking &
and Gather
Feedback
Loop Reporting
System

5.
4.
Provide Ongoing
Implement the
Training &
Program
Reinforcement

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Organizational Safety Climate
In the U.S., the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requires that
employers provide their employees with a safe working environment and comply with
federal safety regulations. While OSHA enforces these regulations through worksite
inspections and recording requirements, it's up to employers to create an organizational
climate that prioritizes safety, even in the face of competing
organizational goals. A positive safety climate exists when
employees believe that safety is valued and expected
by their organization, which leads to increased safety
performance and, as a result, reduced workplace accident
and injury rates.1, 2, 6, 19 Conversely, a poor safety climate
has been linked to increases in workplace accident and
injury rates as well as accident underreporting.14 It is
important to emphasize that organizations with high rates
of underreporting do not have fewer accidents, just fewer
reports of accidents. These organizations are likely to incur
long-term costs in terms of poor employee health, safety and morale, lost productivity,
OSHA violations, increased absenteeism and turnover, as well as an inability to identify
and remedy the sources of accidents.12
Research emphasizes that managerial commitment is key to the promotion, maintenance,
and reinforcement of a positive safety climate.1, 6, 7, 17 All levels of management, from
senior executives to frontline supervisors, must publicly commit to, communicate, and
more importantly, treat safety as a priority. They can effectively do so through a safety
program that is designed to recognize and reward appropriate safety behaviors.

Recognizing & Rewarding Workplace Safety

Managerial reinforcement of safety performance should be positive, proactive, and
designed to help employees understand when, where, and what forms of safety behaviors
are expected.13, 15 Recognizing and rewarding employees for compliance with safety
protocols and successful progression toward and achievement of their safety goals is one
way to develop, and more importantly, reinforce, an organizational norm that working
safely is valued and expected.
Any incentives-based safety program must be carefully structured and uniformly
administered; otherwise, it will fail to increase safety performance or result in long-lasting
behavioral changes.13, 15 Put another way, all managers and employees must understand
what the safety program is designed to accomplish and how their performance will be
measured, evaluated, and rewarded.
To be successful, every safety program should include the following fundamental
elements:7, 13, 15, 17, 18
1.) Structured Program. The safety incentives program must have a clear path to
success in the form of well-defined safety goals (see page 6), regular feedback and
reinforcement of these goals, and clearly outlined rewards and recognition incentives
that are paired with specific behaviors or outcomes.

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 2.) Reinforcement of Safety
Behaviors. To reinforce safety
Communication and feedback is a two-way
behaviors and continued progression
street. Employees should feel comfortable
toward safety goals, feedback is
sharing near-miss incidents or their input
essential.10 Feedback lets employees
on other aspects of the safety program, and
know how well they are progressing
should be able to do so immediately and
toward and achieving their safety
anonymously. A platform tool, ideally one
goals, allowing them to adjust their
that can be easily accessed from the “shop
efforts to meet those goals. Feedback,
floor,” can help address the larger issue of
however, must be specific and timely.
how to gather information, collect data and
Regularly auditing performance against
make it useful toward creating the right
the goal through, for example, random
program.
walk-around safety inspections, is
ideal.

3.) Recognition and Rewards Framework. In an incentives-based safety program,

feedback can take on many forms, from informational to monetary. When rewards
are offered, however, they must be tailored to a specific set of safety behaviors.13
In other words, simply distributing recognition, prizes, and other rewards without
pairing them with a clear, consistent set of behavioral contingencies reduces the
potential to achieve the desired outcome,
and may result in decreased employee
engagement and goal motivation.
The pairings of behaviors with
rewards should be outlined prior to
implementation of the program and
uniformly and consistently distributed.
For example, individual-level safety
compliance might be rewarded with
public praise or a note card, while
unit-level safety compliance might be
rewarded with a plaque or a luncheon.
As another example, a program might
reward workers with a luncheon for achieving a quarterly safety goal and provide
a separate reward, such as personal reward, to the worker who submitted the best
safety suggestion during that same evaluation period.
4.) Safety Communication. A safety incentives program should be promoted
throughout the organization so that it receives a high level of visibility. For example,
supervisors should strive to regularly discuss safety with their employees and
provide them with timely feedback. Also of note – communication about safety
typically incorporates visual materials; these are most effective when they include
colorful, attention-grabbing graphics.
5.) Safety Training. Training should emphasize safety practices and the ability to
identify workplace safety hazards, and should be based on an assessment of need.
Completion of safety training should result in a training certification and/or rewards
consistent with the elements of Structured Program above. Importantly, training
should be regularly provided on an ongoing basis to instill new skills and refresh old
ones.

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 6.) Reinforcement Training. All levels of management must be trained to properly
identify and reward safety behaviors and coach those that they supervise in a
positive way. A great way to do this is with on-the-spot recognition of appropriate
safety behaviors. Having an inventory of rewards readily available reinforces the
behavior in real-time and provides the feedback employees seek. This improves
employee morale and reinforces a workplace climate of safety.

7.) Program Tracking & Evaluation. All aspects of the safety incentives program
should be regularly monitored and evaluated for effectiveness and to ensure
that program goals are being achieved. Evaluation can also serve as a tool to
identify program areas that are in need of improvement or revision. Furthermore,
management should create a safe place for employees to report accidents or near-
miss incidents, so that proactive identification, control, and prevention of hazards
can occur.

