Workplace Communicator Blog

How to Design your next Safety Campaign

Now that you have worked out your topic for your next routine workplace safety campaign, it's time to sit down and start writing.  Here are some tips that have been designed for routine workplace communication initiatives (and not for large safety communication programs that require a lot of change, for large scale initiatives go to "14 Tips to Launch a New Safety Initiative").

1. Work out your main communication objective and your audience.  Keep yourself focused on what your are communicating about and who to.  Work out your key goals and keep these in your mind while designing your campaign (check your safety figures to see what issues you might be having that needs to be addressed).  Get out a picture or a photo of the person who represents your target audience.  Master communicators find it very useful and inspiring to look at these photos, while trying to come up with the right wording.  You can even label them and refer to them affectionately, as “Cam the Construction Man” or “Patty the Packer”.

2. Research your topic – Find as much information as you can about the topic and look for interesting facts and figures.  What can you say that topic that's unexpected or different?  How can you break a pattern and get people's attention?  Use this information to write your headline.  But make sure you develop one core message.  Often, it’s tempting to believe we have lots to say and we feel that we need to talk about everything around that topic to communicate safety.  Yet, research has proven that too many messages confuse people.  Write your communication with one clear message in mind.  Every time you add content question whether it is part of your core message.  Remember, simple clear messages are easy for people to understand and recall.  Steve Jobs was a master of the core message in each of his famous Apple presentations.  Think “1000 songs in your pocket” for the iPod.

3. Keep your writing short – Once the brain has to work hard at what communication is trying to say, it begins to lose interest.  Always ensure your communication is clear and people don’t need to work at deciphering the information.  Use short words (5 characters or less), sentences (17 words or less) and even paragraphs.  Be friends with white space avoiding cramming lots of text into your communication.  Write at the reading level of a high school student.  And use positive language.

4. Write the announcement - Now that you've done some research and you've honed your writing skills, it's time to get writing.  Remember, how can you make the headline interesting?  What can you say that is counter-intuitive to the message?  Common sense will not get you noticed.  What interesting facts do you have about the safety focus that will grab people's attention?  Use the funnel method of writing where you explain your core message in your first paragraph (what, when, why, how where) and then write your medium important information in the next paragraph, followed by the third important information etc.  Avoid giving lots of details in the first paragraph.  Instead, make the first paragraph interesting, so that it draws people into the detailed information (but not necessarily the most important information).

Here's an example in relation to slips, trips and falls:

Falling Down Stairs kills more people than Sharks

Did you know that you're more likely to injure yourself by falling down stairs than by being attacked by a shark?  Stairs represent a serious injury risk and are one of the most common causes of injury at the workplace.

And here at XYZ, they represent our most common form of injury.  You can avoid falling down the stairs by:

• Always having three points of contact

• Avoiding talking or texting while going up or down the stairs

• Ensuring that stairs are clear and are not used for storage of items.

5. Use lots of visuals – Humans recall and understand visual information much faster than words.  And they grab our attention.  Always include a photo or picture that best represents your information.  Where possible, use human faces, as we are very drawn to looking at other people.  Emotional imagery also is more likely to get people to change.  Always consider including different colours, video, diagrams and pictures whenever you need to create high impact communication materials.

6. Repeat your message in many different ways – Advertisers know that for humans to even recall a television ad they need to see it at least six times.  And the more they are exposed to the ad in different formats such as radio, bus posters and magazine ads, the better the results.  With any campaign you create, you will also need to create a calendar of communication events.  Ideally, you must plot out a different communication activity every week for the next 2 months with the same consistent message.  Include posters, toolbox meetings, video content, personal letters from the General Manager, email newsletters, stickers and staff stories.  Remember, frequency is key and using a variety of communication formats.  Make sure all of the communication has the same consistent core message with matching visuals.

Writing safety communication information generally isn't the most favourite job of a safety professional.  Rather than approach safety communication in the usual fashion and producing mediocre results, use these tips to engage your staff and make communication fun.

10 Ways to improve your Workplace Safety Communication

Everything we do is communication.  And it is no wonder that research studies point to 70% of workplace mistakes being caused by poor communication.

How we start our message often determines the result.

According to Crystal Clear Communication, by Kris Cole, people quickly determine the meaning of our message and whether they will be receptive at the beginning.  We only have a short time to get our messages across:

• 2 minutes when we are face to face
• 30 seconds on the telephone
• 10 - 15 seconds by voice mail.

So the more important the message, the bigger the need to plan what you are going to say.

Here are 10 ways to grab engagement with workers when talking about a new or existing safety initiative during your next toolbox talk, safety initiative launch or other safety meeting.

