Sleepy Safety Meetings?

Regular safety meetings play an important role in communicating your company’s safety program information. They are a vital means of providing training for your employees about their workplace hazards and expected safe work habits. Safety meetings are also a great way to provide a quick refresher of previous training and reinforce the safety culture of your operation.

Emphasis on the ‘Sleepy’

Safety meetings have a bad reputation. You’ve heard all the jokes, maybe even made a few yourself.

• “Wake me when it’s over.”
• “Coffee break!”
• “Oh, good! Time for my daily catnap.”
• “These meetings are so boring I feel a few more brain cells die every time we have one.”
• “Another safety meeting? Ok. I guess I could use a little more beauty rest.”

Whatever the wisecrack, each is usually based on the same seed of truth: safety meetings are usually boring. But the good news is that they don’t have to be.

Safety Meetings Can – and Should – Be Fun!

Safety meetings don’t have to be drudgery, although they should drive employees toward achievement of safety goals and retention of important information. Let’s take a look at some ways to jazz up your meetings to make them fun while still being relevant and meaningful:

• Share fun photos taken by employees from around your operation
• Give employees the opportunity to lead discussion by sharing stories of specific dangers and close calls
• Include props, such as hard hats, hammers, and other tools from your operation
• Have a safety and health mascot
• Offer incentives to departments or individual employees who are practicing safe work habits
• Incorporate humor

Safety meetings are an important part of your operation’s safety culture. Mixing things up on a regular basis is a good way to more fully engage your employees to keep them thinking about safe practices. Remember, fun and humor are tools, too, so use them wisely.