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A New Approach To Employee Behavior Change..
Traditional safety incentive programs often fail to sustain behavior change. Our tax-free, behavior-based recognition solutions produce dramatic improvements in performance while lowering costs and eliminating administrative headaches.
Healthpoints wellness incentive programs help you change behavior of medium and high risk employees. And our Bright Idea suggestion scheme and employee suggestion programs saved $11 million in just 18 months for one client. While our Wow! Employee recognition program drives real engagement and job satisfaction....
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Complimentary Video:
Green Beans & Ice Cream
The Winning Recipe for Employee Engagement, Motivation & Retention.
In this award-winning seminar, Bill Sims Jr. presents case studies on incentives and the latest research on successful behavior-based recognition programs. Includes printable presentation and research reports. 
Healthpoints Wellness
Incentive Program decreases costs and boosts wellness participation by 70% or more. More >
Live Webinars
Held first Wednesday of each month
Learn the basics of behavior change from the comfort of your own office. 3pm Est More>
Employee Satisfaction
Survey Program
Why spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to survey your employees when you can get the same results for free? Try our complimentary Employee Survey Service and find out quickly how happy your employees are.
Request Your Free Surveys Now
(Program available in the U.S. only)
Prochaska Was Wrong
For years, like many, I have felt that the Stages of Change
model was THE definitive approach to changing human behavior. For those
of you who are a little rusty on this topic, the theory states that
any type of human behavior change has 5 stages: Read More
All Recognition Programs Are Not The Same
On the surface, all recognition programs look alike. And yes, when you ask them, employees always say, "just give me the cash." But look closer, and you'll see why in the long run, cash isn't king. In fact, Goodyear found that merchandise recognitions outperformed cash by
2-to-1. Recent surveys show 94% of all employees prefer a tax-free gift in favor of taxable cash or gift certificates. And Toyota found that it costs $192 to award an employee $100 in cash or Sears Gift Certificates. That's over $92 lost to taxes!
And a far more important question than the tax issue is: Did your recognition program work? Did it cut your injuries, without injury hiding? Did it boost your sales? Did it produce money-saving suggestions? Are you really getting enough bang for your recognition buck? Too often, managers just shrug their shoulders when asked these questions.
We've helped companies just like yours keep their profits from going up in smoke, and add millions of dollars to their bottom line. We can show you how to design a tax-free recognition program that will produce the results you want, and we'll make program administration a breeze.
To reassure you that we can help your organization achieve its goals, please feel free to call some of our clients and ask how we have helped them.
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The monthly Behavior Change eNews includes case studies, research reports and program updates (you can unsubscribe at any time).
The Real Goal Is Behavior Change...But What Are You Doing About It?
Today's managers want sustained employee behavior change. Behavior change requires top-notch training and consistent recognition.
Employees rank recognition as the most important ingredient in job satisfaction, while a bigger paycheck ranks a lowly sixth place. And yet, 73% of all employees say they aren't recognized often enough by their managers.
A disenchanted staff drains your business of morale, motivation and profits. But empowered, recognized employees deliver amazing performance improvement. Consider these results .
CLIENT FEEDBACK
"We cut work comp from $3.2 million to $1.3 million this year." ~Sonia Pishehvar, CHSA
We improved quality with bright idea suggestions and put over $8 million on our bottom line in 2 years." -Siemens
"We reduced unscheduled absenteeism by over 80%." ~Kenny Sawyer, Dorsey Trailers\
"We nailed the first 4 S's, but that 5th one 'Sustain' was a killer! Our Bill Sims 5S program is helping us turn that around." ~Spirax
"We're serious about reducing our healthcare costs, and Bill Sims has given us the tools to do it--increasing wellness participation by 70%." ~Bank South
> more client feedback\
Bill Sims Company -- Over 40 Years of Changing Behavior . . .
Do you need to improve morale, reduce injuries & work comp costs, boost sales, or motivate your employees to turn in more money saving bright ideas? Are your absenteeism, healthcare costs and turnover spiraling out of control? Our solutions deliver the results you need fast....
