Our organization is undergoing an assessment of our safety incentive program.  Since I'm on that committee, I would LOVE to hear from others in the wastewater industry about the safety culture in their organization, the incentive programs that they use, and how they judge the success of those programs.  I thank you all in advance,

--Kristina

--Kristina

The safety award process is somewhat something of a turkey.  The safety tailgates are supposed to keep you out of trouble and inform you where things might go wrong.  This means that the majority of persons will not have accidents--and there are those that do not ascribe to the Darwinian process "survival of the fittest" and will do stupid things.  They get to write up a report and everything else associated with accidents.  I do not thing that giving out turkey awards are politically correct.  The safe people will somehow have to compete one way or another to earn some type of safety recognition.  Going a certain number of years without accidents, submitting ideas to increase safety awareness/problem areas, or just picking out a name out of hat.  You'll just have to make this distinction!

E. coli happens!

Database Central

If you have a context for considering and *acting on* safety suggestions, something like an annual "best suggestion" award might be useful.  This can be used as a hook for reminding folks to be alert to potential hazards.

If you don't have a context for working on safety suggestions, or a way to deal with hazards on a very-fast basis if need be, such a program can look pretty hypocritical.  You should not find yourself thinking about giving life-saving awards if hazards are the result of deteriorating infrastructure, lack of training, lack of safety equipment  (rusting pipes can break and cause flooding; welding sparks can cause fires in ill-suited areas; lack of proper confined-space entry and lockout procedures can expose entrants to hazards from suffocation to drowining).

As Victor notes, bottom line is lack of accidents, injuries and illness.

I like safety incentive programs, but I don't like the way most places run them. Most places give you something for not getting hurt and if you have an accident everyone loses out. This could foster a bad attitude towards a person already having a bad day. A better incentive program rewards for participation. Reward a shift for making it through a video series with full participation. Have coffee at your tailgate meeting, good coffee.

Give small rewards for participation in the safety culture, just dont be cheap. Think about what the reward says about your meeting. Old doughnuts and stale coffee and your meeting will flop.

We ended up canceling the program because the results were poor we ended up with more safety violations during these periods then in the past and some of the people who won a prize were involved on the violations.

My advice stay away from money as a prize for being safe.  I would think heading home everyday to your family with nothing wrong is reward enough. 

Another thing is that people tend to hide injuries when these programs are working.  They don't want to ruin it for everyone.  This can lead to complications down the line.

The best incentive is to go home in the same condition in which you arrived (assuming that was healthy and sober).

An active safety comittee composed of all levels is key.  Also, finding the root cause of accidents allows you to eliminate the causes by focusing on the real problems.

Good luck.

Anyway, I don't drink on the job. I drink on breaks(lottsa breaks) and lunch.