Provide Incentives for Safety Performance

Everyone likes to receive a reward for good performance. It can be a merit raise, a promotion, or praise. Good performance deserves to be acknowledged and rewarded. Safety performance is no different. When it's done right, it should be recognized.

Here are some ideas to recognize good safety performance:

• If you do staff evaluations, make safety one of the written criteria.
• Let staff members with good safety performance get recognized and appreciated in ways that others will see and want to be part of.
• Make sure the people who get promoted are good safety performers. If you don't, you may be giving a very mixed signal.
• Post a safety goal and keep visible track of the progress. For example, you can state, "our goal is to have an accident-free month." When the goal is met, acknowledge it by holding a special event to celebrate your success.

A formal recognition plan or program can help promote safety. How do you reward good safety performance in your lab?