IMGCAP(1)]
Healy Long & Jevin Inc., a Wilmington, Del.-based concrete construction company, last year begin offering employees debit cards to promote safety in the workplace. Healy Long & Jevin loads $25 on their MasterCard-branded prepaid cards when employees as a team work a minimum of 30 hours a week without a recordable accident. Healy Long & Jevin loads funds into card accounts at the end of the following month. The company first offered the "SafeRewards" prepaid card in August 2008 to 35 to 40 office and construction workers. The card provides faster gratification compared with the regular bonus program, which also was designed to encourage safety in the workplace. "Before we put this [debit card program] into place, we rewarded our core group of superintendents, carpenters, cement finishers and labors for safe performance with an end-of-year bonus," Joe Abbonizio, company management and safety officer, said in a statement. "Because safety is job one in our company, we wanted it to be top of the mind among all of our employees." Maverick Network Solutions, a company that designs card rewards programs, designed the debit card-based incentive program. Palm Desert (Calif.) National Bank issues the card. Maverick, also based in Wilmington, declined to say how much funds have been loaded into the card accounts. The SafeRewards card, however, encourages employees to work together to promote safety because of the financial reward they can receive. If an accident occurs within the 30 hours, Healy Long & Jevin does not reload funds into any of the employees' card accounts, the company says in a news release. "Because this incentive program requires everyone to be accountable to each other on the job for safety, and because immediate gratification is built into the system, the attention given to safety has definitely increased," Sean Healy, Healy Long & Jevin treasurer, said in a statement. "Our employees are now coming to us in a few days before the end of each month to check out safety performance for the preceding month and to find out if they have earned the reward." It is not known if the incentive program has led to a reduction in accidents.
