ABSTRACT
Safety and health professionals for decades have been utilizing incentive programs in an attempt to positively motivate their employees to work safely. Safety and health incentive programs often span the spectrum from drawings to win a car to steak dinners for achieving a safety and health goal to more formalized “green stamp” programs to reward employees for good safety and health performance and permit employees to select individualized rewards. Although safety and health incentive programs are often utilized to motivate the workforce to achieve specific safety and health goals, safety and health professionals have found that this type of motivation can be effective; however, many safety and health professionals have found that incentive programs are not a substitute for a foundational safety and health program and the benefits can be short-lived. However, positive reinforcement of safety and health can be beneficial when properly designed and implemented to achieve short-term goals and objectives.
