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Safety Bingo Games Are NOT Alike!

Over the decades, we’ve seen any number of imitators — especially after the advent of the Internet in the 1990’s. Suddenly every Tom, Dick & Harry was heralding their version of safety bingo as though it offered the same proven effectiveness as Safety Pays.

Nothing could be further from the truth. All one needs to do is visit the various websites promoting safety bingo products. The Safety Pays differences are stark.

Most such offerings are nothing more than a set of rinky-dink bingo components that include a set of specialized rules. There’s little to nothing that provides on-going loss control support, much less regular upgrade ideas to support long term program usage.

How do they compete with Safety Pays? By promoting such safety bingo games as cheaper than Safety Pays. The problem is such buyers get exactly what they paid for; a generic safety bingo game and little more.

Playing bingo was never the idea behind Safety Pays. Its purpose was instead to link a company’s safety program to a motivational approach designed to encourage elevated employee safety awareness.

So when it comes to purchasing a safety bingo game… first ask yourself this question: What am I actually buying?

If it’s just a simple safety game for your employees to play, then any safety bingo game will do. They’re all pretty much the same.

However, if the purpose behind your safety bingo purchase is to have a program that’s been designed to achieve a full menu of loss control needs, then Safety Pays is the only bingo system that ensures all such value-added elements are included.

Furthermore, you’re assured of long-term customer support for as long as Safety Pays is utilized with a constant low of new ways to utilize and/or expand the program to include a variety of employee goals.

Cost is always a factor. What matters more is the value received for the price you pay. We’re confident you’ll see the Safety Pays difference!

How Safety Pays “Bingo” Works

Safety Pays is a fully-integrated system of rewards & recognition utilizing an entertaining bingo format. The game basics are as follows:

As long as all of the employees assigned to a Safety Pays game adhere to a Company’s safety rules/guidelines, individuals within that group will regularly (approximately once per month) win a progressive incentive dollar jackpot.

This jackpot will start at a base of $25 and grow by one dollar with one bingo number drawn per workday The jackpot continues to grow so long as the workforce fully adheres to the company’s safety policies.

However, if a safety infraction occurs, the game continues but the jackpot is reduced, proportionate to the type of infraction that occurred.

If it is an observed breach of safety rules, the jackpot is reduced by $2.
If the safety infraction results in an actual loss, the jackpot is reduced to its base of $25.
If there’s a near-miss incident, the jackpot is reduced anywhere from halfway to all of the way back to its base.

In all of these scenarios, the game continues with the jackpot rebuilding from there. If the loss occurred with no accompanying safety infraction, the jackpot continues to grow.

Most companies normally choose to place a cap on the jackpot (eg. $150, $200, $250 — whatever is appropriate given budget parameters, company policy, etc.)

Safety Pays believes there should always be a carrot at the end of the stick in order to create greater safety awareness. The size of that carrot is determined by only one metrics:

Strict adherence to the all Company safety protocols.

Reward should always be commensurate with achievement. However, safety incentives should never discourage but always encourage the desired behavior.

So, the Safety Pays approach is to consistently produce winners at the conclusion of each game round.

That way, an employee who is diligently working to be safe and close to winning a game round, will never feel demoralized by the cancellation of the reward. Instead, he or she knows a reward remains within their grasp; and one that continues to grow larger with each passing day.

Stopping a game – in fact, cancelling any safety incentive reward when an incident occurs is not only discouraging to those workers who are continuing to make an effort to succeed, but can also lead to injury hiding by an employee who doesn’t want to “kill the game” for everyone else because the reward is thereafter cancelled.

In addition to the game’s group incentive, opportunities for Bonus Card play — with special added dollar values — are generated. Those employees who provide the best safety suggestions during each game round are awarded extra cards for subsequent play. Bonus cards can also be awarded for a variety of individual behavior-based initiatives — “above and beyond the call”, perfect attendance, good housekeeping, helping others, etc.

Supporting these dollar incentives is an entertaining system of rules enforcement, winner recognition, employee accountability (to prevent fraudulent and post-termination claims) as well as effective safety communication– all in a user-friendly design to allow easy program administration.

More Than Safety Bingo

Safety Pays is NOT just safety bingo. Yes, it has its roots in safety bingo, but the two are as different from one another as a Ferrari is from a Model-T.

The term “safety bingo” is a simple workplace incentive concept that’s been around since the 1950’s. Over the next half century, any number of canned safety bingo games became available. Frankly, they’re a dime a dozen.

Along with scratch-off cards and prize catalogs, safety bingo has been one of many “old-school” approaches to worker motivation.

The problem has been that the emphasis was always more on “playing a game” than on the more important goal of raising safety awareness. Results were generally disappointing, and rarely long-lasting to the extent safety success was achieved.

Safety Pays is much more ‘motivational system’ than it is ‘bingo game’. Layer upon layer of loss control initiatives have been woven through the program’s design – making it not just entertaining but educationally interactive.

Since 1991, Safety Pays has provided its unique incentive approach to nearly 10,000 client companies nationwide. Yes, a bingo game formula remains at the heart of what we do. But in a way that’s been proven as what one of the most cost-effective motivational approaches available.

And now fully OSHA compliant!

Safety Pays Bingo: Fun, Entertaining and Rewarding – The Ultimate Safety Game

Adults Work; Children Play Games… Right? Wrong!

For many, the idea of “work” simply leaves no room for enjoying oneself. There’s a job to do and we’re expected to get it done. That’s always been the credo of many American workplaces.

However, any environment which is “all work and no play” has entirely missed the point that a happy worker is a more cooperative employee. Without that cooperation, any business is going to inevitably fail at reducing, if not eliminating, on-the-job safety infractions and the accompanying accidents/injuries.

That’s why the introduction of a fun, dynamic means of garnering workforce collaboration is so important.

However, when it comes to the utilization of an effective safety incentive program,the term “Safety Game” is not about playing games at all! It’s instead about garnering an employee’s attention — and with it, elevating that person’s level of safety awareness to the highest extent possible.

A short biographical story might help shed more light on how a well-designed safety game can have a phenomenal impact on workers, not just individually, but in creating a sense of teamwork and positive morale.

Back in the late 70’s, the creator of the Safety Pays program was a successful television writer. One of the secrets he’d learned from that time was to always leave the audience in suspense before going to the commercial breaks. Why? Because television programming exists for one simple reason: To keep the audiences’ attention between commercials!

That’s why Safety Pays utilizes a bingo component. It’s designed so that the employees’ experience is one of playing a game together. But what’s actually being provided are any number of avenues to increase their safety awareness, improve communication, and most importantly, to motivate each to help his or her co-workers observe the rules of safety.

Safety Pays is the television programming. A company’s safety program are the commercials we want their audience of employees to pay attention to. The Safety Pays game formula makes a rather mundane subject such as safety morph into a topic which is both fun and worthwhile.

Moreover, with Safety Pays ability to contour itself to a given company’s needs, it provides a new methodology to not only motivate workers to make a greater effort to work safely but also improve attendance, housekeeping – any number of collateral concerns relating to employee performance and/or behavior.