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Reprint from Occupational Health
& Safety Magazine–
Who Wants
to Be a Safety Millionaire?
by Buck Peavey
For one million dollars…
What publication offers a unique article on how to build an effective
incentive program that blows the others away? A. The Wall
Street Journal. B. USA Today. C. The Kansas City Star.
D. Occupational Health & Safety.
Yes!… The answer is D!!
People can easily become addicted. The television
game show craze has captured just about every American’s interest.
But I’ve been thinking, is it really the million dollars that has
everyone talking about ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”
or CBS’s “Survivor”? I don’t think so. And I don’t
think it’s only the clock radio, waffle iron, or gold watch that
fills your employees with excitement, motivating them to work safer.
I think the thing that really excites people in all these situations
is the same. It is the involvement. Whether it’s someone sitting
at home in front of their TV set or your employee working in the
warehouse, the sharing of an experience generates talk, excitement,
and a cause to action soon follows.
My company has a 49-year success rate running incentive programs.
Many things have changed over the years, and so have incentive programs.
While people still enjoy earning points toward a nice prize today,
they also enjoy having something in common with the people whom
they clock in with every day. It is human nature to enjoy a shared
experience with someone else, and because people have less and less
time to share with one another, the workplace is fast becoming yesterday’s
Time Square.
A safety incentive program, if implemented successfully, can help
to create some shared experiences among your workforce, while also
teaching better safety behaviors. The result can help change the
entire culture of your workforce in a positive way. Just look at
the pop culture phenomenon “Millionaire” has started,
to see what I mean.
Commonality
The above-mentioned TV show’s success is a testament to the fact
that if you build a sense of commonality among people, everyone
wants to get involved.
We have found that the best way to get everyone involved in an incentive
program is to use a flexible awarding tool. An example of such a
tool would be the use of gamecards. Programs with gamecards that
have varying point levels and are handed out on a frequent basis
for safe behavior have been proven to get more employee involvement,
by stirring up “talk” and awareness around the office.
This created “excitement” will help your program bring
better results.
In 1998, Smurfit-Stone Container’s steel machinery plant in Salt
Lake City, Utah was disappointed with the results of its incentive
program. The plant manager, Lane Bateman, knew it was time to try
something different. “In the beginning, we were a bit apprehensive.
We really had never utilized any give-away type items,” Bateman
said. But the plant was experiencing accidents on the job, so Smurfit-Stone
each month put all of the team members who had not had an accident
into a drawing. It would then select a few winners and reward the
winners with a pair of safety shoes.
The plant was very proactive in conducting ongoing safety training
classes and awarded quarterly lunches for those who were safe. “We
even gave out logo’d jackets at the end of the year for those that
met our safety behavior criteria. But we still had accidents,”
Bateman commented. “These programs were good, but they still
didn’t create the hype we needed.”
So Bateman made a drastic change. He decided to create an “experience”
for his employees. Smurfit-Stone invested in a gamecard-based incentive
program that awarded weekly gamecards to employees for their safety
performance. Each scratch-off gamecard contained points that ranged
from 25 to 100 points. The employees kept track of their own points,
then could redeem them at any time for prizes in a merchandise-based
catalog. The cards also contained a scratch-off spot that revealed
a letter. The employees at Smurfit-Stone collected and traded letters
until they spelled JACKPOT. When spelled, they would automatically
receive 1,000 bonus points toward merchandise, plus their name would
be entered into a year-end grand prize drawing.
“Gamecards were more fun for everyone. You could see the enthusiasm
receiving weekly gamecards created,” Bateman said. Smurfit-Stone
awarded the cards every Monday morning at a team meeting. The company
learned quickly that frequency was a key factor in this program’s
success. Plus, frequency helped build safety awareness. “People
are reminded of the program every day,” Bateman said. “They
are excited to look at and trade cards with each other!”
Using a flexible, frequent awarding tool such as a gamecard also
can be beneficial in keeping things administratively simple. “All
we do is hand out cards, and the rest handles itself,” said
Batman.
The results of the experience Smurfit-Stone created were amazing.
“Ever since we have started this program, we have not had
an accident. We are close to 200,000 hours without a recordable
accident,” he said. “The gamecards have allowed us to
do this. It is the most effective program I have ever run.”
Promotion, Hype, and More
Talk shows, commercials, appearances on Jay Leno’s show —
hype in any form works! A major part of the success behind “Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and “Survivor” is
most certainly the hype behind these shows.
When anything creative and different is hyped in great magnitude,
human curiosity insists that we “check it out.” Because
you may not have budgeted for a one-minute ad on Super Bowl, there
are other affordable ways to promote your unique new safety incentive
program. Smurfit-Stone Container found that by tying its jackpot
gamecard program into other awareness activities, it was able to
accelerate the hype.
