John Blogg is Secretary and Manager of Industrial Relations with the Ontario Mining Association. Rather than seeing safety performance receive special reward attention, Blogg feels safety should be treated just the same as any other part of the job. Says Blogg,

"I have a problem with rewards and safety performance because safety is simply doing the job right. If you have proper policies and procedures, and good supervision, you have, as a result of that, good safety performance.. As a general rule I think health and safety is part of doing the job right, and nothing more than that. When you separate that and give it special recognition, you are saying, I think, and sending a message to the workers that it (safety) is separate and distinct from doing the job." 15

There are still numerous organisations in Canada which have structured safety recognition and incentive programs in place. Peter Edmonds is the Director of Safety Engineering with the Canadian Lake Carriers Association, and is just one on many safety professionals in Canada who feel recognition and reward programs are worthwhile. Edmonds notes that recognition takes place in a number of different ways within his association. Says Edmonds,

"We do it in a number of ways. Each individual member company within our association does it a little different. We have a couple of organisations that do plaque presentations to the ship and give jackets and all types of other incentives, and for them its working exceptionally well." 16

Another opportunity for Edmonds and his group to evaluate safety performance and give recognition comes during their audit process. Says Edmonds,

"We also look, when we're doing our audits, at attitude. We sit down and talk to the crew over lunch about safety and how their attitudes are. To somebody with a skilled eye, it becomes very evident whether there's really a sincere attitude that they have about safety. We reward that." 17

Jim Williams of Syncrude believes that recognition is a prime motivator, and feels that when people get recognised for what they do, they will continue to perform positively and contribute to improving safety performance. Says Williams, "We have a number of different programs here. We have recognition for service, for accident-free performance, for duties above and beyond the call, as well as inter-departmental recognition for compliance to loss control program standards...We even have a bulletin board program and a large communications section, and people are recognised on the bulletin board. We also have a huge electronic sign here on which we recognise performance." Williams notes that Syncrude has also seen the benefits of the team approach to recognition initiatives. Says Williams,

"We have monthly team meetings here where the team performance is discussed. It's a two way thing with both the team and the team leader. We also have semi-annual performance appraisals, plus the annual appraisal. All employees are evaluated." 18

Pat Watson is a Health and Safety Coordinator with Fisher Gauge in Peterborough, Ontario. Watson notes that they had a program some years ago that was based on lost time injuries. Numbers used to be posted on a highly visible sign or bulletin board, indicating how many days the organisation had gone without a lost time accident. But Watson feels that effort sort of lost its appeal. Says Watson,

"Right now we have no program. We have been looking at it but right now we don't have any recognition at all, other than attendance recognition."

While safety professionals have some very strong views of safety recognition and incentives, so do the rank and file, as well as others. Bruce Gottzman is a Warehouse Supervisor in the Malton Distribution Centre for the Oshawa Group. Gottzman has set up a program which he calls "safety bingo". Says Gottzman, "We had a very poor lost time accident record prior to the implementation of our safety bingo program. Each employee is given a bingo card, and two numbers are drawn on a daily basis until there is a lost time injury." Prizes for a "full card" can net the winner up to $125.00. Some purists would argue that this type of "gimmick" has nothing to do with safety, nor does it improve physical conditions or behaviours. But Gottzman is quick to give the program credit, and put it in its proper perspective. Says Gottzman,

"We implemented the program in February of 1992 and we were just recently awarded the Manager's award through the IAPA for the Oshawa foods group for dramatically reducing our lost time accidents. I'm not saying that's fully due to the safety bingo, but personally speaking, I think it's a major contributing factor...It definitely created the positive peer pressure." 20

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