Branding the solution and making it pervasive will ascribe a value to the program and cause employees to take notice and internalize the goals at a far greater level. Branding works because human beings respond to symbols of success and accomplishment.

Treating your safety program as a brand and promoting it as a symbol of excellence will add motivational power and boost top of-mind awareness with employees. A strong safety brand is one with a distinctive name and slogan that is actively promoted in all employee communication, including posters, catalogs, videos, websites, meetings, promotional items, newsletters, and reports.

Incentive and recognition programs help increase safety awareness and thus reduce the frequency and costs associated with accidents, lost time, workers compensation, insurance, and claims.

In fact, a safety incentive program is a corporate investment that can produce a significant positive return on investment, one characterized by well-defined safety initiatives, infused with management support, and employee participation.

A Safety Incentive Program will thrive and produce the greatest return on incentive investment in an environment with established safety programs and policies, such as employee screening, drug testing, ongoing training, frequent safety meetings, regular communications, etc. In this environment a well-designed safety incentive program will help foster measurable productivity gains and substantially reduce costs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004 there was a disabling workplace injury every 7.8 seconds, and a fatal workforce injury every 96 minutes.

The problem is not confined to large companies. On the contrary, according to a RAND Corporation study, evidence shows that small establishments with single physical locations have significantly higher rates of deaths or serious injuries than larger establishments, which is of particular concern considering that over 55 percent of Americans are employed in businesses with fewer than 100 workers.

Creating a safety culture is no simple task. Safety programs tend to be most effective when they build awareness through frequent reinforcement, team building, group interaction, positive peer pressure, and constant communication.

The quest for an effective safety culture must be based on individual awareness and attention to detail. People, not policies, prevent accidents; they do so day by-day and moment-by-moment. Fewer accidents mean lower costs, both in human terms and on the balance sheet. So the goal is to motivate employees to adopt safety as a personal issue.

While a safety incentive program is a vital element of a company’s safety strategy, it will not be successful if it is deployed in an organization with a poor safety culture.

The following is a list of elements that typically comprise a robust safety program.

Many of these elements must be in place before an incentive program is layered on top; others can be added in conjunction with the launch of a new incentive program.

Good safety programs contain a variety of elements that overlap and interact. Weaving together these elements creates the foundation for a successful safety culture.

In an ASSE presentation titled “Using Behavioral Safety to Improve Culture,” Joshua Williams from Safety Performance Solutions lists these common characteristics of a successful safety program: employee driven, positive reinforcement, management support, and satisfaction with training.

These characteristics and others can be achieved through the adoption of the appropriate safety program elements, many of which are listed and briefly outlined below to provide a high level view of the tools used by companies to establish a good safety culture.

For the most part, companies should plan to utilize outside resources to address these issues since many of them require a significant level of expertise to implement properly.

Checks: Used to check on previous employment, driving records, education claims, credit history, and criminal background issues including felony and misdemeanor history.

Training/Education: Necessary for both employees and supervisors. Training includes driver, equipment, industrial hygiene, emergency response, OSHA compliance, hardware/software, etc. Supervisors and managers need additional training on the proper ways to implement and manage new safety initiatives. Training and education are ongoing needs and should be updated and refreshed regularly.

Drug & Alcohol Policies: Write a policy for your drug and alcohol testing program that outlines the goals, details who will be tested, explains the consequences, and delineates the type of assistance that may be available.

Safety Meetings: When executed properly, no communication element is more powerful than safety meetings. Face-to-face discussions of the safety challenges, along with past successes and failures are critical elements of any successful safety culture. Meetings should be scheduled well in advance and should occur on a frequent basis. Safety meetings require trained and enthusiastic leaders who must be well-versed in the program, its processes, and can promote real change in the organization.

Suggestion Box Programs: This simple yet effective tool can be used to improve safety, lower costs, and engage a safety-sensitive audience. Many companies offer structured awards to individuals that make valid suggestions, and larger awards when those suggestions are adopted. Suggestion programs can have the largest potential return on investment, because they incorporate suggestions from the people who are closest to safety issues. Significant safety inroads have resulted from such programs regardless of the format used (card drop boxes or online suggestion tools).