Safety Promotion and Communication in the Workplace

Safety Promotion

Safety promotion helps to create a culture of safety awareness and prevention in the workplace.  Safety promotion forms part of an organisation’s safety management system (SMS).

Safety promotion is all about raising awareness and encouraging behaviours that improve workplace safety and health. It involves sharing best practices, providing training, and using communication strategies to ensure people understand and prioritize safety.

Some safety promotion activities are targeted at promoting or changing safety attitudes or behaviours. These are sometimes referred to as behavioural interventions.

Safety promotion depends on the engagement of everybody in the workplace (that is management and staff).

Safety Attitudes, Safety Behaviour & Behaviour Change

Safety promotion activities seek to positively influence worker safety attitudes and behaviours. In some cases, safety promotion interventions seek to change worker safety attitudes and behaviour. Safety attitudes and safety behaviour are closely linked. Attitudes often shape how people approach safety in their work activities. Positive safety attitudes (such as valuing safety and believing in its importance) can lead to safer behaviours. Conversely, negative attitudes may result in riskier actions. Behaviour change often requires a change in attitude.

Influencing Safety Attitudes & Behaviour

Employers and employees can influence the safety attitudes and behaviour of others in the workplace.Influencing attitudes and behaviour can happen in different ways. Often it involves a mix of (1) persuasion and (2) social influence.

Safety Promotion Activities

Overview

Safety promotion activities aim to create a safety culture by encouraging everybody in the organisation to take an active role in preventing accidents.  

Company Led Safety Promotion Activities

Typically, safety promotion activities are led out by a company’s safety team. Often, these activities use both direct and indirect communication methods. This can involve a range of communication formats and channels. Safety information can be shared using company email. Or it can be posted to company bulletin boards or on the company intranet. Task focussed safety communication information is often shared with staff in safety training sessions, operational meetings, safety briefings and safety toolbox talks.

Examples* include the following:

• Sharing information about safety values and policies in new staff induction sessions.
• Providing information about safety values and processes (including safety reporting) in the staff handbook.
• Enabling easy access to the company Safety Statement and nudging staff to check any updates as required.
• Providing summaries of safety performance indicators (that is, on company intranet safety pages, emails and noticeboards).
• Providing regular updates about safety practices and procedures using different communication channels.
• Formal and informal communications with staff about any unsafe behaviours identified.
• Providing regular feedback about the management of safety issues identified by staff (that is, near miss reports and incident reports).
• Providing regular safety training sessions to keep employees informed about hazards and best practices.
• Encouraging employees to take additional safety training as required.
• Running regular safety toolbox talks.
• Running safety briefings or safety standups.
• Conducting regulator emergency evacuation drills.
• Running health and wellness campaigns.
• Providing easy access to OSH information on the company intranet.
• Providing visible safety signage and posters in workplace areas
• Hosting safety hackathons/events where teams brainstorm and develop new safety solutions.
• Rewarding employees for maintaining a safe work environment.
• Undertaking safety surveys and eliciting recommendations as to how to improve safety.

*Please note that this is not an exhaustive list.

What can Staff Do?

Staff also play a role in safety promotion. Importantly, staff can act as safety ambassadors in their organisations. This is achieved by actively demonstrating positive safety attitudes and values in the workplace. This can include

• Promoting a safety-first mind-set amongst their colleagues.
• Following safety procedures (and encouraging colleagues to do the same).
• Reporting near misses, concerns or safety recommendations (and encouraging colleagues to do the same).
• Sharing information about best practice with their colleagues.
• Wearing PPE (and encouraging colleagues to do the same).
• Calling out unsafe behaviours in the workplace.

Safety Promotion & Safety Culture

The promotion of a positive safety culture is a key dimension of safety promotion.

Safety culture is the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and values that employees share in relation to safety in the workplace (European Agency for Safety and Health in Work, 2022). Overall, these attitudes, behaviours and perceptions are reflected in the health and safety of the workplace.

In companies with a positive safety culture, safety is viewed as a core value and not a compliance requirement. Further, safety is integrated into every aspect of the organisation. Failure by leadership to create an effective safety culture is often cited as a contributing factor to many types of adverse events and accidents.