Dr. Dietmar ElslerProject ManagerWorking Environment Information Unit

“Economic incentives to improve occupational safety and health”

How to motivate employers?How to reach the workplace?

Regulation Information about economic benefitsExternal Economic Incentives

(e.g. insurance or tax incentives)Ethics, social responsibility

Why a project on economic incentives?

More economic incentives is called for in in the new community strategy

Need to develop better models for SMEs Need for models which reward rather OSH

effort than only OSH results Connecting economic incentives with OSH

information has proven very effective Institutions that can provide incentives

need good practice information

European Agency Project on

Economic Incentives

Objective: Provide information for insurers or other organisations

which may be able to provide economic incentives

Performance indicators A report about European and international models and

policies regarding OSH economic incentives Develop a network of European organizations which

could provide OSH economic incentives Insurers or other organizations use Agency report for the

development of economic incentive schemes in OSH More EU countries will offer incentives schemes, also

targeted on SMEs, which today often not benefit from such programmes.

European Strategy 2007-2012Reduce accidents by 25 %

European Agency Projecton economic incentives

Network of economic incentives

organisations

Topic Centre – Consortium of European OSH

institutes

Project organisation

Tasks of Economic Incentives Network

Give front-end information about the information needs on economic incentives

Exchange research and good practice information on economic incentive models

Give input and advise for Topic Centre products

Promote the results of the project Explore possibilities how to promote the use

of incentive models in Europe

What could act as an incentive?

Insurance premium variations, e.g. dependent ono Occupational accidents and diseaseso Specific risk of sectoro Prevention activities such as training,

investments, personal protection measures Tax incentives, e.g. better write-off conditions Better banking conditions, e.g. lower interest rates State subsidies, e.g. for innovative investments or

reorganisation Certification of OSH managment systems (e.g.

reimbursement of certification fees)

Recent innovative economic incentive models

France: Insurance premium variations in the health insurance

UK: Linking insurances premiums with a SME-OSH-Index

Germany: Accident insurance variations in butchery and healthcare sectors

Denmark: Subsidy scheme to reduce RSI Netherlands: Tax incentives for OSH

investments

Incentive model in German butchery sector

Preventive approach

Tangible measures

Bonus Points (can reduce premium by 5%)

Technical measures

Use special safety knives

8 points

Organisational measures

Road safety training for drivers

8 points

Individual measures

Use skin protection agents

6 points

Incentive model in German butchery sector

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100

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

year

accid

ent

rate

per

1000 w

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Not participating 5-year participants

Succes of driver safety trainingin German butchery sector

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

2004 2005 2006 2007

Acc

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optimal driver training no driver training

Criteria for a good economic incentive system

Reward prevention efforts, not only results Prompt reward for prevention, no long

time delay between effort and reward A simple and easy to control procedure

(cost-effectiveness) SME friendly, high accessibility for all

kinds of enterprises

Possible results of our project I

Which incentive schemes can be applied under what national conditions?

Public insurance

Private insurance

Other social system …

Insurance incentives

Tax incentives

Other incentive…

Small enterprises Large enterprises Sector Other …

Possible results of our project II

How to design a cost-effective incentive system that promotes prevention

Providing ready-to-use good practice examples, which are adaptable for several countries, e.g.o List of machines are very OSH friendly and

are worthwhile to be supportedo Which measures could be rewarded in which

sectors (standard lists)o How to stimulate innovative OSH solutions,

e.g. through an employee suggestion system

Thank you very much for your attention!

Dr. Dietmar ElslerProject ManagerEuropean Agency for Safety and Health at WorkGran Vía, 33 - 48009 Bilbao - SpainTel. +34 94 479 57 44Fax. +34 94 479 43 83http://osha.europa.eu/E-mail: elsler@osha.europa.eu