5 Ways to Make Safety More Fun
Some traditional safety programs focus on big picture metrics like recordable incident rates, and they approach safety from a reactive state of mind. However, today’s safety statistics show that relatable modern programs are better at mitigating injuries and incidents. The new tactics seem to capture a larger audience while still delivering the required information.
These new tactics include incentives and encouraged participation. Safety rewards may not be as exciting as a night out, but they encourage people’s cooperation and sometimes they can even be considered fun using some healthy competition. With that in mind, we’ve gathered some brilliant methods we’ve come across to make safety fun at the workplace. After all, safe team members should be praised and accredited; this is one of the few ways to influence others.
5 – Reward Safety
Awarding safety success is a great tool for creating more incentive. Clearly, employees care about their own safety but in todays society thanks to great protocols it is no longer the elephant in the room it once was. Rewarding safe staff helps employees realize you care more than just the bottom line.
Staff appreciate being recognized, and safety is a great thing to promote. Providing food at the workplace to celebrate safety success is one method. Many organizations have even created their own reward systems such as “safety dollars” or “safety coins” where team members can earn them as they perform tasks safely or as team members identify and correct safety hazards in the workplace. These safety dollars or coins can then be used to redeem prizes.
Likewise, creating set time periods to focus on safety behaviors–such as a company safety week or month–creates more incentive and keeps the topic fresh on the minds of team members.
4 – Relatable Fun Safety Courses
We’ve all been there. Watching a boring course that is just droning through the material and has little to no re-world examples. This sort of material can have an adverse effect on safety. Some courses even inadvertently trivialize the danger through poor acting and exaggerations. If you use outdated courses, it discredits your lessons. Look for safety courses that speak to your viewer and bring up real-world examples.
There are even courses that add a bit of humour to their lessons. Some see this as joking about safety, but that’s not how they’re seen by staff. These courses balance a tone that is less patronizing to your team members. Keep in mind team members find some lessons insulting and the slight bit of humour allows them to relax and take in the material. After all, your team is likely a group of professionals who like to think they understand their job well. A course with humour or even participation brings the mood back to a re-cap rather than a lecture.
Workplace Safety Essentials – eLearning
3 – Make Safety Appealing to All Generations
It’s fairly difficult to appease everyone, but most people can relate to the present. If you want to target young and old, incorporate current events into your lessons. It’s not perfect but if you’re speaking about 1970 incidents, many won’t get it, whereas modern happenings are more inclusive no matter the age.
You can also turn up the attention with engagement. Making it engaging helps with all ages and learning types. Do this with props your company uses on a daily basis. If you’re speaking about grinder safety, bring a grinder and perhaps even a piece of a broken disc so people get a semblance of how violent a shattered wheel can be.
If you’re losing the young audience, try tying safety into the latest trends that are viral (popular social media trends). Keep politics out of your tie-ins to safety, but incorporate other forms of viral trends such as safety memes, safety jokes or short videos that deliver relatable content. Different generations learn and connect with material in different ways, so an organization that uses several methods of learning can be extremely beneficial for team members, and it makes it more fun.
2 – Encourage Safety Discussion
Safety committees that include staff feedback have a better chance of keeping topics pertinent or relatable. Empowering team members to bring their ideas to company leadership enhances safety. When team members see their ideas come to life, they gain confidence in their organization and mutual respect is fostered. The more team members involved, the more data you have to make valuable reforms.
Furthermore, allowing your more experienced team members to speak with your new staff is another way to pass safety knowledge and wisdom. Plus, the relatable stories could be fun. Yet, unless you create an opportunity for this, you can’t guarantee they will discuss work related topics. That’s where toolbox talks help. Toolbox talks are a fantastic way to pass safety knowledge throughout your organization. Not to mention it creates a safe ground for even new employees to share their fears and experiences.
Keeping diligent track of all your toolbox talks gives you a great ideas for future reforms and even allows you to track current ones. We’d be hard pressed to call toolbox talks fun, but they are more fun than a lecture. There’s even toolbox talk software that can help you store and track all the notes.
1 – Introduce Safety Games
Games can help with memorization and are another avenue for rewards. Safety games can include interactive courses or even activities like “Jeopardy” with safety focused topics and lessons. Providing safety learning opportunities through games enhances awareness through incentive, it gives the memory more reasons to store the data. When creating games for team members, try to incorporate your building and your relatable scenarios. Using custom questions allows for a deeper connection of the material and increases the likelihood the learner will retain information.