1. Start with explaining the current safety status.  This can best be shown with a visual. In 1994, when the new CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner was brought in to fix a troubled IBM, he put two charts on the wall to show how the market share had dramatically fallen.  Until that point in time, IBM staff refused to believe IBM was in trouble (they lost $8 billion that year).  A picture tells a thousand words.  IBM-ers quickly saw the message.
2. Customise your safety information.  If your message involves talking at various sites.  Talk about their individual safety records, not about the company as a whole
3. Explain the benefits of the safety initiative Talk about the thinking behind it and how it will effect staff, their family and the company.  For example, you can let people know how much you expect a new training program will contribute to a reduction in injuries and the consequences of that.
4. Get people involved with your message.  If you are talking to a group of people, get people actively  involved.  Ask them questions.  Get them to do a demonstration of how they are lifting with an expert there to point out how they can improve and what potential damage they could be doing to their bodies.  Another idea is to ask workers where they believe the new safety posters can be best placed.  What other strategies can you think of to get people to help with disseminating your message?
5. Repeat your message via different communication methods over a period of time. Use posters, video content, email newsletters, and letters from the GM.  Put together a schedule of communication events that constantly drip-feeds your message.
6. Tell stories. The right brain prefers story.  It also provides an emotional connection to information that people will remember.  What real-life workplace stories can you use that show the importance of safety?
7. Reward in public, condemn in private. Recognise high performing safety leaders or change leaders publicly.  This will encourage others to work more safely.  For those that are not doing the right thing, this needs to be done privately.
8. Use positive language. Avoid words like 'don't' and can't.  Focus on the behaviour you want, rather than talking about what you don't want.
9. Expectation Clarity. Let everyone know what it is expected of them and how you will be measuring it.  Clearly set goals and targets.
10. Follow up with Action. While workers might accept your words, they will want to see action that you believe what you say.  Keep communicating with them and checking on their progress.  Remember, the old adage "Actions speak louder than words".

What else would you add to this list?

Announcing Seven Communication Tips for Workplace Safety Managers Seminar at Safety in Action 2011

Getting Safety Training Messages to stick can be Tricky.  Find out Seven Key Factors behind Successful Workplace Communication and how to implement them.

Melbourne, Australia (9 March, 2011) – Digicast Productions, a safety and induction training video package production house, today announced that their popular seminar “Seven communication tips for workplace safety managers” will be available to all trade show visitors of Safety in Action in Melbourne during the 5 – 7 April 2011.

In this short, free 30 minute seminar, participants will learn:

• The most important components to include in induction training

• Seven communication tips for success

• How to be the industry leader in workplace communication.

Located at the Demonstration Stage seminar session times are:

• Tuesday 5 April– 2pm

• Wednesday 6 April– 1pm

• Thursday 7 April– 1pm

"Good clear points.  Good research data. Good examples". Alison Hunt-Sturman, Faculty OHSE Manager, University of Melbourne

All participants will receive a free copy of the popular white paper “Seven Communication Tips for Workplace Safety Messages”.

For a complete copy of the whitepaper, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/workplace-safety-messages/

"Easy to understand and listen to". Cameron Cranstoun, HSE Manager, The Bayside Group

Digicast Productions will present the Seven Communication Tips seminar at Safety In Action, which runs from April 5 to 7 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. For more information, visit www.safetyinaction.net.au, email safetyvisitor@aec.net.au or phone Australian Exhibitions & Conferences Pty Ltd on 03 9654 7773.

About Digicast Productions

Established in 1991, Digicast is an Australian vendor of customised safety and induction training videos. Thousands of people each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training videos. For more information, visit Digicast at www.digicast.com.au or The Workplace Improver blog for training tips, www.digicast.com.au/blog.  Digicast will also be located at stand S14.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross

Digicast Productions

+ 61 3 9696-4400

mc@digicast.com.au

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How to write the CEO Safety Speech

How the safety speech is written depends upon it's form of delivery (eg: written speech for the annual report, face to face presentation to staff or video presentation) and the audience. Ideally, the speech is tailored as much as possible to the particular group of workers as this will get more traction.

Another area is to consider is whether the speech is about a new safety program being introduced into the company or a speech that is talking about the current safety status.  Both of these types of speeches need to be approached differently.

Introducing a New Company Safety Initiative

In Blue Ocean Strategy, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, believe that any new company initiative needs to be introduced to all levels of staff (not just senior management) by a three step process.

