Safety Incentive Schemes

Safety Incentive Schemes

Its amazing how many organisations are still running safety incentive schemes where rewards are offered for Lost Time Injury free periods. Do they seriously think that that an incident will be reported on day 999 or that, as long as they are still breathing, the injured person wont be at work the next day. I know of one particular incident where an employee’s leg was badly burned by steam just before a big milestone. He was scared of what might happen if he reported it and did not seek treatment. The wound turned gangrenous and he almost lost his leg.

Its a weird feeling being in a workplace that is approaching a big milestone with a big reward on the line. Everyone seems so worried about not getting hurt that they forget about working safely. Safety incentive schemes rely on behavioural safety theories that suggest that up to 95% of incidents or accidents are caused by the inappropriate behaviour of the worker. These schemes use negative or lag indicators rather than positive or lead indicators which measure the efforts that are put into preventing incidents rather the failure of the safety system.

Safety incentive schemes have been firmly entrenched in many industries particularly mining. Once entrenched they are very hard to take away, particularly if large financial reward is involved. The NSW DPI produced a tool to assist sites in reviewing safety incentive schemes during the transition to world-leading OHS in the NSW mining and extractives industry. Tool to review safety incentive schemes (399)

The Unions have long been opponents of Behavioural Based Safety and tools such as task observations as they believe it is an approach to safety that focuses on workers’ behaviour as the cause of most work-related injuries and illnesses. Due to their concerns about these programs being introduced in Australian workplaces they have produced a Kit for health and safety reps to provide information on what they are, what’s wrong with them and what workers can do in their workplaces. In May 2005, the ACTU held a Seminar, Oh Behave! looking at behavioural safety approaches to managing health and safety. One outcome was an undertaking by the VTHC and a couple of other unions (AMWU and SPSF) to develop a kit to assist OHS reps and delegates to understand what such programs are, and the issues unions have with them. They call this kit the “Big Brother Safety Kit”. Download the Kit Here: Big Brother Safety Kit (646)

Here are a few of our more recent articles on safety incentives:

Maximizing the Effective use of Incentives to improve safety performance

Safety Incentive Schemes

Tagged as: Safety Management