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Proposed Safety Incentive Program Revisions

A proposal to modify the Plant Ops Safety Incentive Program to put emphasis on proactive and preventive measures. To make supervisors and workers more directly accountable for safety efforts within their areas, a system for awarding points to a group for proactive activities would be implemented. Points will be awarded based on the schedule below. Groups will be evaluated and scored quarterly on performance.

Scoring will be based on monthly proactive safety activities (e.g., shop safety talks), regulatory compliance performance (e.g., safety training compliance), and incident occurrence and investigation (e.g., accidents and accident investigations).

Monthly Proactive Safety Activities: A group will receive 10 points for having a monthly safety talk (“occurrence” points). A group will also receive another 10 points for having at least 90% of the assigned workers present for the monthly safety talk (“attendance” points). A group will receive less points for decreasing percentages of workers present at the monthly safety talk (at least 80% present: 8 points; at least 70%: 6 points; at least 60%: 4 points; less than 60%: 0 points). A group can only receive “occurrence” points once per month, even if more than one monthly safety talk is held in a month, but a group may hold more than one monthly safety talk in order to increase its “attendance” points. The maximum score is 20 points per month.

A group will also receive points for directly participating in the Safety Committee Program. A group will receive 2 points a month for sending a group representative to one of the standing sub-committees/task groups of the Safety Committee Program (“attendance” points). The standing sub-committees/task groups of the Safety Committee Program are the Health Management Team, the Training & Education Task Group, the Planning, Design & Implementation Task Group, or the Safety Activities & Suggestions Task Group. A group will also receive 2 points a month for holding a department level safety committee meeting (“occurrence” points). The maximum number of points a group can receive is 2 points per committee per month. A group may send more than one representative to a meeting, or hold more than one meeting per month, but can only receive 2 points per committee per month. The maximum score a group can receive for Safety Committee Program participation is 10 points per month.

Regulatory Compliance: A group will receive 10 points for having at least 90% of assigned workers with completed required safety compliance training. A group will receive less points for decreasing percentages of workers with completed safety compliance training (at least 80%: 8 points; at least 70%: 6 points; at least 60%: 4 points; less than 60%: 0 points). The maximum score is 10 points per month.

Incident Occurrence and Investigation: For every lost work time incident reported, a shop will loose 10 points. For every recordable incident reported, a shop will loose 5 points. For every non-recordable or near-miss incident reported, a shop will loose 1 point. For every incident investigation completed, a shop will receive 5 points. The maximum score will vary depending on the number of reported incidents, the severity of the incidents reported, and the number of incident investigations completed. If an incident investigation is completed for every incident reported, the net result would be: for lost time incidents, minus 5 points; for recordable incidents, 0 points; and for non-recordable or near-miss incidents, plus 4 points.

Goals: In order to achieve satisfactory performance during a given quarter, a group will need to earn at least 100 points. In order to achieve high performance during a given quarter, a group will need to earn at least 120 points.

Awards for performance will be based on the current cash awards scheme (i.e., $26 per employee per year). Satisfactory performance during an award period will qualify a group for 50% of the award amount. High performance during an award period will qualify a group for 100% of the award amount. Since award periods will be by quarter (i.e., three months) the “standard” award will be $6.50 per employee per quarter. The number of employees per group will be based on a “standard” worker as used in calculating incident rates (i.e., 2,000 hours per year, equivalent to 500 hours per quarter).

Because of the limitations of our existing data collection processes, award determinations will be typically be limited to the “general foreman” or department level of the organization. Adjusting of the award amount can be done in the future as analysis of hourly wages and accident costs are conducted. Decisions on changing the award (e.g., from cash to some other incentive) can also still be done in the future.

Discussion: Proactive safety activities are credited by some researchers as having a real benefit, even if performance (i.e., accident rates) don’t improve during the same time frame. Overall scores under this program are still influenced by performance (i.e., accidents are counted). The more accidents (i.e., performance failures) that occur, the more proactive activities are needed to achieve a successful rating. Major benefits not only include counting successes as well as failures, but also include the ability to modify or weight items being counted in order to add or shift emphasis of performance.

Major obstacles to this program include data recording, collection and tabulation activities. No systems exist at this point for these data related activities. In order to make this new system function, additional actions will be required by certain individuals. Shops/departments will have to enter their monthly safety talk attendance into LearnerWeb. Safety committee meeting records and attendance will have to be submitted to the Plant Ops Safety Office to receive credit for attendance or occurance of these meetings. The Plant Ops Safety Office will need to run reports from LearnerWeb in order to assess points for monthly safety talks held, monthly safety talk attendance, and safety training compliance. The Plant Ops Safety Office will also have to manually track safety committee attendance and incident investigations completed and reconcile these against the monthly accident data received from Work~Connections.

Example: The Roofs, Metal Shops & Elevators group (dept. no. 681630) held safety talks in each of the three months in the first quarter of 2006 (January, February and March). This qualified them for 10 points for each month (30 total). Attendance at each monthly safety talk was 57% in January (no attendance record was present for the Sheet Metal Shop), 43% in February (no attendance record was present for the Welding Shop or the Elevator Shop), and 74% in March (all shops had attendance records for March). This qualifies the group for 6 points (≥70% attendance for March). The Roofs, Metal Shops & Elevators group had representatives attend the four standing safety sub-committee meetings during the first quarter of 2006 (January, February and March) either directly or through the Facilities Maintenance Department for a total of 24 points. The Facilities Maintenance department held a departmental safety committee meeting in each month of the first quarter of 2006 (January, February and March) for a total of 6 points. Under required safety training, the group has ≥90% compliance in each month and qualifies for 10 points for each month (30 total). The group had 7 reported incidents during the three months: 6 incidents were non-recordable and 1 incident had time lost. Total points lost for these incidents is -16 (-6 for the six non-recordable incidents and -10 for the lost time incident). If we assume that an investigation was completed for each incident (records of investigations have not been compiled at this time), then the group would qualify for 35 points (5 points for each incident investigation). So for this 3 month period, the Roofs, Metal Shops & Elevators group (dept. no. 681630) would get a point total of 85 points.

This would be considered satisfactory performance and qualify the group for a 50% award. Annual hours worked in the Roofs, Metal Shops & Elevators group at the end of March 2006 was 108,976. This is equivalent to 55 workers (rounding up). This means they would qualify for a $357.50 award for these three months (January, February and March 2006).

Implementation Plan:

January 2007 – March 2007: Monthly reporting of performance based on proposed changes. Modifications to proposed changes made as required and approved.
April 2007 – June 2007: Quarterly report of performance based on proposed changes and modifications without actual awards. Existing incentive program without changes will continue through June 2007, with applicable awards under the old program.
July 2007 – September 2007: New incentive program with changes goes live with quarterly reports and applicable awards.