Safety is paramount. Gone are the days of climbing up girders without harnesses, and thankfully we are moving away from the mindset of safety due to compliance (I follow the rules because I HAVE to) towards the concept of safety as a culture (I follow the rules because I WANT to). To support the evolution of safety in the workplace, internal communications, safety teams, and employee engagement professionals are continuously developing supporting materials to help every one get home safe every day.
A common ‘workplace intervention’ is to interject safety conversations at key opportunities. A standard practice is to utilise ‘toolbox talks’ which we can define as:
A toolbox talk is a non-formal safety meeting that can take place at any point in any location with a team with the purpose of discussing safe work practices or a particular hazard.
These short presentations are typically casual in nature, in comparison to formalised safety briefings. An obvious benefit is the normalisation and encouragement of keeping safety top of mind and being able to speak up about safety matters at any time.
However, not everyone is a natural born presenter, a charismatic teacher, or a confident speaker. Therefore there is a fair and reoccurring Dark Logic Consideration to address: If toolbox talks are boring, then safety may become trivialised, inconvenient, and more of an annoyance or box ticking exercise. We therefore need to consider how we can ensure toolbox talks are supported in our organisations so that the safety messages are consistently engaging.
Guidance on delivering compelling Toolbox Talks
Communications thrive when they’re memorable, simple, and relevant. So to help workplace leaders deliver regular impactful toolbox talks – and ensure their team always go home safely instead of to the doctors or hospital – I’ve created the ‘Doctor Doctor’ guidance…
When giving Toolbox talks, remember ‘ Doctor Doctor!’
D – Deliberate
R – Relevant
D – Delivery
R – Recorded
These four simple points help you ensure your toolbox talks are purposeful. Firstly, you need to be deliberate with your message. Take time to decide what you want to talk about, and ensure that the message isn’t confusing or diluted with too many other points and considerations. People respond well to simple messages, and if your team have a job to do then they’ll appreciate you being clear, direct, simple, and deliberate in your message.
Next, consider the relevancy. Your team need to understand what you want them to do. Think about what you’re discussing and what it means to the team members. If you’re talking about the increased slip risk due to winter conditions, you should also include an action point such as checking the treads on their boots before going out for deliveries. Additionally, you should provide clear guidance about what to do if an issue is found. If their tread is worn, then you should advise how to get safe PPE. A good toolbox talk is wrapped in relevancy to the day-to-day reality of your team. If you’re showcasing an issue from another part of the business, you may need to take the time to explain why your team need to be aware of it. Remember, people are busy and often stressed with their own workload, if you’re interrupting their time to deliver a safety message you need to ensure they understand why it is important.
Deciding how to give the talk is as important as what you talk about. ‘Delivery’ refers to how the talk is done. Do your teams respond best to a quick casual chat? Do they prefer a quick detailed text? Are they engaged via zoom calls? Do you need to allow points for them to join the discussion? Does a quick quiz get them engaged? There are lots of different ways to communicate, and lots of subtilties that will exist across team dynamics. Understanding how your team prefer to receive communications, and what resonates with them, is important. A good way to think of this point is to consider the parallel of learning styles: Some people learn best by repeating information, some by video content, some by watching someone do something correctly, some love using tech to learn and some struggle with it… there’s lots of ways to give information, so ensure your delivery is suitable for purpose and helps your efforts.
Finally, ‘Remembered’ highlights the point that Toolbox Talks shouldn’t just be done to tick a box… If they are truly deliberate and relevant then we should remember how and when we they were done. We need to report and record when, where, and what, the Toolbox Talks covered. This ensures we aren’t repeating information at the wrong times, or forgetting to convey useful information at later dates. It also helps organisations work more collaboratively. A database of given Toolbox Talks builds contingency into an organisation, ensuring that there isn’t a reliance on ‘legacy’ individuals: i.e. those great long-serving team members that have all the answers and information… but if they left the organisation a wealth of knowledge would be lost!
An Apple a Day…
The reason I like using the ‘DRDR / Doctor Doctor’ reminder, is that there’s a powerful additional prompt to add further depth. We’ve all heard the saying ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’, and due to this I’ve created five supporting questions for leaders to consider when they’re giving ToolBox talks to ensure their talks are deliberate, relevant, delivered impactfully, and remembered.
APPLE is an additional acronym leaders can refer to for extra guidance. It prompts us to think about five key questions, that we should be able to answer to deliver a confident and purposeful Toolbox Talk.
A – Assess : What am I going to talk about?
P – Purpose : What do I want people to take away from it?
P – Practice : How can I make sure my message lands?
L – Lean : How short and concise can it be?
E – Engage : Why will people engage with it?
Final Thoughts
Acronyms such as ‘DR DR’ and ‘APPLE’ only work if they’re easy to remember. The world of health and safety is already littered with acronyms that contradict other industry terms. I’ve found that these two acronyms are powerful, but I’ve always supported them by offering leaders a ‘cheat sheet’ that adds the prompting questions. Too often leaders and managers are given increasing workloads and targets without the proper support. It is not enough to say: “You must give a Toolbox Talk each day, but don’t worry remember two acronyms and it’ll be easy”, we need to make the path as easy as possible for people to succeed.
Think of this approach as two pronged. The first use case is that it can help you think through what your talk needs to be, and the second use case is a litmus test to evaluate whether your proposed Toolbox Talk is as useful and purposeful as can be.
I have developed a two sided a4 cheat sheet, and a one sided distilled a5 that allows leaders to quickly brainstorm content for their talks*, and craft their message in a way that suits their team and organisation. I’ve also developed a large set of generic prompts to let people practice giving Toolbox Talks, and considering what other topics are important. Ultimately building frameworks and acronyms for the sake of it ISN’T helpful, but identifying where these tools can strongly assist organisations is ideal. Hopefully the DRDR (and APPLE) considerations can help solve problems for you and your teammates, however take the time to muse whether your organisation has other nuances you should address or leverage.
*Interested in the resources? Feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn to discuss these.
Frazer MacRobert 