Newfoundland Power also initiated surveys of all the other major Canadian electric utilities in Canada in the late '80s, in an attempt to rationalise the continuation of the safety 'incentive' dinners and awards. Without exception, all survey respondents felt safety 'incentives', specifically based on lost time injury free criteria, were of little value, but because a great deal of their traditional safety efforts were based on convention, they still kept them. Others even went so far as to note that with all due respect to their senior management, the only reason they kept the rewards was because management wanted to see them kept. When pressed as to the rationale for keeping them, answers were few and far between. They were kept because they were sacred cows and very much entrenched. (it may be interesting to note that the electric utility industry has been characterised by some as being very conservative and slow to change. This may be in part due to the conservative regulatory regime which most utilities operated under during the '70s, '80s and early '90s. With the increase in market and regulatory pressure for utilities to be more efficient, the logic of maintaining these incentive awards, in their traditional and sometimes expensive form, has perhaps slipped to the background in importance).

The Canadian utilities surveyed also indicated that they all wanted to move towards a system of general recognition or promotion, rather than safety 'incentive' programs based on any pre-set quotas of accidents or injuries. At the end of the day there was no general consensus on what these 'incentive' programs should look like, as they had become entrenched in the 'culture' of the existing safety system, and eliminating the dinners and awards raised some concern among management that if we, 'took away the dinners, employees will think we don't care as much about safety'.

Discussion and debate continued, without a corporate agreement on what should be done, and how it should be done. In fact, one of the main factors in helping to settle the debate on whether safety incentive awards should continue, and upon what basis, was the economic restraint experienced by the Company in 1993. Due in part to the cost associated with these 'recognition dinners', as they were now called in 1993, and a fiscal climate which resulted in salaries being reduced and some job losses experienced, the dinners appeared on their way out. With an estimated budget of some $60,000.00 for these dinners, the expenditure did not seem to justify the perceived benefit. Consequently, the decision to suspend or eliminate these 'incentive' or recognition awards was not so much a philosophical one as it was a fiscal decision.

In 1994, a corporate decision was made to examine the issue of employee communications and recognition, with the objective being to 'enhance the quality of worklife and pride in the Company by recognising employee achievement and by improving employee communications'. Through perception surveys and meetings with key stakeholders, a series of recommendations were made to deal with employee recognition, not only from a safety perspective, but in dealing with all forms of recognition.

From a safety perspective, the intent was to have safety recognition addressed, evaluated and dealt with on a corporate level the same way as any other type of corporate 'recognition': no more important - no less important. As a result of a corporate approach and accompanying recommendations, it was recommended that 'employee recognition dinners' would be held throughout the Company, and include recognition for such issues as service with the organisation, safety achievements (activities and initiatives as opposed to statistical achievements) outstanding attendance and community involvement. This had the effect of having safety 'recognition' as a equal with any other form of recognition deemed by the Company to be important. From a 'recognition' perspective, this issue was resolved.

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