Cafe Classic: Is it Safe to Incent Safety?

Editor's Note:  Continuing our end-of-summer Classic week here at the Café with the question "are incentives equally applicable to -- and appropriate for -- all areas of human endeavor?" 

I recently came across an interesting article in Incentive Magazine about safety incentives.  The authors (Leo Borlo and Joshua Klapow) lament our collective hesitation to go beyond social reinforcers to more tangible rewards when safety is concerned.  While the authors appear to have non-cash tangible rewards in mine (i.e., gift cards, shirts), I think the discussion also has relevance to the world of cash incentives, where the issue of incorporating safety behaviors and outcomes can be a sensitive one.

From the article:

What is fascinating here is that there is a distinction made between safety programs and all other initiatives to influence employee behavior, even though the common denominator in any incentive program, be it safety, productivity, performance, or wellness, is behavior change. Trying to change safety-related behaviors is no different than trying to change health- or productivity-related behaviors. Using positive consequences to shape behaviors should be the general operating procedure in any attempt to influence employee safety behavior. With this foundation, BBS programs can and should exist on the same platform as productivity, employee recognition, and health programs.

In particular I note (and repeat) the sentence (underline mine):   Trying to change safety-related behaviors is no different than trying to change health- or productivity-related behaviors.

Agree with them on this point?  Boy, I'm not sure I do.  I have worked with a range of organizations over the years - particularly in industries like heavy manufacturing, primary metals and construction where safety is an enormous thing - where we've had sometimes agonizing discussions as to whether and how to incorporate safety as an incentive plan measure.

Unintended consequences, of course, are the bain of all incentive design efforts, but I think the risk of these are fundamentally unacceptable when it comes to employee safety.  The obvious concern with many commonly used safety metrics is that you'll drive people to ignore or under-report hazards and incidents, but there are also concerns that go beyond this obvious one.

To me, the risks associated with over-reporting productivity and under-reporting safety incidents are simply not of equal severity and magnitude.  And so I think I disagree with Borlo and Klapow on the point above.

Should rewards be used to incent greater attention to safety?  Is it a good idea to include safety metrics in a broad-based employee incentive plan?  I guess my response is possibly ... and carefully.  At least this is the approach I've taken with the plans I've helped develop.

How about you?  Thoughts on or experiences with safety incentive to share here?  Please do!

Next up: Is it Ethical to Incent Ethics?!  Just kidding...

Comments

[Jay Schuster]

About the time of the oil spill by Exxon in Alaska, we were developing variable pay for the captains of an oil company's fleet. There are few objective measures of any kind that are safe to incentivize on an oil tanker. You can imagine the implications of a focus on 'speed'. for instance.

We included safety in the variable pay plans for oil tanker captains to focus on how important it is. The criteria were obvious and easily observable at the time. The outcome was a heightened focus on safe sailing. Other than that we never used 'safety' as a metric for the reasons you mention. It seems a likely target for a performance metric but did not make sense in any situation we uncovered.

The folks who develop metrics such as 'safety' and 'environmental impact' and the like are often not in the stream of the operations of the organization. We were shocked to find out that nobody from human resources in this organization had ever taken a trip on an oil tanker. We learned a bunch from doing so.

[Ann Bares]

What a great example and cautionary tale, Jay. And what a critical lesson for ALL of us - choosing metrics and designing incentives without immersing oneself in the "stream of operations" of an organization amounts to reward malpractice. We can and must do better.

Thanks for sharing!!!

[Jay Schuster]

Ann, you are a strong editor for this blog. I want to say how good it is to have something like this and I attribute it to you and the 'gaggle' of posters you have attracted. For my part I believe it is important for professionals in our field to contribute whenever they can to the body of knowledge in our field. You certainly are an effective catalyst for that sort of thing.

[Paul Pittman]

I don't believe safety metrics should attract rewards as Ann states and from my own experience they tend to get ignored or underreported and unsafe practices continue. I much prefer to see some structure that rewards safety procedure or activity rather than outcomes. The former will lower the latter or result in a change in practice.

[Ann Bares]

Thanks Jay for the kind words. Luckily for all of us, the people who write here have such strong voices and vision that the editor need only get out of the way!

Paul, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience on this tricky topic. Agree that this is one area where rewarding outcomes can be dangerous - and procedure/activity may offer us a safer alternative (no pun intended).

[Ian Ziegler]

I believe there is a spot for safety incentives but not in the traditional sense of performance. I was once tasked with designing a safety incentive plan and while conducting my research, found that OSHA provided interesting guidance on the topic.

OSHA strongly suggested paying incentives when employees followed the guidelines of the safety plan, weekly safety meetings, wearing safety equipment, following procedure, continuous improvement after accidents etc.

In this incentive plan, no payment was deducted or eliminated for accidents. Payment hinged upon doing the right thing and so there was no incentive to cover up accidents.