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I F F N A A C L L E L L N P P T R R IV O O E T T S E E C CT T I I O ON N had skyrocketed. The distributor witnessed employees paying more attention to their safety training and education. The head of Safety stated, “In the past, our safety incentive program consisted solely of gift cards and lunches for employees. While those are appreciated, the new program adds much more excitement.” The Key to Gamifying Clearly, evidence suggests that the same psychology of gamification that grabbed our attention and improved our performance as kids still works on us as adults. There are a few key components of gamification we have learned are important to include: ■ Find a turnkey, proven program offered by an incentive company versus trying to create your own in-house program. It will make your life easier, allow you to offer big national drawings, and increase your odds of dramatically lowering accidents. ■ Make sure you use some sort of weekly point-rewarding mechanism, making it easier to reward for leading indicators versus lagging ones. Game cards work well for this. ■ Your program structure needs to assure that everyone who is safe wins. Remember the 1970’s Safety Bingo programs? Gamified, yes, but while good for short-term excitement and perhaps a little easier on the budget, these programs lost enthusiasm with time when employees eventually figured out that not everyone who is safe is an award winner. Making everyone a winner will deliver stronger results. ■ Use a program that offers both guaranteed rewards for those that are safe, and chances to win something big. Surveys show some people are more motivated by big drawings, others by the smaller “sure-thing” reward. ■ Make sure your gamified program causes interaction between employees with their odds of winning big increasing over time (think of the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket). This will promote and build safety awareness company-wide and also cause the excitement and engagement level of these programs to actually increase over time, versus petering out. Lastly, make it fun to be safe. Safety is a serious subject, but as we all learned growing up, we pay more attention when we are working (or playing) together and having fun. If we can use this proven psychology and save injuries and lives at the same time, we all win! Buck Peavey is President and CEO of the incentive, employee engage- ment company Peavey Performance Systems which markets the indus- try-recognized Safety Jackpot Program. In its 70-year history, clientele hasincludedCoca-Cola,3M,Dow,Hilton,CityofLosAngeles,FedEx, Apple, and thousands of others large and small, across 13 countries. To learn more visit www.safetyjackpot.com. π SAFETY FIRST ORDER BY 6 PM FOR SAME DAY SHIPPING 1-800-295-5510 uline.com 82 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY/AUGUST 2023 www.ohsonline.com