For over 40 years, The Bill Sims Company, Inc. has offered employee motivation and recognition programs like 5s that have helped large and small firms like yours save more money and increase productivity in the workplace. We provide your business with more than 50 years of employee recognition, workplace motivation and appreciation experience that will help you develop an employee appreciation, employee recognition reward and employee suggestion programs you need to inspire better employee performance, meaningful morale, sales gifts and gift card incentive results and bottom-line profits.
With employee motivation and morale improvement, you will have sales and performance improvement as well. Through our employee workplace appreciation, recognition reward and employee workplace suggestion programs, your company will continue to improve in workplace performance, meaningful morale, sales incentive results and bottom-line profits.
We also offer safety recognition programs, and gift card perks that will make your work place a safer place for your employees. Our programs will improve workplace performance while providing a safer work environment for everyone. One client invested $20,000 and achieved $1.3 Million in savings in 9 months alone. Order our free DVD to learn more about our employee motivation and 5s workplace recognition programs. Learn more about Bill Sims Company . . .
Bill Sims take on Behavior-Based Safety...
A Bird's Eye View of the Rise of Behaviorism in the Workplace...
Behavior-Based Safety is both loved and hated. Hailed by some as the answer to all of our human challenges, it is feared by others as a way for "big brother" to control and humiliate the worker.
As is true of most things in life, neither of these extreme views are truly accurate. The answers are often a bit cloudy, and murky since so many consultants have slapped the "behavior based" wording on differing models.
I will attempt to bring some clarity to this discussion by offering the following thoughts.
Behavior-Based Performance Improvement Solutions
Safety
Behavior Change
Whether you are a large company or a small one in
search of safety incentive solutions, you've come to the right place.
We began in the 1960's helping companies improve safety performance
with our comprehensive, tax free safety incentive strategies. Over
1,000 firms have successfully used our solutions to change behavior.
Most important is the fact that our incentive solution is uniquely
behavior based, unlike many other program which encourage injury
hiding and under reporting. While you may have typed "safety
incentives" into the search engine, in truth, most managers are
not looking for safety poker, bingo, scratchoffs, jackpots or other
gimmicks, but instead desire sustained safety behavior change. Our
safety incentive approaches have helped many companies reduce
injuries 90% or more, saving millions in the process--all without
injury hiding.
Wellness Incentive Solutions
Our Tax Free
Wellness Incentive solutions will you help you change health
behaviors leading to long term lower health-care costs. Over 75% of
all wellness programs realize the need for wellness incentives,
however, 4 out of 5 fail to reach the most important medium and high
risk employees who drive 73% of your health care costs. These
ineffective "one size fits all" approaches to wellness
incentives fail to make a difference. In surveys done by Bill Sims
and Welcoa (a leading wellness organization) the two most popular
wellness incentives are cash and health-care discounts. Oddly enough,
the research also shows them to be the least effective. Our tax free
programs such as Healthpoints wellness incentive solutions are easy
on your budget and your time.
Morale & Teamwork
Are you
struggling with lackluster performers, high turnover, or poor
employee satisfaction scores? Our Smartcard behavior based
recognitionTM solution will help your recognize day in/day
out your above and beyond performers. In a study by Watson Wyatt,
employee recognition is the number one reason that top companies
outdistance their competitors. Eighty years of research have proven
that it isn't salary increases or better benefits that drive superior
performance. These expensive solutions are soon forgotten and become
expected. Learn how our positive reinforcement solutions will
streamline your recognition strategies.
Lean/Bright
Ideas
Looking for a Bright Idea Suggestion Incentive program or
Lean Suggestion Scheme? 9 out of 10 suggestion programs fail within 2
years due to common beginner's mistakes. Learn how to avoid these
pitfalls with our Lean Bright Idea Suggestion Incentive system. It's
documented $11 million in savings in 18 months for Siemens, $2.2
million for the Department of energy in 2 years. The best part? All
the administration is done by us. Leaving you more time to focus on
innovation and cost savings. Order our free DVD today Bright Idea
Suggestion Schemes and Employee Suggestion programs.
Current Blog Article by Bill Sims Jr....
Injury Hiding-How do you stop it?