1. Engagement – Allow all workers to have input into the strategic decisions that affect them by asking for their feedback.  This shows respect for staff and their ideas.  It also can contribute to better strategic decisions.  Ideally, you are able to do this step before the new safety initiative speech is undertaken.
2. Explanation – Everyone who is involved is given a clear explanation of the thinking underlying the new decision.  This is to build trust in regard to management decisions.
3. Expectation clarity – Once the strategy is finalised, managers clearly state the new rules of the game.  Goals and targets are set. Expectations for staff are clearly communicated.

In other words, to introduce a new safety initiative, the speech needs to contain information about:

• the current safety performance and why it needs to be improved  (explanation)
• the benefits to staff, company and community (expectation clarity)
• any negatives (explanation)
• how the new safety initiative will be measured and what is expected from each staff member (expectation clarity).

The Current Safety Status Speech

Once a new safety initiative has been introduced, it is vital that the CEO or other senior company representative gives regular progress speeches to staff.

As Dick Brown was quoted as saying in Execution, written by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan: "The culture of a company is the behavious of it's leaders.  Leaders get the behaviour they exhibit and tolerate".

After all, staff won’t believe that the company backs its safety messages, until they see the proof of action.   So it's worthwhile that the CEO gives a regular progress report.

In fact, according to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Built to Last, social psychology research indicates that when a leader publicly espouses a particular view, they become much more likely to behave consistently with that point of view even if they did not previously feel that way.

So there are two real benefits obtained from the CEO talking about company safety to staff.  The first one is that staff will be more persuaded to change their safety behaviour after listening to the CEO and the second one is that the CEO will start to behave more in line with the new safety initiative and as staff are more likely to believe action rather than words, staff will start to alter their behavior as well.

When it comes to writing this speech, the following need to be included:

1. Make it relevant to your audience – In the speech, make reference to their safety record as it can differ by site.  If you do have more than one site, it can be beneficial to compare that site to the best performing site to encourage some healthy competition.

2. Site Visit -  Enable the  leadership team and employees the opportunity to discuss safety issues with the CEO. This is important to showing that the CEO really does care about their safety and is serious about change.

2. Recognise high performing safety leaders or change agents.   As well as congratulating each of these people in person, it is also important to mention these leaders in any safety talk.  This will shows that the CEO will reward those who work safely and it will also encourage others to work more safely.

3. Use stories. Where possible, include any examples of staff/sites who have improved safety.  Stories help provide an emotional connection and help people to remember.  They are particularly useful when you need to get people to remember data.

5. Make it simple. Keep the messages down to 3 -5, as brain studies show that this is the maximum amount of information people will remember.

Remember that staff want to feel safe in their own workplace.  They also look to the senior leader to see evidence that safety is important.  And while they might listen to your words, it really is action that they want to see.  So by undertaking individual site visits and checking on their progress will really show that the CEO means business when it comes to safety.

See how the experts do it:

Delivering the CEO Safety Speech - An Interview with Stuart Jaquet, Lafarge Plasterboard Australia

How to Improve Manual Handling Training and Awareness

One in three injuries to Australian workers are caused by manual handling, with inexperienced staff at greater risk.

Back in 1986, the New Zealand Accident Compensation Corporation was faced with increasing back injuries and decided to launch a nationwide television campaign to promote good lifting and bending techniques among the general public.

The campaign consisted of a one minute television ad shown at peak viewing times that motivated people to bend their knees whenever they were going towards the floor to either lift or put down objects.  In addition, a 25 minute training video was produced called "The Bad Back Video".

The results of 1,000 randomly selected respondents were quite remarkable.

The survey findings were based on those who had seen one minute ad:

• Fifty-four percent of the respondents were aware that lifting, bending and strains were a major cause of back injury.
• While 88% of those who had seen the ad, said that they had modified they way they treated their backs, while 49% had changed their lifting behaviour.

Doctors, schools and industry all took some of the promotional materials and used them to train patients, students and workers.

There are some flaws to these research findings (eg: how did people lift a year later?, what percentage of people were aware of the major causes of back injury before the ads?)

But it does raise an interesting fact.

Video is a powerful way to inform and educate viewers on correct lifting techniques. To properly train manual handling techniques, video modules are required.

For those of you who have tried to increase awareness of manual handling tasks using photos, you know that the the learning task is next to useless.  By using video for learning, you will greatly improve your training outcomes.

If you want to see how a manual handling training program was successfully implemented across Australia and New Zealand to train 3,000 plasterboard workers, read this manual handling case study.

This information was taken from "Back injury prevention - Awareness versus Performance" by Leornard Ring , Professional Safety, July 1989

Announcing New White Paper: Seven Communication Tips for Workplace Safety Messages

Getting Safety Training Messages to stick can be Tricky.  This New Report reveals the Key Factors behind Successful Workplace Safety Communication and how to implement them.

