Corporate Communications: Attention! How to Do Safety Comms

With estimates showing that over 600,000 employees annually sustain an injury at work and over 1.2 million suffer a work-related illness just in Britain, workplace injuries remain a top concern for many firms.

In the US, businesses pay over $50 billion in injury compensation costs per year (pdf) and companies all around the world are paying costly settlements for employment-related accidents that have tragically altered workers’ lives forever.

The human cost is undoubtedly the highest price. Beyond the obvious personal cost to the employee and their families, as talent is now companies’ most important asset, accidents at work can often deliver a devastating blow to employees’ morale and so business performance.

And addressing this issue is very much part of communicators’ role, all the more because safety communications is not just about rules and policies—it’s also about creating a culture of safety to prevent accidents from occurring in the first place.

Appealing to Emotions

Some of the most effective ways to get a message across is by telling stories. Storytelling can stimulate different parts of the brain to create an emotional connection to a message. Two firms in CEB’s network of communications teams – Baker Hughes and APM Terminals – have used videos to tell their safety stories and foster a culture of safety.

Baker Hughes encouraged employees to work together to achieve the “Perfect HSE Day” —a day with no injuries, no accidents, and no harm to the environment. The corp comms team filmed a video that showed how a team took care of each other on the job, and shared it globally with the company online, on facility TV screens, and in meetings and other employee gatherings.

The emotional video helped employees relate to the story individually. Baker Hughes’ campaign included supporting materials such as posters, conversation guides, and screensavers, but centered on forging a personal connection to encourage employees to look out for each other.

APM Terminals filmed a similar safety video, featuring employees who had been involved in an accident on the job. These unscripted videos allowed employees to speak freely about how they were directly affected by workplace accidents, and are intended to reach both the hearts and minds of employees.

By taking a complicated topic and turning it into an emotional video, APM’s “Another Day” campaign contributed toward creating a culture of safety in the organization.