Dr. Dietmar Elsler Project Manager Working Environment Information Unit “Economic incentives to improve occupational safety and health”

How to motivate employers? How to reach the workplace?  Regulation  Information about economic benefits  External 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 Reduce accidents by 25 % European Agency Project on 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 on oOccupational accidents and diseases oSpecific risk of sector oPrevention 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

Succes of driver safety training in German butchery sector

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. oList of machines are very OSH friendly and are worthwhile to be supported oWhich measures could be rewarded in which sectors (standard lists) oHow to stimulate innovative OSH solutions, e.g. through an employee suggestion system

Thank you very much for your attention! Dr. Dietmar Elsler Project Manager European Agency for Safety and Health at Work Gran Vía, Bilbao - Spain Tel Fax