Melbourne, Australia (7 October, 2010) – Digicast Productions, a safety and induction training video production house, today released a new white paper “Seven Communication Tips for Workplace Safety Messages”.

Effective communication is vital to get staff and contractors aligned and working towards a positive safety culture.  Yet, just providing training to work safely is not always enough.  How we communicate about safety influences whether or not people will accept or reject our safety messages.

The main objective of any safety communication program is to change behaviour.  But how does a safety, training or human resources professional change attitudes towards safety?

Find out how in this exclusive white paper, which also looks at:

• The secret to developing highly successful safety communications programs
• How to develop a workplace safety message strategy
• Seven tips to improve both your written and verbal safety communication
• How the Gypsum Board Manufacturer’s of Australasia (GBMA) promoted manual handling techniques to 3,000 workers across Australia and New Zealand.

For a complete copy of the whitepaper, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/workplace-safety-messages/

About Digicast Productions

Established in 1991, Digicast is an Australian vendor of customised safety and induction training videos. Thousands of people each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training videos. For more information, visit Digicast at www.digicast.com.au or The Workplace Improver blog for training tips, www.digicast.com.au/blog.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross

Digicast Productions

+ 61 3 9696-4400

mc@digicast.com.au

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Do you make these mistakes in your workplace safety communications?

Effective communication is vital to get staff and contractors aligned and working towards a positive safety culture.

Yet, just providing training to work safely is not always enough.   How we communicate about safety influences whether or not people will accept or reject our safety messages.

A lot of companies produce training about a particular safety topic or  communicate awareness with lacklustre results.

We have found that the following issues often let safety communication down:

1. Infrequent safety message reminders - Multiple message placements are the key to getting staff to remember new safety messages.  Try and get workers to engage in your safety messages in different formats (such as watching it, hearing it and reading it).  People learn in a variety of ways, so an effective safety campaign needs to use a variety of communication methods.  Messages need to be distributed in multiple ways and multiple times. Workers will need six or more separate exposures to your message to remember.  Use video, newsletters, posters, meetings, events and training sessions.  The more the better.
2. Messages aren't credible - Senior management play an integral leadership role in establishing the culture of a company including safety.  Effective safety leadership needs to be led and driven from the top.  Staff look at senior leaders actions to see whether new safety messages are being taken seriously.  Are your senior leaders really supporting the new messages or are they just playing lip service?
3. Messages aren't consistent - Good safety communication campaigns have alignment with all departments who are all working towards the same outcome.  This means working with all departments before you launch your safety messages and ensure that they will work with you and not against you.  A common example is that the production manager will push for speed, while the safety manager will tell people to work safely and cautiously.
4. Overuse of negative language - When writing your safety messages, it is important that positive language is used that focuses on the behaviour you want and not the behaviour you want to avoid.  It also needs to communicate the issue in friendly language rather than rule-based or blame-centric writing.  You will get little traction of your message if you blame workers for the current state of affairs.
5. Lack of consequences - It is important to introduce the new safety initiative by first explaining to everyone what the current problem is and the issues it is causing.  Then, managers need to explain the new rules of the game and the expectations.  It is also really important to let workers know of the consequences of not following the new guidelines.  This means letting staff really understand that poor safety behaviour not only puts themselves at risk, but the safety of other workers.  Let them know the effect this will have on their personal life and their family.

Of course, there are a lot more mistakes, but these are the main ones.

What can you do to improve your safety communication?

How Standardizing your Safety Communication improves Workplace Consistency

When it comes to training staff on safety or procedures, one of the biggest problems many of our clients talk about is the difficulty of training staff consistently across numerous sites.

Often, staff are taught different information from one site to the next. And when you have hundreds or thousands of staff, this can be problematic.

It often results in different levels of productivity and a wild variation in safety records across the board.

Unless companies have a standardized approach to their training,  variations in the training message will create a workforce that is not aligned and working together to reach the same goals.

Buddies - Friends or Foe?

One area where this can be quite problematic is the buddy system form of training.

According to Wikipedia, the buddy system is a procedure in which two people, the buddies, operate together as a single unit so that they are able to monitor and help each other.  In training or the induction of newcomers to an organization, the less experienced buddy learns more quickly from close and frequent contact with the experienced buddy than when operating alone.

The buddy system is a good system that research has found provides optimal induction training.  However, the buddy system is only as good as the buddy doing the training.  What can sometimes happen is that companies assume that workers will train new staff the right way.  But what can happen if staff have had inconsistent training, is that they perpetuate more inconsistent training.  So new staff end up being taught different processes and safety information, which over time, can result in disastrous consequences.

