Speaker: , Senior Associate, Health, Safety & Environment, Beca

Target Audience: HS & Communication practitioners, all organisations and sectors.

Aim:
Develop innovations that improved HS engagement and communication, with 2 key qualifiers;

• innovations must have worker input 
• make a difference - cost effective and more effective than the existing “normal” ways of communicating key HS information.

Method & Results:
We engaged with workers, including supervisors, to understand frustrations and failure of “normal” HS communication and messaging. Led to the concept that we should get our workers to not only develop the right level of content and delivery medium, but to be the people who delivered the content to their peers.

This resulted in high levels of engagement by wider teams as they worked with animators HS team to develop content. By using key influencers to star in the content, we gave a higher level of ownership to HS information to construction crews.

Initiatives to be discussed:
Use of life size cut outs to drive the PPE rules. They featured workers holding a sign “Do you look like me? Don’t forget your M2PPE”. Used in key locations around site entry points, facilities and main construction areas. Cheap, fun to make, made PPE champions out of many people.

Series of HS Animations:
The award winning blended animations developed a visual communication consistent style that people associated with HS aspects. 24 animations were developed, covering subjects from mobile plant to office safety. The style, while simplified was always grounded in reality – real sites and real people. Use of youtube, QR codes allowed measurement of uptake. Achieved worker engagement through the script / concept development and production process. Animations achieved effective communication through, easy to comprehend and easy to access repeatable message, provided by peers based on actual job environments and activities in a way that cut through literacy and language barriers.