3 Critical Ways To Positively Communicate Safety

Do you want your people fearing for their safety? Or would you rather have them feeling confident and supported in their safe choices?

3 critical ways to communicate positive safety

The notice read: “An inspirational keynote speech preferably from someone who's had an accident. A leave-behind message to always be mindful and follow procedures. A flat fee of $(cheap). No phone calls please.

I was immediately disqualified on two counts: I have never had a workplace accident and I don’t work for cheap. Of both, I am proud. But it made me wonder why the company looking for a speaker would not want to hear from someone who has never had an accident? Why would they prefer a message based on injury, not safety?

A workplace injury makes you no more an expert in safety than being in a car accident qualifies you as a driving instructor. This is where the safety industry falls down; by confusing injury with safety. Broke people don’t deliver speeches to financial planners. Overweight people don’t deliver speeches to fitness trainers. But accident survivors deliver speeches at safety meetings.

Injured workers had better be talking to people about employee safety - not their own injury. Your mistakes are not their mistakes. Your injury has nothing to do with their safety.

A message of “don't do what I did” doesn't work. Stop focusing on your sad story. Instead, focus on their happy story. With that in mind, here are 3 critical ways to shift the conversation and become more positive in communicating safety:

1Stop talking about injury and start talking about safety. Safety is not the absence of injury. You can't talk about a negative and hope it results in a positive. If you're focused on injury, you're not focused on safety. There's no direct line between telling anyone what not to do and their ability to figure out what they should do. A list of what-not-to-buy isn't helpful at a grocery store. Are you focused on safety or injury; prevention or shock value; leadership or incident-investigation?

2Remove all injury posters, photos and videos from the workplace. Do you think Rory McIlroy won the 2014 PGA Championship by being reminded of how NOT to swing a golf club? Do you think that failed minor-league quarterbacks helped Seattle Seahawks' Russell Wilson win the Super Bowl last year? Pro athletes perfect their technique. They practice, they drill and they get coaching to improve their performance. They are not motivated by worst-case scenarios. That's because winners don't concentrate on loss. They focus on victory. They develop a plan, execute that plan and trust they are doing it right.

3Focus on their decisions - not their behaviors. Fix the iffy decisions that create the potential for injury. Decisions are the culprit, not the actions. Trying to change behavior without addressing the underlying decisions is useless. That's like painting a car and hoping the new coat of paint will stop the engine from burning oil. If you want to stop an engine from burning oil, you have to get under the hood. It's the same in safety. If you want to fix the decisions before they're made, you have to get under the hood (inside the brain). Give them the tools to make the right decision, then encourage them to follow the plan and praise them when they do. Give them a plan to be safe instead of creating a fear of injury.

Threats and scare-tactics don't stick long-term. You will need to repeat your shock-value over and over again. Each time you use shock, it loses a little effectiveness. At some point, your people become desensitized. You may get short-term compliance. But if you're still trying to scare your people into safety, then you might as well admit that you're out of ideas.

Do you want your people in the field fearing for their lives? Or would you rather have them feeling confident and supported in their safe choices? Which do you think would yield better results over the long term? Over time, negative messages lose their impact resulting in message-fatigue and mental burnout?

Make a plan to make your 2015 safety meetings focused on the positive. You might even consider a 2015 positive-safety kick-off meeting in January. Meanwhile, download my free e-book below, 5 Must-Knows In Hiring A Safety Speaker.

5 Must Knows of Hiring a Safety Speaker

(c) Can Stock Photo

Topics: safety speaker, safety culture, safety marketing