OSHA’s warning on incentive plans raises concerns

OSHA’s warning about workplace rewards programs that might encourage employees not to report injuries raises concerns that some good companies may be unfairly caught up in an enforcement action.

Before I begin, let me make clear that no one at FDRsafety buys into incentive programs. We favor more fundamental approaches based on management responsibility, compliance and creating a culture of employees “wanting to be safe.” Having said that, there are a couple of concerns with OSHA’s position, which was outlined in a recent memo.

First, OSHA does not seemed concerned with the historic practice of piece rate for pay. Is there any greater incentive for taking safety shortcuts than making money? What about the thousands of employees who skip some of those nasty safety rules that slow them down? How is it that “incentive programs” are the latest evil?

Before I mention my second issue, I need to state that we are completely supportive of OSHA when employers are using incentive programs as a disincentive to reporting injuries.

The problem comes in when trying to assess not “what,” but “how” and “why.” What if I’m an employer who values his employees, has everything in compliance and I wish to celebrate a period of time with no injuries? Let’s say we have pizza to celebrate the milestone. Will my company be in violation of OSHA’s perception of “incentive programs that discourage employees from reporting their injuries”?

This is another “heads-up” that OSHA continues to aggressively find fault with many traditional safety approaches. Some of their “catches” may be well founded, but our experience suggests that many good employers are unfairly caught up in OSHA’s new interpretations.

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