"I've inherited a safety incentive program that rewards people for lagging indicators and I'm worried there maybe injury hiding. How can I shift from safety incentives for trailing indicators, and instead become behavior based?"
By Bill Sims Jr.
All too often, safety managers find themselves the unwilling inheritants of an old school safety incentive program based on trailing indicators. These safety incentive programs reward employees to work a period of time without reporting injuries. While initially sometimes achieving dramatic injury reductions, these programs quickly deteriorate into a "self-perpetuating nightmare" as one safety manager put it.
The common problems associated with these safety incentive programs are:
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hard to say if the safety incentive budget is really producing a return on investment
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injury hiding as employees cover things up so as not to interfere with the group winning the award prize
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a "band aid" approach to safety as opposed to ripping out the roots of accidents
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an "entitlement mentality" where employees feel that they should be paid more or somehow earn a bigger prizes based on the number of years they've been injury free.
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safety committees who spend more time picking out the next safety incentive gift than figuring out the behaviors that should be rewarded and reinforced
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a focus on "what we will give as a prize" instead of "what behaviors will we reinforce?"
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employees who take safety seriously are rewarded at the same level as those who break safety rules and take chances--sending a message that management really only values the safety scores at the end of the year, not the behaviors that led to them.
These are only a handful of the problems associated with lagging indicator reward programs--for a full understanding please visit www.behaviorchangenow.com and view our free webinar.
So how do you drop lagging indicator rewards in favor of behavior based recognition(tm)?
Many companies just go "cold turkey". With a CEO's backing, the safety manager will simply end the trailing indicator rewards and get rid of the sacred cow.
Some companies choose to have no recognition in it's place (not a good idea), but others work to design a more behavioral type reward program.
In this approach, the new standard becomes ZERO UNSAFE BEHAVIORS & CONDITIONS in place of the old target of ZERO INJURIES.
Raising the bar sets a new standard for organizations who have struggled year after year to attain Zero Injuries but often failed. Now, armed with a behavioral tool that helps them chart unsafe actions, near misses, safety improvement suggestions, they can focus on the upstream and in striving relentlessly for Zero Unsafe Behaviors they achieve Zero Injuries as a byproduct.
Sticking with Trailing indicator rewards will kill this upstream approach every time....in short folks, "what got you here, won't get you there." and it is time to take off the training wheels and move into a BBR solution.
So what are the dynamics of an effective behavior based recognition (tm) solution?
Training - No More Spray & Pray
New research shows that 95% of all training is forgotten within 2 weeks (some safety managers say it happens in less than 2 hours!).
Many companies fool themselves into thinking that having employees sign a log sheet stating they attended the training meeting is sufficient to say that training
has occurred. They use a "spray and pray" approach to training where they spray their posters, newsletters and safety videos at employees and pray that people are paying attention...with no way to measure the impact of their training.
So, one of the most important places to link recognition is to employees who pay attention and learn what you want them to. A further, more forward thinking step is to recognize kids and spouses of employees for their buy in to your process.
Recognition, the Right Way.
One company decided to get rid of their old school lagging indicator programs and replace it with an in house safety incentive program. They purchased a supply of gifts, hired a full time employee to run their store, and printed up little "Safety Bucks" which were given to supervisors to reward employees who "did something safe".
Over time, they noticed that only the supervisors and their favorite employees were receiving any gifts...the good 'ole boy system was the kiss of death for their program.
Positive recognition has to occur on the spot, immediate, and within 15 seconds of the behavior, according to Aubrey Daniels. This means that you have to create an on the spot reward/recognition solution that eliminates favoritism, and injury hiding....and you have to get supervisors to buy into it and use it.
We've posted a number of tips and strategies on how to do this at our Behavior Based Recognition webinar which is free and found at www.behaviorchangenow.com.
While the journey from lagging indicators and old school safety incentives to true behavior based recognition is not a piece of cake, the long term improvements to your safety process will be well worth the effort.
As president of the Bill Sims Company, Bill Sims, Jr. has developed employee recognition programs for over 1000 companies, including
Disney, Dupont, Milliken and Coca-Cola. Bill is currently completing his first book – Green Beans & Ice Cream – The Definitive Recipe for Behavior Recognition.