An efficient way to monitor a safety program is through a technology system that

can capture incident data in a thorough way, identify the subsequent remedy or
follow-up, track near-miss incidents and overall achievement of safety goals at the
individual and departmental levels. In addition, tracking the expenditures of rewards
provided for the positive reinforcement of these goals, and using the proper channels
for reporting, is imperative for the organization to view expenses and then calculate
the profitability of less down time and absenteeism from workplace safety incidents.

A Safety Program Success Story

Alcoa, a company that manufactures aluminum, has been
identified as one of the leading companies in occupational health
and safety.4 Alcoa credits its barely-there lost workday rate to its
long-term proactive commitment to safety. This commitment is
manifested in Alcoa's heavily entrenched organizational climate
of safety, which is continually reinforced through its safety
programs. Their programs prioritize safety over other competing

ZERO
goals, emphasize safety communication and individualized
training programs, and recognize and reward behavior-based
safety performance. Alcoa firmly believes that zero work-related
injuries and illnesses is possible, a belief that is well supported
is possible by its real-time safety data. In the 12 months preceding March
13, 2014, Alcoa reported that of its 184 locations worldwide, 82
percent experienced zero lost workdays and nearly 40 percent experienced no recordable
injuries. Furthermore, over that same period more than 99 percent of Alcoa's employees
had zero lost workdays due to workplace injuries and illnesses.

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Goal Setting for Safety Recognition and Rewards Programs
Extensive research has shown strong relationships among goal-setting, increased
employee motivation in the form of extra effort and goal persistence, and performance.8-11
Safety goals should be SMART (see checklist below) and largely compliance-based in
order to be optimally effective.5, 8-11 Compliance-based goals focus on safety behaviors,
such as clearing debris or wearing protective gear, while rate-based goals focus on safety
outcomes, such as accident and injury rates. While the end-game of any successful safety
program might be a stable close-to-zero accident and injury rate, such a goal says little
about how to achieve it. Moreover, a rate-based goal may even encourage underreporting
of accidents and injuries, thus thwarting preemptive hazard detection strategies.5
Compliance-based goals, on the other hand, guide employees along the road to success,
thus setting the stage for an effective safety rewards and recognition program.
If a safety goal is necessarily long-term in nature, the goal should be broken down into
shorter-term (e.g., monthly or quarterly) objectives. This “piecemeal” approach to goal-
setting encourages continued perseverance toward goals. If a goal is too difficult or set too
far into the future, employees will lose motivation and become disengaged long before the
goal can be realized.
Finally, keep in mind that safety goals should be level-appropriate.8-11 For example, goals
set to guide frontline workers should encourage the consistent use of appropriate on-
the-job safety behaviors. Goals set for frontline supervisors likely involve monitoring and
reinforcing frontline workers’ safety behaviors, whereas goals set for senior executives
likely involve monitoring the performance of other supervisors and communicating
priorities. In every case, safety goals should complement one another. Conflicting or
competing goals will undermine an otherwise well-designed safety incentives program.

In sum, safety goals should be:

• SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound
• Compliance-Based: Focused on safety behaviors rather than
outcomes or rates
• Incremental: Long-term goals should be broken down into a series of
short-term goals
• Level-Appropriate: For each employee’s line-of-sight and
specific job duties
• Aligned: All safety goals should complement one another, not conflict
or compete

Concluding
Thoughts
Companies that demonstrate a strong commitment to safety have lower accident and
injury rates, and consequently derive benefits in terms of reduced absenteeism, turnover,
and worker’s compensation expenses, and increased employee morale and productivity.
Simply put, committing to a safe working environment saves money and improves the
overall effectiveness of organizations and the health, safety, and well-being of employees.

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References

1. Ali, H., Abdullah, N. A. C., Subramaniam, C. (2009). Management practice in safety culture and its influence on workplace
injury. Disaster Prevention and Management, 18(5), 470-477.

2. Beus, J. M., Payne, S. C., Bergman, M. E., & Arthur, W., Jr. (2010). Safety climate and injuries: An examination of theoretical and
empirical relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 713-727.

3. International Labour Organization. (2013, April 26). ILO calls for urgent global action to fight occupational diseases. Retrieved
on March 20, 2014, from http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/media-centre/press-releases/WCMS_211627/lang--en/index.
htm

4. Conference Board. (2003). Driving toward "0": Best practices in corporate safety and health. Retrieved on March 13, 2014, from
http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/Resources/Documents/Dept.%20of%20Defense%20-%20Driving%20Toward%200.pdf

5. GAO, Workplace Safety and Health: Better OSHA Guidance Needed on Safety Incentive Programs, GAO-12-329 (Washington,
D.C.: April 9, 2012).

6. Kapp, E. A. (2012). The influence of supervisor leadership practices and perceived group safety climate on employee safety
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9. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(5),
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10. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task performance. American
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11. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

12. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Safety and Health Topics: A Business Case for Safety and Health.
Available from: <https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/products/topics/businesscase/costs.html>

13. Ozer, I. (2013). Tangible incentive programs improve safety results. Occupational Health & Safety. Retrieved March 13, 2013,
from http://ohsonline.com/Articles/2013/06/01/Tangible-Incentive-Programs-Improve-Safety-Results.aspx?

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manufacturing jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 587- 596.

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