Rank: Super forum user 
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I invite my peers to share their opinions and experiences on the topic of company bonuses being linked to safety performance (such as numbers of incidents).
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Very much of the opinion that any form of financial incentive has the capability of ensuring a skewed result. One employment we had the usual "days without" board at the gate. With the prospect of 1000 days on the horizon the MD announced a company wide reward should the target be attained. The reward was issued but one employee was suddenly on annual vacation for days 998 - 1000. Personally I despise the whole concept of bonuses as they are never truly earned but rather offered as a way of enhancing a pay rate on an arbitrary basis.
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 8 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Very much of the opinion that any form of financial incentive has the capability of ensuring a skewed result. One employment we had the usual "days without" board at the gate. With the prospect of 1000 days on the horizon the MD announced a company wide reward should the target be attained. The reward was issued but one employee was suddenly on annual vacation for days 998 - 1000. Personally I despise the whole concept of bonuses as they are never truly earned but rather offered as a way of enhancing a pay rate on an arbitrary basis.
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8 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Hi Kate I think it is entirely proper that bonuses are linked to performance (across a number of aspects of a person's job) but not via something so vulnerable to statistical blips as e.g. numbers of accidents. If the number of accidents were to go up and thus, inherent in your question, probably the bonus should be smaller, this could be for a number of reasons, including, inter alia: The business employs more people. The person has oversight of more people. The nature of the people over whom the person has oversight changes to include those doing inherently riskier work. The business decides to stop outsourcing some of the inherently riskier tasks. The business or person clamps down on anything that encourages underrerporting or redefining the severity of whatever is in the count for the bonuses. The business takes on a project which is inherently riskier than what the business usually does. NOTE that this might mean that a less competent business doesn't win the job instead!] It could just be a statistical blip. P
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4 users thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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If the company has accepted and integrated 'Safety' fully into its operations then there is no real need for a separate Safety Bonus as there are many references to improved safety increasing productivity and reducing costs. It would therefore be part of the company's overall performance and profitability To re-phrase the old adage, 'We haven't made any profit for the last two years so we're making redundancies and downsizing, but Hey, Good News, we didn't have any accidents' Company's primary reason for trading is to make profit/provide a return for its investors, so I'm a bit cynical when their blurb says, 'Safety is our Priority', I'd feel better if it said, 'We're here to make a profit without hurting anyone'
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2 users thanked Pirellipete for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Hi
As I'm sure has been said on here before, adding in financial incentives could lead to under-reporting of incidents, which nobody really wants. I prefer/believe better financial incentive is to incentivise the leading indicators rather than the lagging ones to try to affect performance and culture. For example:
- x number of training hours completed in a given time period
- x number of H&S inspections completed in a given period
- Adherence to pre set scheules e.g. toolbox talks
- All n/cs identified closed out within timescale set
- Accident investigations to be completed with x number of days
Carl.
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3 users thanked starler229 for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi Carl I am in favour of all your bulleted suggestions except the last one - which in my experience is quite a common element of the management systems that organisations devise. Doing internal investigations of incidents promptly and quickly is VERY important. However, predefining the timetable to conclusion means that some investigations will not be done to the depth that is required. So you set say 5-10 or 10-15 days to close out ALL investigations but then recognise on a particular investigation that perhaps it would be helpful to bring in a specialist to look at one aspect of the circumstances, OR you need to get something tested OR..... What then happens is likely to be EITHER you recognise that you are going to miss your timetable and so you abandon this valuable part of the investigation OR you break your rules. Bad enough. Worse if somebody's bonus might be impacted and/or if blame will follow!
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2 users thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
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