Once you’ve targeted your safety goals, craft your program objectives. Remember, everything must reinforce the types of behavior you want to change or improve. Your goals should always be simple and specific.

Focus on one or two objectives and communicate those goals. Detail the desired activity, the units that will be measured, the expected performance level and behavioral change, as well as the time allotted to achieve these goals. Clarify why these objectives are important to the company overall.

Objectives must be attainable, or participants will become discouraged. Go for a continuous improvement approach, not overnight miracles. Also, unrealistic goals may create a sense of distrust between labor and management. They will be seen as an example of how out of touch management is with its workers.

Objectives should correspond with peak injury periods. Holding a program after the peak rush will not be as effective, nor will it be an accurate reflection of how to improve safety when it counts most.

You have to be able to quantify actions, or participants won’t know what you expect.

Also, base the guidelines on behavior the employees can control. It’s common to use days as a measurement, but this may not work best for your workforce. For instance, a freight company chose to measure its safety stats in hours and miles because its drivers found these quantities more representative of their work.

Everyone from top management to participants must support the goals. Also, workers must be assured managers will not discipline or fire them for reporting unsafe conditions, or for slowing down production. Employees need to know they will be seen as the person who helped stop an accident, not as a whistle blower.

Once the program’s objectives are defined, decide when and how long the campaign will run. Most safety programs last anywhere from three to six months, which allows time for education and training sessions and significant results. Take into account the complexity of your work environment and how many behaviors you want to change.

• Each worker must believe he or she can attain the goal and that rewards will appeal to each individual on the team.

• Everyone must have the chance to be recognized for outstanding individual achievement, even if the team doesn’t meet its objectives.

• Teams should consist of no more than six to eight members to keep the group cohesive and focused.

• Teams should be comprised of both supervisors and workers who perform similar tasks and encounter the same hazards.

• Don’t pit teams against each other. They should compete against themselves. For example, base each group’s goals on its previous year’s performance. Workers will be focused on improving themselves and their team rather than competing against other groups.

• It is critical to know who makes up your target audience. Once you identify the group that needs to be motivated, find out more about them as individuals with the  help of a questionnaire.

• You’ll need to know the ratio of males to females, percentage of married to single, how many have families, how they like to be rewarded, etc. The answers will guide your award choices.

Overall, it’s best to offer a wide variety of awards so recipients can choose what they want. Select merchandise with trusted, brand name recognition and warranties. For on-going catalog programs, make sure participants are notified of changes. Choose awards that can be delivered within a timely manner. Quick turnaround time ensures participants remember they are being rewarded for a particular achievement.

The end of the safety incentive is its most revealing part. If you established concrete, measurable goals and tracked your participants’ behavior throughout the program, you’ll have no trouble seeing the results of their efforts. Compare reports on production, accidents and lost-time to those from previous years in order to strengthen your case. FSM