Safety Incentive Program

Watson

We have a big job in Wisconsin utilizing both union and our own employees. We've started having a lot of accidents from both groups of employees. We'd like to put together a safety incentive program to try to help reduce the number of accidents. Would anybody be willing to share theirs with me?

Thanks!

stilldazed

We have one, fairly informal, but it focuses on training and uses attendance/proficiency testing as the objective criteria that is measured.

Our work environment is very different from yours--no collective bargaining. I have worked elsewhere in the past with situations similar to yours, safety performance was a huge topic because of the nature of the work, and one component of the safety program was incentives at department levels and overall for the company. Incentives were all based on numbers, i.e., reductions in severity of injuries (measured in DART rates), reductions in # of incidents, reductions in # of near misses, etc. Standards were established at dept levels, such as 10% improvement. When the target was met by the dept, employees in the dpt received an award. The overall result for the company was measured on an annual basis, and if the projections were reached, everyone got something at the overall level. If the projections were not reached, no one get a reward at the overall level. However, some of the departments who performed well had received awards at the department level throughout the year. Hope my explanation makes sense for you and you find some of it helpful.

Best wishes.

bhamilton

We have one that we use. We use the class codes assigned by NCCI that assigns you the class code rating for your workers comp policy. The theory being that the more costly class codes are typically the more hazardous jobs. We give awards at 6 months and yearly.

I would caution you on the fact that people may sometimes cover up and injury to get to the award portion. We haven't seen this as a big issue but one to be aware of. Send me your email address and I will send you a copy of the policy.

Watson

Thanks! You can send it to me at [email]watson@stepenv.com[/email]. I appreciate the replies.

njjel

We put one into effect at our plant and our w.c. carrier assisted us with it so you may want to contact them.