Posted By Brian Kane Our plant manager (steel industry) has decided to reward good safety performance and he has asked me what we should do. We seem to be good at criticising poor performance as that seems to come easy, but what can be done to reward good performance (apart from obvious financial rewards). Any good ideas are most welcome. Brian

Posted By Merv Newman Just my line ! Recognition and Reward are the two areas which need to be adressed in order to produce long term Reinforcement and improvement in safe behaviour. Recognition for individual and group performance needs to be an habitual management practice. Managers/supervisors need to be on the look-out for even minor improvements in safe behaviour. Goals and specific behaviours can be identified in advance (not entirely necessary) and any achievement leading towards the objective should be recognised and rewarded. "Reward" is not necessarily a monetary or even a tangible object. (although often a small, suitably engraved "gadget" is presented to each member of a winning (I think "successful" is a better word than "winning") group as a souvenir of their achievement. What counts most in the minds of individuals and groups is that management/supervision have recognised, maybe with a smile of appreciation or a few words of congratualtions that some improvement, however small, has been achieved. The "good" behaviour is thus positively reinforced and is more likely to be repeated in order to gain further recognition and reward in the future. Unfortunately, it is my experience that the average manager/supervisor knows nothing about recognition and positive reinforcement. They have to be taught. Current systems of recognising and rewarding "good" safety behaviour involve punishing people/groups which fall below the required standard (negative reinforcement) and the goals used today involve the long-term avoidance of a negative result (no accidents). This leads to avoidance of reporting accidents/incidents for fear of being punished either individually or in groups and resentment of management AND safety when the group is punished for not achieving an objective set (perhaps unrealistically in the minds of the group) by senior management. So, going back to the title of your posting, please make sure that you are rewarding positive safety achievements and not just rewarding the avoidance of negative results. Check out Neil Budworths paper in the technical information section of this site. Please e-mail me directly if you would like to discuss this further. Right now I'm not overworked. On holiday (unpaid) until the end of august. Merv

Posted By Dave Wilson All very good theory however the truth behind anything like this is 'The folding green stuff'!!! Try and tie monetary reward into KPI's not just safety ones but an overall management KRA / KPI. so 5 PI and one safety make 3 mandatory inc the safety one. It works!! start of simple eg make it manadtory that all managers attend say 'Managing Safety Course' and attend at least two safety committe meetings during the finacial year, make it very obvious that if the manager does not achieve this then no bonus or pay rise the next FY. Trust me it works! The secret is to have a common goal that all managers can do including the CEO/MD

Posted By Merv Newman I'm sure it used to be there. sorry. Ask neil at neil.budworth@severntrent.co.uk with my excuses for your bothering him. Title is something like "use of positive criteria in measuring health and safety" It's an eye-opener for all "kick 'em again, they're still breathing" safety and management types. Merv

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Choices of 'rewards' themselves reflect the culture of the organisation: what 'works' is unavoidably coloured to what the culture of the organisation permits. While Dave advocates money as a form of recognition, this doesn't necessarily mean that other forms of recognition can't be more effective - unless management adopt the mindset that this should be the case and demonstrate their beliefs in their behaviour. There' enormous evidence to support the view that 'positive reinforcement' is very cost-effective, provided it is consistent, medium/long term and addresses all desired behaviour (not only safety). I've been very impressed at times how much 'ordinary' front line staff have valued modest financial recognition linked with a social event in which senior management participated as equals and with absolutely no ulterior motivations. Competitions can also help generate new ideas; the recognition of 'success' can be criteria-based, so that there can be more than one successful team (who may be cross-departmental). These events turned failing organisations into state-of-the-art centres of quality and safety. (Harvey-Jones and some other senior managers elsewhere, e.g. Feargal Quinn, owner/manager of 19 supermarkets employing 5000+ in Ireland, have indicated that money + other forms of recognition, including self-development, improve performance greatly). One of the great outcomes of positive reinforcement is that it can build the knowledge base of the organisation about safety and quality management, so that it contributes to a databank of success stories that others can draw on year on year.