Integrating health and safety in the manufacturing workplace has its challenges – more employers are now saying they’re having to deal with the big financial cost of complying with health and safety regulations. But that’s not an excuse to put health and safety procedures and protocols on the backburner. You need your workforce to be actively engaged. Disengaged workers are 40% more likely to sustain work-related injuries and health problems that resulted in medical attention or time off work, even when exposure to risk is controlled for.
Creating a safe workplace is everyone’s responsibility. The best way to make that a reality is to communicate safety procedures and protocols to everyone in the workplace.
This article will share eight ways you can effectively communicate health and safety messages to the manufacturing workforce.
1. Digital signage around the workplace
Most of the manufacturing workforce won’t be at their desk or have constant access to a company device. This is when digital signage screens shine – they can be installed on the production floor, distribution centres, warehouses, cafeterias and anywhere employees congregate. They don’t distract staff from their tasks yet are always present to share safety information and remind staff of best practices. If you can’t get digital signage screens, old-school posters are a decent short-term solution.
2. Send an email newsletter
Communicate regularly with your employees to keep them up to date with news, important information, changes to safety procedures and more. If your manufacturing staff have daily access to a company device, you can send regular newsletters via emails that have a safety section to highlight any important changes or reminders.
That’s still no guarantee that they’ll read the email though – that’s why your best communication channel to reach and engage manufacturing staff is through digital signage screens and corporate screensavers.
Use digital signage screens to communicate safety messages to your manufacturing workforce
3. Share photos and videos of safe actions
If you’re an ethnically diverse manufacturing workplace, photos and videos can get you over the language barrier. Plus, sometimes the easiest way to convey safety expectations is through demonstrating it!
Take photos and videos of employees demonstrating proper practices and include these on your digital signage screens or in newsletters and emails.
4. Hold regular meetings
Meaningful and effective health and safety talks don’t have to be long or involve lots of documentation. Toolbox talks are a great way to ensure all employees are getting the message. You could make these talks part of the daily or weekly routine and review or discuss safety standards. Worksafe NZ shares some guiding principles for effective health and safety talks:
- Stay relevant
- Invite the right people
- Use open-ended questions to promote involvement
- Make it hands-on by bringing in tools or showing how effective something is
- Dispelling myths about how safe the work actually is by using examples, stories or demonstrations
- Make it worker-led by getting mature or experienced staff to share their experiences
5. Quiz your workforce
You need to frequently refresh and remind your workforce on safety practices to ensure they’re retaining safety information. As part of training, you can quiz them on safety policies and procedures. Getting staff actively involved is a great way to boost employee engagement in manufacturing.
Vibe users have access to over 70 digital signage templates - one of them is the quiz template. It's the perfect template to use to test how well your workforce have retained health and safety messages.
6. Tailor your messages
Not all safety practices are applicable to every workplace task or group of workers. Make sure your communication channel can tailor safety communications to the needs of specific groups of workers.
Vibe’s workplace communication platform can segment messages by location so if you have digital signage screens on the production floor and in the distribution centre, they’ll display the appropriate safety messages for the location.
7. Weave storytelling into your communications
Put the risks and consequences of workplace injuries into context. Show them real stories and case studies to give statistics and warnings a face.
Watch this webinar
The Ultimate Hack for Getting Cut Through With a Hard-to-Reach Workforce
8. Spotlight and reward star employees
Reward behaviour you want to see in your employees, whether it’s giving them a shoutout in a team meeting, or sharing their accomplishments in digital signage software for the whole organisation to recognise. You can also spotlight key staff, such as health and safety leads, fire wardens, first aiders and more.
Identify and spotlight important HSE team members with Vibe
Bring health and safety messages to the forefront of your organisation
Communicating health and safety messages is not only good for the business, it’s good for your people too. Digital signage screens are one of the most effective ways to communicate to a manufacturing workforce. Vibe.fyi can help bring the benefits of digital signage screens to life in your workplace. Get in touch with our experts to get started.
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