Over the years, there have been many developments in systems and technologies that have helped industries redefine how businesses are structured. These changes, especially in sectors like manufacturing and distribution, have led to new roles and responsibilities for employees.

However, often with these new responsibilities comes work in hazardous environments that require certain safety protocols to be followed. To address this, businesses have regular safety training sessions to ensure employees stay safe and meet compliance standards.

The challenge for businesses, though, is making these training sessions engaging enough for employees to get the full value. This is where incentive-driven training helps.

Challenges with traditional safety programs

While business safety programs can vary, there are some common issues that lead to a lack of engagement and tangible value for employees.

Dry and unengaging content: A common issue with traditional training programs is their dry, outdated format. Sitting through a long, unengaging training session makes it easy to lose interest in the information being presented.

Information overload: Safety training sessions are often scheduled only once or twice a year. Because of this, a lot of information gets packed into a short presentation. This leads to information overload for employees, making it hard to retain important points being presented.

Excessive focus on compliance: Businesses introduce safety programs to help their employees make safer decisions and to support compliance efforts. Unfortunately, although these initiatives are important, businesses can sometimes focus too much on what to do and what not to do, rather than focusing on the benefits they provide to employees.

One-size-fits-all training formats: Safety training programs often use a repeated framework. The problem is that maintaining this static format can diminish its relevancy over time as the business and the needs of employees change.

Benefits of incorporating incentives

When trying to get more employees interested in your safety training initiatives, using rewards or incentives for participation can be highly effective. Below are some of the benefits that this format can provide.

Positive reinforcement and behavioral change

Incentives in the form of gift cards or other rewards are a great way to get more attention from your teams. They reinforce positive actions, such as paying attention during safety briefings or actively following best safety practices going forward.

Improved morale and team cohesion

The morale in your business can make a big difference when it comes to employees gaining more value from safety training. Offering regular incentives to your employees associated with safety training shows your employees that you value their personal safety and appreciate their cooperation. This helps to keep employees more satisfied in their roles and more engaged in these team discussions.

Tangible business outcomes

One of the main goals of any business safety-training initiative is to reduce work-related incidents. While the level of comprehensiveness in your training programs can play a role, employee involvement is also essential. When employees are more attentive during training sessions and actually look forward to them—thanks to the incentives you have in place—it directly supports your ability to achieve better business outcomes.

Increased training retention

Incentives are an effective way to help employees stay more attentive during training sessions. Offering rewards to those who answer safety-related questions encourages them to listen more attentively during presentations and can be a great motivator for taking notes and trying to retain more information.

Strategies to create incentives in training programs

If you’re considering incorporating incentives into your training program but aren’t sure where to start, here are some effective strategies you can follow.

Define clear objectives

Before putting together different incentive initiatives, your first goal should be to set specific objectives. By setting clear goals, you’re better able to decide the best way to give employees incentives to help you achieve them.

For example, say your goal is to reduce safety-related incidents in the workplace within a given time period. Knowing this ahead of time may mean you want to focus your program on how employees apply the information they learn after a training program.

You might want to provide rewards to employees after hitting certain benchmarks throughout the year to help reinforce the value of these initiatives.

Implement measurable benchmarks

Having goals for your incentive program is great. But you also need a way to measure progress throughout the year. An effective way to do this is by introducing measurable benchmarks leading up to your primary goal.

There are many benchmarks you can use to gauge how effective your training incentives are. Tracking test scores after training sessions, ongoing incident-report percentages, or employee feedback are great places to start. Assign specific targets for each of these and measure them over time to see if they’re improving or moving in the wrong direction.

Offer tangible and appealing rewards

Choosing the right rewards for your incentive programs is one of the most important elements you’ll want to get right. If the rewards aren’t appealing to your employees, chances are you won’t see the results you’re hoping for.

The best way to get  this right is to ask your employees directly what types of incentives will interest them. You could arrange a simple feedback survey or discuss different options with them during the training sessions.

In most cases, it’s best to provide a mix of reward options for employees to choose from. Custom gift cards are an easy way to provide tangible rewards while still letting employees pick where they use them.

Maintain open and honest communication

To get your employees more engaged with your safety training program incentives, they need a clear understanding of how they work. Take time to lay out all the program details and what’s involved for employees to participate and be eligible to receive different rewards.

A good time to discuss these types of initiatives is during company meetings or large team discussions. You could also send updates in company newsletters, post new information on company intranets, or use group chat platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

The important element here is that all your employees have a clear understanding of the program, why it’s being put in place, and how they can participate.

Best practices for creating a lasting safety culture

Achieving specific safety milestones because of your incentive program is a great way to show that your efforts are working. However, a real measurement of success is building a long-lasting company culture focused on safer business practices.

Below are a few best practices you can follow to make sure your incentive program continues to drive this effort.

Integrate safety into your core values

Using incentives to get initial interest in your safety training is a good starting point. But this shouldn’t be a stand-alone process. Employee safety should be a critical part of your core business values and a shared accountability for everyone.

Safety in the workplace is about protecting everyone. The long-term goal is to help everyone think about how their actions can affect others and encourage them to make safer and more responsible choices for the entire business.

Continuously improve the format over time

Avoid putting together a new safety-training initiative and never reviewing it.  You should regularly look for ways to improve both the messaging and incentives of your safety programs.

Find more meaningful ways to communicate the same ideas over time, and make sure that the incentives you’re offering to employees are still valuable enough to keep their interest in the program.

3. Create more ownership with your employees

Employees don’t need to be passive observers in your training sessions. Get them more involved in the process by giving them ownership of certain elements.

For example, you could create a peer-to-peer training format that appoints one or two employees as a dedicated training resource, and change who is assigned to these tasks during the following sessions. Employee doing the training will be more likely to study up on the information being taught. It also helps other employees get more out of sessions when learning processes from others in similar roles as theirs.

Create a safety training program that brings results

Safety training programs are essential for protecting employees and meeting industry requirements. By integrating an incentive program into your safety initiatives and following the steps above to make it a success, you’ll be able to increase engagement levels with your employees and minimize work-related injuries throughout the year.