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

If you do staff evaluations, make safety one of the written criteria. Let staff members with good safety performance get recognized, appreciated, and generally treated in a way that would make others want to behave similarly.

Make sure the folks who get promoted are good safety performers. Otherwise, you’re giving a very mixed signal.

See if you can get the department head, or president to put on a special cookout for everyone if the organization can set a special record of days without an injury to anyone. Post the goal and keep visible track of your progress. “Our goal is an accident-free month, etc.”