Testing a Better Recognition Tool

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dennerlein J ; Goldwasser M ; Sparer E
• Description:
  Incentive programs that reward workers for avoiding accidents and injuries have been a mainstay of occupational health and safety programs in construction and many other industries for years. Employers offer free lunches, raffles, and prizes to workers when their department, factory or construction site achieves a set number of days without a workplace injury. These programs are attractive because counting injury-free days offers a quick and easy way to measure safety performance and explain the results to workers. However, injury-based incentive programs have recently come under fire from OSHA-and for good reason. Rewarding low recorded injury rates and disqualifying individual workers or an entire group from receiving a reward when an injury occurs can lead to a reduction in injury reporting instead of a reduction in actual injuries. ... Our research team at the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University understands that communicating safety performance on-site and recognizing safe work practices are important goals, and are critical to improving site safety culture and reducing injury rates. As a result, we have been designing and testing a novel safety communication and recognition program called "Building Safety for Everyone." Building Safety for Everyone provides an infrastructure to recognize workers for working safely and reducing job-related hazards BEFORE an accident happens. ... Safety management systems are vital to the reduction of injuries on the site. Building Safety for Everyone provides an opportunity to augment these systems with performance communication systems that transcends the traditional organizational aspects of the site and does away with the discriminatory nature of traditional employee safety programs. It is time to move away from incentive programs based on recorded injury rates and towards programs that recognize safe working conditions and practices. We need to prevent injuries from occurring, not just keep them off the books. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Hazardous Substances Occupational Health Risk Assessment Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accidents Communication Systems Construction Construction-industry Data Processing Discrimination Hazard Communication Hazard Controls Hazard Recognition Injuries Injury Prevention Occupational Safety And Health Administration OSHA Recordkeeping Risk Management Safety Monitoring Safety Personnel Safety Practices Safety Programs Surveillance Workplace Monitoring

  More +
• ISSN:
  0362-4064
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement ; Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  82
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20052091
• Citation:
  Occup Health Saf 2013 Apr; 82(4):42,44,46
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20040801
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational Health and Safety
• End Date:
  20090630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b1645b3cbb8345a846224145be1c0049b60745e902c322f30979dde597a14d8435ddd6ab8911e5139725ba8a383718ad137fa5fd26932c92abcf928ecbae6e05
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/211690/cdc_211690_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.33 MB ]