For most employees up and down the country, the prospect of attending a workplace health and safety meeting is no one that gets the blood pumping. Health and safety programs have a bad rep – and for good reasons. In the vast majority of cases, it’s just employers ticking the boxes they need to. There is little interest in providing a fun or exciting learning environment. And, for the employee, there’s only so many times you can sit through a demonstration of how to pick up a box before it gets tedious.
We’ve covered the basics of providing a healthy and safe environment for your staff before on this blog. But, today, we thought we would go through a few ways that you can jazz up the experience for your team. Not only will they make the health and safety sessions more worthwhile, but they will also be more memorable. Let’s get started right away.
Play on emotions
There’s often a disconnect in workplace health and safety sessions. They are vital for keeping people safe in the company, yet the content is far from compelling. There isn’t a lot of mileage you can get out of describing the dangers of electrical points before it starts to irritate the audience. And, they will drift off and start thinking of all the better things they could be doing with their time. The answer is to make sure you play on their emotions. Give them real world stories of the dangers, and the human costs – not just to workers, but their families, too. Don’t go overboard, of course. You don’t want people feeling they have just watched a horror movie. But, play to their emotions, and you will have a lot more impact.
Call in the pros
Another problem is that people who present in a less-than-compelling way end up running the sessions. There are two ways to deal with this. First of all, you can make sure that your health and safety representative is an entertaining presenter. The second is to hire in the professionals. For example, fire safety specialists can be worth their weight of gold when it comes to delivery – and they can train up your wardens, too. If you want to have more impact on your health and safety sessions, it can sometimes be worth the investment.
Create competitions
A lot of workers respond better to a more competitive environment, so why not use this in your next health and safety session? Competitions can encourage people to sit up and take a lot more notice. And, if you want them to retain all the info, then you might have to give them an extra incentive.
Get out of the office
If you can, get out of the office when you are running your H&S sessions. There is nothing more dull than sitting in a stuffy room listening to someone drone on about keeping your wires tidy behind your PC. So, think about location a little more and you might see some better results. Active participation can help, too – you can take everyone around on a tour of a factory space, for example. Seeing real world examples of dangers is a lot more effective than going through the theory.
Hope this has helped – good luck with your next H&S session!
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