Posted By Merv Newman We had a thread on this last week, I think. I prefer to recognise and reward positive effort, people and groups who actually do something to help make their workplace and their work practices safer. Absence or not of accidents is a measure subject to too many variables. The first of which is "how good is the H&S department at their job ?". The second of which is "How important is H&S to the company and to management". There are so many accident causing factors which are out of control of employees (see other thread "to grit or not to grit"). Which of your employees would you penalise if one of them got knocked over by a drunken contractor ? And basing your safety effort on your accident rate is reactive - after the fact. Take a look at proactive means of measuring the effectiveness of your safety programme. Contact Neil Budworth and ask him for a copy of his article on Proactive measures of safety performance. As for rewards, I much prefer rewarding a whole group, equally but individually (if that's clear). Preferably a small, inexpensive but high quality gift. A chunky, stainles steel keyfob, engraved with company logo and a few words to commemmorate an achievement is one example. And this MUST be presented individually by a manager, with a few words of appreciation of a good effort. Now the STOP programme. Described as "A heavy tool which rewards the supervisor when he can identify a reason for hitting an employee with it. And the more reasons he can find, the happier HIS boss will be". Counting the number of STOP observations tells you little about the quality of those observations. Just how many green cards are turned in because the observers have a target to meet ; "Find X faults this week or you will suffer the consequences". Why not try "Find X reasons for praising your employees this week, and you will make me a happy Boss" ?

Posted By Raymond Rapp John Must agree with Merv on this one and as he has also mentioned there have been many threads of a similair nature. Back to your original question. If you wish to measure some sort of safety performance you could do it by a table or matrix. Giving a scale to those parameters you think are significant. For example, take 30 operatives working in a certain area and all complying with PPE, worth 5 pts each = 150 pts and so on. I think any sort of measure is better when conducted as a collective unit as opposed to the individual. Regards Ray

Posted By Raymond Rapp Merv/John I agree that the whole concept of reward and measuring good performance is problematic. That is not to say that there is not a solution or more likely a compromise. Measuring good safety performance per se is not an easy task. All too often that which is measured is because it is easy to do so, and not because it is what should be measured. The two doctrines of reward and punishment both have their place in influencing behaviour. Therefore a fair and just balance needs to be incorporated within whatever strategy is deemed appropriate. Perhaps there is scope to find a 'scientific' method for evaluating safety performance? In principle I do not believe there is anything wrong with providing a reward for good safety practices and performance. Provided that the limitations of such a strategy is recognised from the outset. Herein lies the problem. For example, I do not think it is fair to exert an onerus duty on the individual or to put peer pressure on individuals. Management must aslo recognise that accidents do not always just 'happen.' Rather there are often underlying reasons such as poor training, supervision, equipment and pressures associated with 'getting the job done.' Finally, and apologies for this mantra, I would like to see a strategy that incoprorates other methods of measuring safety eg audits, safety climate survey, as opposed to some stand alone reward or punishment ethos. Regards Ray

Posted By John Thanks guys for all those measured responses. Sorry I haven't been back on this one sooner but work load hasn't left me with much time. I'm not sure which way to go on this one, at the moment I run a monthly best practice which basically rewards any individuals who come up with good ideas and then implements them into the workplace. I was hoping to find a way of refreshing this and sort of give it a face lift, getting more people interested rather than individuals. I understand all the differences between departments, Admin. against Manufacturing and this is why it seems so difficult to have a level playing ground to measure employees against. I appreciate all of your help in trying to help me come up with a decent and fair system but it doesn't sound like there is an easy way to do this. Thanks once again.