The solution is to provide everyone with consistent training and the same stardardized messages.  Only then does the buddy system work effectively.  In fact, it will work extremely well and further reinforce messages and understanding.

Systemizing your Messages

The key to getting your workforce all understanding your safety and training messages in unison is the simple reinforcement of facts.  Repeatability and standardization of message are key.

And one proven way is to develop training videos for your company.  Even better if you can create other communication types that convey your core messages that hit all of the senses (see it, touch it, hear it etc).  Only then will you get message standardization.  And as a training video automates the messaging, it is a cost effective way to get consistent message understood by your workers no matter where they are located.

Helping Senior Leaders Lead

One further benefit is that when the CEO needs to visit different sites across the country, he or she will do a far better job communicating to all the workers who are all aware of the company stance on safety, the company vision and goals.  Rather than spend time writing different speeches to cater for the differing levels of safety awareness, the CEO can go and out communicate and engage knowing that everyone is on the same page.

How Poor Communications results in Workplace Mistakes

Research studies tell us that 70% of workplace mistakes are a result of poor communication.

Communication failures can be costly.  It can cause loss of business, accidents, frustration, hostility, high employee turnover, low productivity and much more.

According to Kris Cole, who wrote the book Crystal Clear Communication, there are quite a range of communication difficulties.  These being:

• Not explaining goals or priorities properly
• Not listening
• Not understanding fully and failing to ask questions
• Mind made up, preconceived ideas
• Not understanding others' needs
• Not thinking it through clearly, jumping to conclusions
• Losing patience, allowing discussion to become heated
• Short of time
• Bad mood
• Failure to explore alternatives

But it's not just personal communication that can go awry.  Business communication will also fail to miss the mark, if those responsible for corporate communication have the same communication difficulties as mentioned above.  That's why it is so important when companies commence a training video that all of those involved in the process are on the same page.  Otherwise, the training video process can be drawn out and in danger of missing the mark.

Where in your daily life can you change your communication style to ensure mistakes get reduced?  And for company communication, how can you make sure it is unified with all those responsible aligned with the same agenda?

How to improve safety by valuing safety in hard dollars

It might seem like a hardened, senior management business view, but there is evidence that moving from measuring incident rates to the cost of safety in dollar terms, can actually improve safety.

In his article, Mind Shifting into Safety Excellence,  Dr Larry L. Hansen from L2H, talks about the need for companies to change how they measure safety performance.

As Dr Hansen succinctly puts it, “What does your CEO and CFO value most…reduction in rates? Or reduction in costs?" Obviously, nearly everyone would choose costs.  Yet,  so many companies emphasize incident rates as the driving metric of safety performance.

In a Safety & Health magazine readership poll a resounding 86.3% percent of respondents believed that occupational injuries in the US are under-reported.

“The biggest impediment to safety excellence is the use of incident rates as the driving measure of performance.” – Dan Zahlis

While at a more local level, Dr Yossi Berger from the Australian Worker’s Union (AWU) has stated in a recent NSCA interview that reductions in injuries do not provide the correct information about the quality of health and safety standards nor about daily risks experienced by workers at their tasks.

Dan Zahlis, Founder of the Active Agenda project used to be the Regional Risk Manager for The Häagen-Dazs Company.

His most immediate challenge was to reduce high Workers Compensation costs at the California facility. What he found was that head office imposed "incident rate measurements‟  which had frustrated supervisors (because they were accountable for something over which they had little control), had created employee cynicism, (because workers knew that numbers were suspect), and had driven real problems and near-miss events underground, (until they ultimately surfaced as costly injuries).  Dan removed the incident rate measurement and implemented what he called the "ultimate safety metric‟ - "Average Loss Cost‟ -calculated by the following formula:

Average Loss Cost = Total COST of all INCIDENTS/Total NUMBER of all INCIDENTS

(And by INCIDENTS, Dan meant ALL - Near Misses, First Aid, Medical Only, Restricted Duty, and Disabling)

Dan's goal was to build trust and remove cynicism by removing the negative consequences associated with reporting, which in turn would expose real problems and allow real safety progress to occur.

The genius of this metric is that the only two ways it can be improved is by increasing the number of incidents reported (exposing hidden problems), or by reducing total costs (forcing better management of employee claims).

At the end of the first year, the plant reported 33% more claims, BUT produced a 30% reduction in claim costs.  And, of course he lost his job for bucking corporate policy.  He then went on to a Dole Foods Division where he applied the same approach and reduced loss costs from $385,000 to $30,000 in the first year.

So what do you think?  Leave a comment below about your company incident rates and your experiences.