I was recently invited to meet with a client, who is a leader in the automotive market. They provided me with a tour of their manufacturing plant and I was simply amazed. After getting over the shear size of the plant, the amount of machinery and equipment you quickly realize that safety is critical to making it all happen successfully. Safety in this organization is the culture and its how employees act and are aware of everything going on around them. But that’s not the case with most organizations.

"Every day more than a dozen US workers die from a work-related injury and another 10,000 are seriously injured." Victoria Brown, Workplace Accidents. With statistics like this, safety and reinforcing this behavior is something that a company just can not ignore.

So what can you do to start or improve the safety culture so that it can have an impact on decreasing workplace accidents, injuries, work leave, and compensation costs? Here are the basics.

• Create a safety program. Studies show that workplace accidents are reduced by any activity that reminds workers of safety needs. The emphasis is on activity, in the sense that provision of information through notices, leaflets or booklets is inadequate. You have to reinforce or incent the activity.

• Use Incentives. According to a number of case studies, programs involving incentives to prevent accidents can save more than they cost.

• Participation. Does the company care about me, and the other people who work here, or are we just filling a position and that is easily replaceable? With few exceptions, the better job a company does at conveying the message to its employees that it really cares about them- and their personal safety- the better the morale and attitude will be.

• Communicate. Sharing of information about the costs of accidents with employees; an awareness of the fact that high costs of accidents can threaten the firm’s survival - and hence employees’ jobs - can encourage the cooperation of employees in the prevention of accidents.

A well-designed safety program, along with a strong incentive to reinforce the culture and behavior will help you have a direct impact on your bottom line. So contact CoreCentive (www.corecentive.com) and get started today.