Giving health and safety talks Te tuku kauhau mō te hauora me te haumaru

It’s very important to have meaningful and effective health and safety talks. It’s good for people and it’s good for business. Great health and safety talks should follow these key principles.

Be relevant

Choose topics that make sense to the site, people and the current stage of work you’re in. One way to figure out what you should be talking about is to ask workers what they think should be prioritised.

Invite the right people

Include people who aren’t employees, if they are regularly part of that work, so everyone has the same understanding. Contractors can share good ideas they’ve seen in other workplaces.

Involve people

Instead of telling people what needs to be done, ask them open-ended questions to promote involvement and to get their viewpoints, input and suggestions. This:

• is the best way to build a strong healthy and safety culture
• is your legal duty
• shows respect to your workers
• makes them an integral part of the safety process.

Be hands-on and practical

All workers, but especially those who work with their hands, want to see how things will actually work in their day-to-day lives. Make a portion of health and safety talks hands-on, bring in tools or demonstrate how effective something is.

Eliminate fake perceptions of risk

New Zealanders seem to have problems with estimating the level of risks they take at work. For example, someone might think they don’t have to put on their safety harness because they’re only going to be on the ledge for 30 seconds. A great way to bust myths around safety is to use examples, stories or demonstrations.

Tell stories, not numbers

Citing statistics about health and safety rarely works because people can’t relate to them. Instead, tell a real-life story. Include what happened afterwards, maybe relating to new health and safety practices or the effect the incident had on the person’s colleagues, friends and family. A great story can go a long way to communicate how seriously you should treat health and safety.

Don’t blame people

Blaming people will get you the opposite effect of building a good health and safety culture. Blaming problems on carelessness rarely gets to the heart of the problem, and it makes people more defensive and less likely to engage with health and safety. There are probably bigger problems if you go deeper – for example a complicated work set-up, poor work processes, unrealistic expectations about how long tasks should take, or poor supervision.

Let workers lead

Different people are experts at different things. This is particularly relevant to the trades, agriculture and construction sectors. Getting more mature and experienced workers to deliver health and safety talks is useful because less experienced staff respect and trust them. Because these workers are often used to dealing with less qualified people, and have often been in those roles themselves,  they’re typically less inclined to talk down to other workers.

Consider language and culture

Health and safety talks need to suit the audience. Depending on your workers, think about the kind of language you use, and the actual language itself. This is particularly true of sectors with ethnically diverse workers, or those with varying levels of English literacy. Ask your workers about the best way to communicate with them about health and safety.

You can also images or photographs. Consider asking another worker, or someone from a non-native English speaker’s community, to help get the message across.

Explain the why and the what

Effective health and safety talks make sure people understand why certain rules exist, not just what they are. This gives workers context and a greater appreciation for everything that might be involved.

Manage time

It’s easy for these meetings to become whinge sessions and extended story time. Keep on top of what’s important. Allow discussions, but keep them on track and relevant.

Consider frequency

There’s a fine line between not enough health and safety, and too much. Think about who your work might affect and the environment you’re operating in. In some cases, you might need to hold the same talk multiple times, in different places, and with different people – or a short talk at the start of each day. In other work environments, a short meeting once a week might be enough.