Good methods and techniques for safety incentives

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Motivation refers to the use of various effective means to satisfy, to varying degrees, the various needs and desires of the motivated individual (positive motivation), or to restrict them (negative motivation), thereby fully stimulating their enthusiasm. This encourages them to maintain a high level of motivation and a positive attitude throughout the process of striving to achieve specific goals, allowing them to fully utilize their potential and make every effort to reach those goals. In simple terms, it is the process of stimulating an individual’s potential through \"appropriate incentives\" in order to fully achieve the desired goals. 　　According to William James, a professor at Harvard University, as stated in his book \"The Principles of Psychology\": Employees who are not motivated utilize only 10% to 30% of their capabilities ； When fully motivated, its capacity can be brought to 80%~90% ； In other words, the same person’s performance when given sufficient motivation is 3 to 4 times that of before the motivation. 　　Since employees in production roles are faced with intense physical labor on a daily basis, when their abilities cannot be fully utilized, they devote all their energy to the production process, which leads to a lax attitude toward safety requirements. This gives rise to the psychological factors that lead to accidents: 　　The mentality of taking chances – acting in disregard of rules, believing that \"violating regulations doesn’t necessarily lead to accidents, and accidents don’t necessarily result in injuries.\"” ； Indolent mentality – being reluctant to go through the trouble at work and preferring to take shortcuts; for example, failing to wear protective equipment where it is required, not addressing unsafe conditions promptly, and not correcting illegal operations or behaviors in the area in a timely manner ； 　　Rebelliousness – a reluctance to follow safety rules, a desire to show off one’s individuality, with the mindset that “it’s no big deal!” ” Herd mentality – following others in breaking rules blindly, thinking \"If others do it, then I will too,\" out of fear that one’s behavior will differ from that of the others” ； It doesn’t matter psychologically – distracted, indifferent whether following rules or breaking them ； I failed to realize the danger, ignored the rules and regulations, and did as I pleased. 　 The aforementioned insecure mindset stems from a low level of concern for safety, which in turn results from dedicating all energy and effort to production work. This dedication to production work is caused by the lack of extra energy to focus on other matters. 　　This teaches us that, while ensuring the normal progress of daily production activities, it is necessary to employ certain methods to enhance employees’ energy and capabilities, so that they can devote more of their energy and focus to safety. This requires, under the existing conditions, using appropriate incentives to unleash employees’ potential in order to prioritize safety as much as production. 　　However, certain methods and techniques should be used to motivate employees; otherwise, it is easy for the motivation to have little effect or even trigger a rebellious attitude among them, resulting in the opposite effect. 　　Analysis of Experience in Safety Incentives Certain methods and techniques should be employed to motivate employees regarding safety, so as to achieve the desired motivational effects. The basic methods are summarized as follows: 1. Set reasonable goals The goals set should be challenging yet achievable through effort. If achieving the goal proves difficult, it is necessary to break it down into smaller parts. This not only prevents the long timeline required to meet the goal from leading to a loss of enthusiasm and thus incomplete completion of the task, but also avoids a decline in motivational effects when sufficient incentives are provided. 　　In the motivation process, setting goals is an important step, goal decomposition is a key element, and long-term motivation serves as the guarantee. 　　It is worth noting that when setting goals, it is necessary to take into account both the team’s expectations and the regional needs. For example, if a goal is set for a particular region to become an outstanding area in terms of safety performance for the year, this goal should be broken down into sub-goals such as controlling accident rates, ensuring complete system documentation, providing safety training for employees, and fostering a safety culture at the team and section levels. Once these sub-goals are achieved, tools such as WeChat, email, weekly reports, and reports submitted to the safety committee can be used to recognize and praise those who have accomplished them. 　　For those aspects that deviate from the expected goals, synchronized exposure can be used to urge progress, and special inspections can also provide positive and negative incentives for the relevant areas. 　　2. Encouraging autonomy in motivation It is necessary to, based on the circumstances of the individuals being motivated, gradually guide them to transform external incentives into autonomous motivation. Only when these individuals voluntarily convert external incentives into their own habits or motivations can long-term motivational effects be achieved. 　　3. Ensuring rationality Incentives need to be reasonable to a certain extent, that is, in terms of both depth and breadth of rationality. Deep rationality means that the legitimate incentives are appropriate to the level of contribution made by the person being motivated and the difficulty of the goal. 　　Avoid excessive positive or negative incentives, as this can lead to the \"marginal effect\" – excessive focus on one aspect may cause things to develop in a direction contrary to the original intentions. 　　Beeb’s law confirms the accuracy of the aforementioned principle of rationality: after a person has experienced a strong stimulus, applying another stimulus becomes insignificant to that person, meaning that a strong stimulus can dilute the effect of a weaker stimulus applied later. Appropriate breadth means that incentives should be assigned to individuals or groups suitable for a particular goal, and these should be confined to the selected group, in order to prevent too many people from being involved in the incentive process or to avoid malicious obstruction by those who do not belong to the target group. 　　4. Seize the right moment 　Seizing the right moment means knowing when to provide motivation – giving further encouragement when the person in need of it is urgently seeking it, or when the enthusiasm generated by a previous incentive has not yet faded. The more timely the motivation, the better it is at pushing people’s enthusiasm to its peak, enabling their creativity to be expressed continuously and effectively. 　5. Tailored incentives Incentives should be designed according to the different needs of individual people; by tailoring the incentives to each person’s specific circumstances, it is possible to most effectively stimulate their desire for those needs, thereby maximizing the impact of appropriate incentives. 　　For example: The workers involved in the original outsourced project had a poor awareness of safety when working at heights; they refused to wear safety belts and claimed that even if an accident occurred and they received substantial compensation, they would be willing to accept it so as to ensure a good standard of living for their sons without having to work. Therefore, it can be seen that this construction worker has a high desire for material wealth. Incentives can be provided regarding the consequences of the accident and future projections. To this end, it is explained to him that in the event of an accident, even if he can receive compensation from the project contractor, he will lose his ability to work. By then, they would realize the importance of it, voluntarily wear seat belts, and be able to gently remind and advise other construction workers in their future work. 　　6. Certainty 　　Incentives must have certainty in two aspects: one is the certainty of the goal, that is, there must be clear requirements regarding the assigned goals ； The second is the determination of benefits, that is, ensuring that all those who are motivated know what the incentives entail. This helps to establish a competitive mechanism for achieving goals more effectively, while also preventing psychological disappointment resulting from incentives not meeting the expectations of those being motivated, which could have negative effects. 　　In summary, by using appropriate methods for safety incentives, it is possible to encourage personnel at all levels to take an active role in safety management activities related to the identification of potential hazards, thereby contributing to the improvement of the base’s safety management standards and overall safety culture. At present, safety incentives still serve only as a reference experience. In the future, the incentive systems for various safety management practices within the company will continue to be updated and improved, with the goal of establishing a cultural approach to management that enhances the capabilities and skills of those responsible for safety management. For example, provide incentives to safety management personnel or conduct relevant incentive training, and establish a reward and punishment system tailored to the construction process of project contractors.