Safety Communication: A Comprehensive Guide

What is Safety Communication?

Safety communication is basically the process of communicating different hazards and risks to all employees in a workplace. The goal is to reduce the chances of accidents since workers are aware of the risks they face throughout operations. Additionally, it deals with ensuring that all employees are familiar with the safety operations, procedures, and controls in the workplace and understand how to work with them. While it can be quite complicated and arduous, safety communication is absolutely essential in creating a safe and functional workspace.

Importance

Safety communication influences how workers understand and apply safety in their roles. This makes it essential for a safety program to achieve excellent standards. Here’s a brief review of why the practice is important:

• Drives awareness: Clear channels that explain current work hazards and risk management practices in detail keep workers well-informed and reduce the risk of harm.

• Builds a culture of safety: Reminders, guides, and feedback help crew members prioritize safety at every aspect and decision of their work.

• Highlights worker responsibilities and rights: Workplace safety communication aligns organizations and workers on standards and expectations. This way, employees can refuse unsafe work, and businesses can reinforce policies.

• Ensures regulatory compliance: Explaining safety rules and how they apply to daily operations can minimize violations and worker resistance.

Benefits

The gains from effective safety communication aren’t limited to safety itself. This effort impacts various aspects of operations, helping ensure smooth and reliable work. Below is an outline of how organizations benefit from clear communication in safety:

• Reduced worker injuries and incidents: Providing clear instructions and warnings discourages employees from guessing tasks or attempting unsafe techniques that can ultimately lead to accidents.

• Increased reporting of hazards: Opening lines of communication with leaders encourages workers to raise every concern and unsafe conditions they find on site, addressing more issues.

• Enhanced risk controls: As awareness grows and more safety issues are reported, organizations can implement higher, more effective levels of risk control measures, such as risk elimination and substitution.

• Higher productivity: Work guides shared across the site help crew members avoid mistakes, rework, and damage that can prolong tasks before they’re complete.

• Lower costs: Promoting safer work practices prevents errors and accidents that lead to costly waste, downtime, compensation claims, and insurance premiums.

• Wider information access: Establishing safety communication plans gives organizations a clear way for crucial information to reach all employees.

Types and Examples

Safety communication comes in various forms, each addressing different safety scenarios and work processes. It’s key to understand when and how to implement every type, making sure messages are as clear as possible. Below are the different types of safety communication:

Visual communication

This method uses symbols, images, colors, and shapes to share information at a glance. It’s meant to be understood quickly, which is valuable when workers need to make decisions fast during demanding tasks. It also doesn’t rely much on literacy levels, reducing any potential misunderstanding.

Examples:

• Required Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) signs

• Chemical labels and tags

• Task infographics

• Warning signs

• Photo-based visual standards

Written communication

With recorded and documented references, teams have a basis for safety practices and work accountability. Written materials are generally for detailing policies, requirements, specifications, and proof that tasks are completed correctly.

Examples:

• Training materials

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

• Employee handbooks

• Sign-off sheets

• Risk control plans

Two-way communication

Two-way safety communication lets workers and managers exchange ideas, messages, and concerns regarding hazards and risks. It’s usually used through surveys and reports, as it allows each side to communicate.

Examples:

• Hazard reporting

• Feedback loops

• Safety suggestion cards

• Heads up and reporting apps

• Near-miss reports

Verbal communication

Face-to-face discussions are less restricted due to their in-person setting. These minimal limits encourage more participation, feedback, and sharing of ideas. When used well, it’s one of the most natural and effective ways to communicate about safety.

Examples:

• Toolbox talks

• Pre-shift safety briefings

• Stopwork discussions

• Mentoring

• Shift hand over

Non-verbal communication

Actions can send powerful safety messages. The way managers and supervisors act around safety measures sets an example and influences the behavior of workers when it comes to safety rules and procedures.

Examples:

• Managers who properly wear PPE at all times

• Leaders who thoroughly inspect tasks and equipment

• Supervisors who listen attentively during safety feedback sessions

Best Practices for Safety Communication

In a safety communication program, implementing the practice in every work routine is the most important step. This helps embed safety into operations, establishes consistency, and sets an example for all workers to follow. From there, organizations can effectively practice the following:

Communicate where risks are

Placing signs, briefings, and on-hand guides close to hazards reinforces safety messages and when to apply them. This gives workers the right information and reminders at high-risk points in their tasks, helping them make correct decisions.

Use clear and direct messages

Communicating with workers should be straightforward. This means using plain language that’s easy to understand and avoiding unnecessary technical terms. It’s also better to say upfront how to do tasks and actions they should avoid. This way, instructions are clear and are less prone to misinterpretation.

Make communication an interaction

Whenever possible, aim for participation and engagement from workers during safety communication. It’s easy to ignore messages when it only comes from one side. To avoid this, encourage questions, comments, suggestions, and reports from workers.

Deliver messages from multiple channels

People retain information better if they see it more than once and are told in different ways. For example, safety procedures for machine operators should be shared through pre-shift briefings, process infographics, and work demonstrations.

Check if teams understand messages

The main goal of safety communications isn’t the number of workers who receive messages, but rather how well they apply insights and principles. Whether through evaluations, observations, or exams, make sure employees understand messages exactly as intended.

Resolve feedback

As workers are encouraged to point out issues and concerns, it’s important to act on these inputs. Solving and applying feedback shows employees that they’re heard. This signal drives them to take safety seriously and continue reporting problems.

In the first eight months of using SafetyCulture, AGnVET identified over 170 hazards—a significant increase that also improved their ability to address issues before they became serious risks.

Read success story

Read success story

How to Develop a Safety Communication Plan

A safety communication plan must be tailored to the current performance, problems, and people of an organization. Communication works best when messages are delivered in a way that connects with the people receiving them. Here’s how to do the same:

• Identify who must be involved: The communication plan must have input from everyone affected by workplace safety. From frontline workers to compliance committees, each group should be asked what needs to be said about safety.

• Assess communication needs: The plan’s messages must focus on present tasks, existing hazards, and frequent incidents. It should also communicate what management wants to prioritize regarding employee health and safety.

• Define goals: After identifying the messages of your plan, it’s crucial to define how much it should impact the organization. Common goals include the percent increase in hazards reported and the total decrease in time missed due to injuries.

• Select relevant channels and tools: Communicate reminders, instructions, and rules through channels that explain them the best. At the same time, use channels and tools that workers easily find and commonly utilize.

• Implement, evaluate, and improve: Monitor if messages were well-understood and properly applied by tracking progress against the objectives. Also, make sure to improve and update any communication formats and messages that didn’t meet goals.

Communication Tools and Technology

There are various tools and technologies available today to support safety communication. They can improve the delivery of messages and help teams better understand information. For this to work, it’s important to choose options that fit into your employees’ day-to-day work and environment. Here are some examples:

• Digital safety management systems

• Mobile apps and communication software

• Wearable technology

• Digital signatures

• Virtual and augmented reality