Canadian Occupational Safety

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 37 workers truly understand the hazards they face on the job. A member of the health and safety team could bring in hazardous materials (if it is safe to do so) and show the workers what they need to be aware of in order to work safely. "It helps when you bring someone in to talk about what some of these things do to our bodies. It scares the crap out of them, but it also scares them straight," says Hohener. Of course, any campaign will likely include emails, and there are a few tips and tricks to ensure these aren't immediately deleted. Some concepts that mar- keters use can be applied to safety communications, says Lee, such as a very catchy subject line. One exam- ple might be: "Here's one weird tip to help you avoid head injuries." The answer might just be "Wear your hard hat" but it will certainly get more clicks than "Wearing your hard hat will prevent head injuries." Or the subject line could be "You'll never guess what happens next," and the email could explain what happens if certain policies and procedures are not followed. "With marketing, you're tr ying to influence behaviours and I think the principle behind that is you're almost asking them to beg further exploration," says Lee. "Finding ways to peak their interest is really important." Getting senior leaders involved can go a long way in showing employ- ees how important safety is to the company. Hohener recommends the president or CEO films a safety mes- sage every quarter. Faulkner suggests some safety memos come from a senior leader, rather than the safety team. "Those kinds of things can have a big impact and I think they are easy to overlook," he says. Personalized emails from senior leaders are also quite effective. The president may want to send a note to a safety ambassador who par- ticipated in the campaign. Hohener recommends senior leaders write old-fashioned letters instead of send- ing emails. This goes a long way with workers who will often put the letter up in their cubicle or locker. No matter how the message is being communicated — videos, posters, email — it has to be crystal clear, says Lee. A lot of communicators try to be a little too clever with their wording, which is not as effective. For their safety campaign, safety managers should choose two or three words that represent the core concept to be promoted. "Those three words can carry a ton of weight as opposed to a lengthier message which requires more time and more effort for employees to read through," says Lee. "That's really helpful for employees when they're busy and safety's not nec- essarily top of mind." It also has to be well crafted, says Faulkner. One way to show that something is valuable and that it matters is to spend some time on it yourself — make sure there are no typos, the images are current and relevant (not stock art from the 1980s) and all forms of communication have a consistent message. "It doesn't have to be super complicated, it doesn't have to be super slick. It just has to be consistent and ensure you have given it some thought and some time," Faulkner says. Repetition is key in ensuring the campaign's success. You are going to have to say that genius campaign tagline that you came up with a bunch of times and in a bunch of different ways. "The trick is to really not get frustrated by that. To really recognize the value in having to slog that out and sticking to messaging and doing your best to adapt it to different situations and try doing it in different approaches," Faulkner says. "Taking lots of different angles on the same message can hopefully help hit it home to different people because different people learn in different ways." While safety managers might be tempted to order some items with the new safety tagline — stress balls, pens, notebooks, mini hard hats et cetera — the marketing experts agree this is not necessarily the best approach right off the bat. "That's what people think of when they think of marketing. They think of slapping the logo on a whole bunch of stuff, giving things out, says Faulkner. "When we talk about marketing, in gen- eral, you're really talking about presenting benefits to people, trying to shift people's attitudes — some soft, more intangible stuff — and that's where safety managers need to start. If you get that right, then getting the stress balls can come after." Something that might be more effective (and cheaper) than a branded item is a simple Band-Aid. Lee offers the idea of buying a bulk box of Band-Aids from Costco, writing on Post-it notes something like, "This doesn't help in 85 per cent of hand injuries that occur on the job," and putting that on workers' desks or slipping it into their lockers before their shift. "These are messages that can have more of an impact than a squeeze toy of a hand," he says. "It's something that's a little bit different than what they're used to seeing… We can catch their attention by throwing them a curve ball and trying different ways to peak their interest." Measurement is an important component of any marketing campaign. Some tactics have measure- ment built-in, such as how many people attended an event or the open-rates on emails, but employee surveys are great measurement tools for overall safety improvement and engagement. Employees should be surveyed before the campaign is rolled out and then again every six months after that. At the Toronto company Hohener was working with, employees scored the company at three out of 10 when it came to their engagement around safety. After two years, it moved to four and after four years, it was at eight. "It took a long time, but every year there was a pendulum," says Hohener. "Once you start getting all those little pieces in place, people are opening the safety newsletter more, they are coming to the lunch 'n learns, you start to see the metrics grow along the way." But safety professionals don't need to crunch too many numbers to know if their safety marketing campaign is successful. "Oftentimes it's really just a feeling in the air. People have a really good sense of when a culture is shifting," says Faulkner. "It will start to feel like their job is getting easier, it will start to feel like people are more receptive to their safety messages. You can't always put a number on that, but I am willing to bet that most safety folks know it when they see it." It's not just, 'What are some of the cool, creative ideas?' It's being really thoughtful about what makes the most sense.

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