Bateman separated the employees into teams of 35 people. The teams
created their own “wall,” with employees taking great
pride in decorating the walls and showcasing their teams’ safety
performance, goals and safety suggestions. Some even created their
own safety slogans and documented gamecard winnings. Every month,
the teams (with unique names such as the “guard dogs”
and the “safety hawks”) were awarded bonus gamecards
for the “best wall.”
This type of activity not only adds to the incentive program hype,
but it creates good-natured competition and fun interaction among
co-workers. Rumor has it that one day, employees showed up to work
and mysteriously found the “guard dogs” mascot dog clutched
in the claws of the “safety hawks” eagle. They are having
fun with this, it appears.
Everyone Must Win
Again, let’s watch how Regis does it. On TV, unless you forget the
answer to “Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?”,
you are going home a winner of something. However, if you keep on
doing well, you make more and more money. Then, if that doesn’t
do anything for you, there is an even larger carrot at the end of
the tunnel: a shot (a long shot) at winning one million dollars.
A good incentive program needs to work the same way.
Keebler Company learned this firsthand. Greg Hizer started out running
a program where only a few people won awards. Every week, the employees
who had met set safety behavioral criteria were entered in a drawing,
and a couple of winners from each drawing would be awarded a gift
certificate. “The problem was that there were two happy people
and 400 unhappy people. Yet all of them had met the safety criteria,”
Hizer explained. Keebler changed things around and began running
a weekly gamecard program where everyone was a winner of points.
“Awareness has increased substantially,” said Hizer.
“The fact that everyone leaves a winner provides more incentive
to each individual.”
Keebler, like Smurfit-Stone, made its program even more successful
by also communicating and building the hype and “experience”
to its employees. Promotional posters were placed all around common
areas, the cafeteria, and near entrances. Hizer even went a little
extra distance by promoting Keebler’s program through ice cream
and popcorn breaks. This was an opportunity for the employees to
trade cards and give each other a “good-natured ribbing,”
which makes it fun for employees, according to Hizer.
He is now a firm believer that not only is it important to make
everyone a winner, but also that to make your program successful,
you must make it fun.
Hizer also emphasized the importance of having top management buy
in. “Top management’s support is crucial in executing a successful
promotion like this,” he said.
Team Rewards
On CBS’s hit show “Survivor,” they separate the castaways
on a deserted island into two groups of eight people each. They
then have “immunity challenges” where individuals are
rewarded for their achievement. They also have one more challenge
per episode that awards the winning team. This builds team camaraderie,
morale, and improves each individual’s performance.
Your incentive program must work the same way. The best programs
include frequent individual awards for safety behavior along with
team accomplishment bonuses.
In order to keep this administratively simple, it is very important
to have a flexible awarding tool like the one discussed above. A
gamecard is simple to hand out each week for individual safety goals.
In addition, it is easy to hand out perhaps two gamecards per month
for team accomplishments. If you are feeling especially creative,
you can try dividing employees into teams and hold “safety
challenges” each month, then giving bonus cards to each member
of the winning team, a la “Survivor.”
You cannot do enough to build employee involvement and program awareness.
Structuring your program to include healthy team competition goes
a long way.
The Grand Prize
I am guessing you haven’t budgeted for a million-dollar giveaway
like Regis. But you can include a grand prize as a part of your
incentive program. Remember, very few people go away with a million
on “Who Wants to be a Million?” or “Survivor,“
but it is the million-dollar prize that is promoted the most.
Take notice that the TV shows do not simply have a drawing; they
build the grand prize into the structure of their whole program.
This “ buildup” (awarding along the way) to the drawing
helps make the program much more exciting. Using Smurfit-Stone Container’s
gamecard structure as an example, your employees can trade cards
to spell “ jackpot.” When they succeed, they automatically
receive 1,000 bonus points.
Many companies then enter these winners into a grand-prize drawing.
The grand prize could be a trip to Las Vegas or Hawaii, or maybe
a CD player or big-screen TV. Whatever the prize, it can become
a major carrot to promote throughout the entire promotion. This
is just another way to get everyone involved and excited. Remember
that merchandise and travel awards do indeed work better than cash
in all facets of your program.
The Total Experience
As you can tell, there are many options in running a safety incentive
program. The key is to involve all of the elements that in turn
create a total program “experience.” Take a cue from
how today’s hit game shows have promoted the grand prize of winning
a million dollars, yet they have many layers of awards so that everyone
goes home with something.
“Survivor” has done an amazing job at generating hype
and interest through the show’s creative and interesting use of
individual and team measurements and awarding criteria.
You must do the same. The keys are to build commonality, make sure
everyone goes home a winner, promote and hype the program, build
positive and fun team competition, and have a grand prize at the
end that can be promoted throughout.
Having all of these elements will make everyone feel like a Millionaire,
including you!
Buck Peavey is President/CEO of Peavey Performance
Systems, a full-service incentive company based in Kansas City.
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