Delivering the Main Message is Key

Many companies have successfully implemented and utilize the practice of "Safety Contacts" or "Safety Moments."

This is a simple tool for engaging employees in discussing and resolving issues related to safety at work and at home. It shapes employees' attitudes toward personal safety and, consequently, influences their behavior.

A Safety Contact is a brief, 3-5 minute piece of relevant information about a safety-related event that occurred in the world, at the Enterprise, at a Client's site, at your workplace, at home, or on the road.

The goal of a Safety Contact is to foster a culture of safe behavior, engage employees in discussion, and draw lessons from events or situations.

Structure of a Safety Contact:

• Provide an example of a hazardous situation from personal experience;
• Suggest specific actions to prevent similar events from occurring.

Sometimes, difficulties arise in the correct implementation and application of the tool, which can lead to results below expectations.

It might seem like a simple and effective tool, but it doesn't work at all if applied incorrectly. As a result, employees and managers develop the belief that safety culture tools do not have the desired effect.

It is important not to confuse the concepts of a safety moment/contact with briefings, and to avoid the following:

• Substituting it with general information about safety at the workplace, in the office, etc.;
• Substituting it with fire safety information (emergency exits, fire procedures, etc.);
• Conducting it according to a fixed schedule;
• Having it conducted by HSE department staff, as this indicates low leadership from managers regarding safety issues.

It is necessary to understand and convey to everyone using safety moments/contacts that the primary task is to inform and engage employees specifically in assessing the safety of their surroundings, being attentive to what is happening around them both at work and at home, evaluating the dangerous actions of themselves and others nearby, and assessing hazardous conditions at work and at home. This helps expand employees' knowledge in the field of safety, involves them in discussions, and shapes safe behavior through regular communication.

Employees must learn to always assess the probability of potential incidents resulting from their actions, the actions of others, and environmental conditions.

In this way, a habit will develop to look at the world from a safety perspective, for example, by asking:

• "What could go wrong?";
• "What can I do about it?", which will ultimately lead to an established culture of safe behavior.

To conduct a good "Safety Contact," it is important to correctly convey the main idea to capture colleagues' attention and make your core message effective when presenting information. For a successful safety contact, it is necessary to:

• Deliver a brief, action-oriented message;
• Formulate the main events you want to talk about in the very first sentence. Highlight key points;
• The topic should be appropriate for the meeting format and universal for the entire audience;
• You can talk about events within your own organization or what happened outside of it. If you don't know what to say, read the newspapers or browse social media news feeds — there is always something that can be used for a safety moment.

Topics for a safety moment/contact can come from any area of life, for example:

• Traffic violations (speeding, talking on the phone while driving, not using seat belts, crossing the road in the wrong place, etc.);
• Cluttered emergency exits in the meeting room;
• Mobile fraud;
• The danger of slipping (wet surfaces, ice, etc.);
• The importance of staying hydrated during high outdoor temperatures;
• The danger of falling icicles;
• Hot surfaces at home and in the office, including hot liquids;
• The importance of using PPE (a specific case of non-use) and many other topics.