“Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.”
--Gladys Browyn Stern

Safety rewards can come in different shapes and sizes and don’t need to have a huge monetary value. There’s a famous story about a Hewlett Packard employee who burst into his manager’s office with the solution to a stubborn problem. The manager, desperate to acknowledge the achievement, awarded the employee with the only item at hand—a banana from the manager’s lunch. Ever since, the Golden Banana has become a highly coveted award for HP employees.

Ego Safety Rewards—Recognition and Praise

Be sure to praise people for a job well done. Just about everybody responds positively to praise. However, you need to vary how you deliver praise and recognition to get the most positive response from each individual. For one worker, a quiet word of acknowledgement works best; others want public recognition, like having their picture hung on the bulletin board.

When your company’s safety culture is shaped right, the culture itself becomes the reward system and the reward people strive for is peer acceptance.

Reward with Opportunities

For highly motivated people, the reward that works best isn’t money or a gift; it’s opportunity. One example of an effective reward for people in this group is allowing them to choose the projects they work on.

Tangible Rewards

Tangible rewards can include:

• Bonuses;
• Parties/celebrations;
• Points redeemable for a prize;
• Time off.

If you have only limited resources for rewards, you might be best served allowing individuals to select their own prize. The most successful tangible reward initiative I ever ran involved giving the winner $20 to spend on whatever prize he wanted. The program was a huge hit!

Group Rewards

When rewards are by group performance, make the reward available to each member in the group. But availability isn’t the same thing as receiving. To earn the reward, each person in the group must show what he or she did to help the group meet the objective.

This is called the participation criterion and it’s a great way to eliminate stragglers and free riders and secure universal participation in the desired activity and outcome.

Conclusion

Whatever system you use, choose your rewards wisely. If you give away a car or truck this year, what will your reward be next year? That’s one of the reasons I like using celebrations or parties as rewards. In addition to being recyclable, the celebration reinforces the positive safety message.

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