Employee engagement within an organization is vital to a company’s ongoing success and profitability. Engaged employees are safer, healthier, happier – and thereby more productive in the workplace. Best-in-class organizations recognize their people as their most important assets and implement recognition and incentive programs to motivate them. Empowering employees with the tools, resources, and support they need to live healthy lives requires attention from leadership at all levels. If communicated and managed properly, these types of programs are used as powerful tools that always result in a positive return on investment and significantly reduce turnover, disability claims, group health costs, and workers’ compensation expenses.

Award winning occupational safety and health magazine, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS), recently revealed the list of 2014 America’s Safest Companies, an award honoring organizations for their commitment and dedication to promoting a superior safety and wellness culture. These companies range from small entities to multinational corporations and represent different industries across the country with unique business objectives. The common theme within each of these organizations is the institution of best practices that improve the overall effectiveness of workplace health and safety programs. It is important to recognize and reward employees for their performance and proactive behavior. Egan Company explains how their incentive program is used as an engagement tool by “encouraging safe activities and behavior by offering “safety bucks,” which are redeemable for merchandise in the company store. Employees earn safety bucks for participating in training sessions, submitting safety suggestions and reporting near-misses, and for individual and corporate safety milestones. All corporate officers and group managers also carry safety bucks to provide an on-the-spot reward for safe behavior.”

According to recent research by the Harvard School of Public Health, workplace health and occupational safety programs, when combined, offer more benefits to employee health and quarterly profits than either can when implemented separately. Lifestyle habits such as inactivity, obesity, poor nutrition, tobacco and substance abuse, and even stresses not only lead to chronic illness, but puts employees at risk of unsafe practices.

One of the winning companies elaborated, saying “Safety is where business and family meet … Our objective is to maintain a safety and health program that will reduce the number of injuries and illnesses to an absolute minimum. By focusing on our employees and their health and safety, we are able to achieve this goal.” And another noted, “Injuries and illnesses can place a hardship on our ability to meet our customers’ needs if we have people unable to perform their duties because of injury or unwilling to perform their duties because of unsafe conditions”.

There is no denying that safety and wellness programs demonstrate positive results for the companies that implement them. For over 40 years, All Star Incentive Marketing has been partnering with clients to create branded safety and wellness incentive programs to build safe and healthy work environment while reducing costs. Click here to request a demo or for more information.