Every day, employees behind the wheel play a critical role in the success and safety of your company. To empower and motivate them towards practicing safe driving habits, implementing a robust safe driver incentive program can help. Safety incentive programs can be an important part of an effective loss control program and it protects the company’s profits and bottom line.
Driver safety incentive programs offer rewards to drivers who follow safe driving practices. A successful incentive program will communicate to company drivers exactly how they will be evaluated, and the program uses performance reviews to reward safe drivers. Results show that offering driver incentives for good behavior will increase motivation, compliance, and safety, while decreasing collisions and their associated costs.
Now that we discussed why these programs are important, how do companies create one? The rest of this article will go over how businesses can go about implementing a safe driver incentive program.
Developing A Driver Incentive Program
In order to have a successful incentive program that lasts, consider the following steps.
DEFINE THE OBJECTIVE(S)
Defining the program’s goals helps you build a successful program, giving managers and employees a clear message on what matters and what is expected of them. As with all programs, your objectives should be clear, realistic, and attainable.
- Increase driver safety awareness
- Ensuring the driver safety training is effective and adequate
- Improve driver productivity
- Decreasing accidents and accident costs
- Improve the safety culture in your organization
- Increasing driver retention
BUILD A USABLE DRIVER INCENTIVE PROGRAM
Effective safety incentive programs should not only be about giving rewards and bonuses to drivers. When building your incentive program, it’s a good idea to involve all levels of employees from drivers to upper management to create an incentive program that is fair.
Getting approval from the drivers is an important component of the program. You must make sure that driver representatives are included in the decision-making process about the program so that the driver’s interests and concerns are heard and considered. Without their “buy in” the program will have little chance of success.
Upper management commitment to the program will filter down to all employees, setting a good example for others to follow. In other words, management must walk the walk, not just talk the talk if the program is to have credibility and buy in.
ESTABLISH A BUDGET
Your incentive budgets should be weighed against the benefits of the program. Ensure your budget will cover the costs of rewards or bonuses as well as money for development and implementation.
DESIGNATE A PROGRAM LEADER
Establish a program leader or coordinator. This will be a member of your management team, like a fleet manager or a safety supervisor. This person will oversee the incentive program and their role and responsibilities should be clearly defined.
SELECT THE INCENTIVES
You should choose the appropriate rewards that will keep your drivers motivated, and the reward should be valuable enough to inspire them to do their best. Cash incentives are usually the most common motivator for employees. Although large amounts of cash are not necessarily needed. A combination of cash rewards as well as recognition awards are usually an appropriate motivator. This should lead to safer driving practices which will in turn save the company money by avoiding the costs of collisions.
Incentive selections:
- Cash incentives and bonuses
- Clothing with the company’s logo like hats or jackets
- Gas cards for their personal use
- Gift certificates to restaurants or stores
- Vacation time
- Use of a prized parking space
- Recognition by management at company events
- Rewarding drivers with their favorite routes
A great way to know what will motivate drivers to adopt your new safety program, is to ask them! They are best suited to tell you what will inspire them to drive safely and avoid accidents. Keep in mind that the value of the incentive should increase as the driver’s success increases.
In addition, how often the incentives will be calculated and paid out should be established. Think about keeping the safety program frequencies often (like monthly or quarterly), to sustain motivation. Shorter frequencies will also help with program administration and budgeting.
COMMUNICATE
It is critical that you clearly communicate this new safety incentive program with drivers. Let your drivers know what they will be evaluated on, what incentives they are eligible for, and how often they will be rewarded. Share their metrics or progress with your drivers so they can measure their performance and understand why they did or did not receive a reward.
- Creating a safety incentive program or handbook for employees
- Share details in company newsletters or at company meetings
- Posting details of the program in the workplace (posters or banners
EVALUATE THE DRIVER INCENTIVE PROGRAM’S EFFECTIVENESS
Track driver performance to determine appropriate rewards and incentives. This will help to identify areas where improvement is needed, provide coaching where needed, and maintain all safety standards. You may want to consider using a fleet management software to help track this information, particularly if you are dealing with a large fleet of vehicles. This will also be helpful for fleet managers giving them access to fleet vehicle locations and routes, as well as give notifications of delays or when a driver is speeding.
If you use a cost-benefit analysis, be sure to consider the direct and indirect costs associated with the program’s objective and keep in mind that the program may take some time to show a return on investment.
Monitoring the driver incentive program throughout the year will help to identify success of the program and will allow you to adjust the level of communication as needed. You should also seek feedback from employees on a regular basis, so they feel involved and motivated by the success of the program.