9 Steps to Plan an Effective Safety Meeting

Decide on your outcome
Select the format of the event
Choose a Date
Select speaker for event
Set your agenda
Arrange for venue
Schedule a date
Food
Meeting Logistics

Decide on Your Outcome

When you are planning your next safety event, the first thing to do is to decide the outcome you want to accomplish. Is it to celebrate your current success? Do you want to create a focus on safety? Do you just want a fun event with safety as the theme? Do you want to launch a new safety program or initiative? Is it an annual kickoff, weekly tailgate, outage, safety motivational talk, awards banquet, informative meeting regarding new safety procedures or policies, to discuss recent incidents and how to prevent them in the future, or leadership communication skills?

The list could go on and on. I can assure you with the selection of the best safety speaker, you can achieve many of those outcomes in one presentation and decrease your injuries at the same time. My career began as a magician at a safety kickoff celebration and all they expected was for me to use “Safety” as the magic word in my show. If you’d like to read the whole story go to: https://drebinger.com/how-it-all-began-from-magician-to-safety-professional/

If you want the most successful event ever, I suggest calling Diane Weiss at +1-209-745-9419 to get her expertise and input at no cost (Or email her at diane@drebinger.com). She has helped hundreds of our clients plan their events and her experience is invaluable.

Select the Format of the Event

Once you know your outcome, choose a format for the event – an hour before and/or after shifts, an all-day family inclusive event, an all-day meeting with breakout sessions, an evening gala – the possibilities are endless! When you need help with the decision-making, we can help you plan – just give us a call at 209-745-9419.
When these decisions have been made, you can think about the remaining elements.

Choose a Date

Next, choose a date that works for you, the venue, and the event. Because of the other factors this date may have to be tentative and may change based upon the venue’s availability or speakers’ schedules. Speakers you say? Some types of meetings are fine for in-house speakers and others are more suitable for outside speakers who have the skills for your specific outcomes. See Report #1 “The Biggest Mistake Safety Teams Make in Choosing a Safety Speaker” https://drebinger.com/the-biggest-mistake-safety-teams-make-in-choosing-a-safety-speaker-special-report-01/ (for when you need an outside speaker and why) Keep in mind winter weather and travel conditions in certain areas of the country. Also, remember to check your community event schedule so you do not conflict with an annual festival or your local school’s calendar.

Select the Speaker

For a detailed report on selecting the correct speaker go to:
There are many safety speakers out there and you want to pick the best who can educate, entertain (that makes the material memorable), make the presentation fun and get results.

Set Your Agenda

How long will the event or meeting be? One hour from start to end or a full day dedicated to safety? Who will be at the meeting from the leadership of your company? What is expected of them? Short remarks and then staying for the remainder of the meeting. Please encourage any leader to plan on staying for the entire meeting otherwise their leaving undermines your message that the company and its leaders are committed to safety as a value. If they can’t stay maybe another leader who can stay would be a better choice.

One huge advantage of having a professional safety speaker like John Drebinger is he is able to keep you on schedule as he can lengthen or shorten his presentation to make up for one of your other presenters going over or under time.

Arrange for a Venue

The type of meeting may help determine the venue you need. An annual corporate meeting begs a large room; whereas a monthly shift meeting may be held in a break room, warehouse space, or fire department building. If your needs demand a larger room then your site may have availability of a suitable space but if not, planning ahead is a necessity. Convention centers, hotels, restaurants, colleges or even churches have rooms suitable for keynote speeches or banquets and must be reserved well in advance.

Food?

Do you want food? Meals are a natural draw so to encourage attendance (unless it’s mandatory) you will want to consider this. Donuts and coffee are perfect for a quick morning meeting. A barbecue picnic is ideal for a family day. An elegant dinner sets the tone for a gala awards night. Box lunches are great fare for a lunchtime meeting. Again, there are many possibilities depending on your event, outcome, people’s expectations, and budget.

As a safety speaker, I have noticed many of the most successful safety meetings and kickoffs include food as part of the event. Conversely, I have seen people take a negative view to a meeting when they arrived and there was no food or beverage. I suspect that had to do with previous meetings and expectations.

It seems there are regional differences. I know one Texas refinery that serves Kolaches before the meeting. There are other regional favorites that are easy to hand out before the beginning of the meeting.

I think the most important factor is to be consistent with what you have done in the past. If they are used to having food or refreshments and you can’t provide them it is best to let them know ahead of time to eliminate disappointment. You can always exceed people’s expectations. Disappointment can really damage the results of a meeting.

Meeting Logistics

Last but not least, once everything else is set, are the logistics.

Signing In

The sign-in process for a meeting is important for record keeping but is often a bottleneck for people entering the meeting room. The best solution is a name badge that can be scanned from a bar code and is automatically entered into the company computer system to give the person credit for attendance instead of requiring an actual signature. Next best is having a bunch of sign-in sheets available, so people do not have to wait while others find their name on a list then sign it. With a wide table and lots of sign-in sheets available, many people can sign in at the same time eliminating the wait time. Someone can enter attendees’ names later for organizational purposes. You can also take photos of the audience to have a backup of everyone you think was in attendance.

Will Your Audience Be Able to Hear and See Your Speakers?
You want to be absolutely sure everyone at your meeting is able to see and hear! Check with the appropriate people for sound and lighting needs for your venue. Whether you’re aware or not, you most likely have people who have a hearing impairment, so a sound system should be considered a must to ensure everyone can hear. A note regarding power point slides – format your slides using the top two thirds for important information. Use the lowest third for your company name, logo, event theme or anything else, which may be repeated on every slide. When you do this, even people in the back can see the significant picture or information on each slide.

Room Seating Arrangement
Room format is important! Consider a wide setup with the stage or screen in the center of the widest area so more people are closer to the action. When the room is long and narrow many of your people are farther away and when they cannot see or hear as well, they lose attention. Another advantage to the slightly different than normal setup is it’s not quite what people expect so when they walk in and see something outside the normal, they just might pay closer attention.

Call or Email Diane Weiss Today

Actually that should have been your first step to have the most successful event ever. Remember, for help with any of these ideas or for answers to your specific questions, you can call on us for help! Call Diane at 209-745-9419 or email her at diane@drebinger.com for expert advice on planning for your needs.