Ten Elements of Creating An Effective Safety Meeting or Refresher Training by Safety Speaker John Drebinger

In just a few months many organizations will start the year off with a safety kickoff. Over the past 27 years I have observed some of the best safety kickoffs. This article is a compilation of the ten key elements I have discovered that make a safety kickoff effective. Use these as you begin to plan your next safety kickoff.

#1 Outcome Driven

Ultimately, the outcome of all safety meetings is to improve safety performance and to eliminate injuries. The problem is in order to be effective an outcome must be much more specific. A broad outcome will not cause people to actually change behavior or take action as it often leaves them in a state of wanting to do the right thing yet not being clear on the specificity of the correct or desired action. Safety people who know how to focus on the specific are more effective.

Also, keep your outcomes to an achievable number. My marketing director, Diane Weiss, helps our clients with their kickoff by helping them select between one and three outcomes. This was a tough lesson for me to learn and one of my speech coaches fought long and hard for me to keep each of my presentations down to three or four key points. She knew that keeping yourself focused will allow you to be the best safety presenter you can be.

Guidelines for an Effective Outcome

The following guidelines are excerpted from my book “Mastering Safety Communication.”

• State your outcome in the positive.

• Be specific in what you want.

• Take into account the current behavior or actions of the people involved.

• Dream big.

• Once you have your outcome, make it sensory specific; for example, What will you see when people are taking the actions you desire? What will you hear when they are behaving in the desired fashion? What will you feel when you have achieved your outcome? What do you want people to hear, see and feel?

• Make your outcome compelling. It must be something you MUST achieve.

• Determine specific evidence of achievement. How will you know you achieved the outcome for which you are aiming? It is important to define success before you begin as it makes you more effective. (I always ask one of the leaders of an organization how they will know when my presentation achieved what they wanted? This allows me to make sure that expectation is met.

• Is the outcome what you really want?

Your Outcome Is Your Yardstick

Once you have your outcome(s), you have a yardstick by which every element of the kickoff may be evaluated.

If any element doesn’t help fulfill your outcome then you must be willing to consider leaving it out.

#2 Audience Attention

If no one is paying attention it doesn’t matter how important your content is! Without audience attention, your message isn’t getting through.

I have taught presenters and safety teams for years if you want an audience to listen to you it is your job to listen to them. If you want an audience to pay attention to you then you must pay attention to them.

How to get an audience’s attention?

The good news is there are many ways to get people’s attention. Over the years, people have said you need to have entertainment in order to teach. This is true; however, the word entertainment has a connotation to it that makes some people think you are not making the best use of time. I learned early on in my career as a safety speaker that people were not going to use corporate money for an entertainer. They did have a need for effective safety speakers.

Entertainment in a safety kickoff or any presentation is only done so the message gets carried to the audience. In fact, if you remember in my discussion of outcomes, I said everything in your kickoff should help achieve your outcome. Making the kickoff fun, entertaining, interesting or unique is only a means to help achieve your outcome. If it doesn’t help achieve the outcome then it is not appropriate.

How I Hold an Audience’s Attention

I will begin by discussing the way I keep the audience’s attention. After that explanation, I will give you some ideas you can use if you aren’t into storytelling or magic.

I tell engaging stories, some funny, some serious, that make a point. It is good to mix it up. I also use magic tricks that convey a point. In addition to keeping people’s attention, a good story, trick, cartoon, video or other clever part of a kickoff will help people remember what you were teaching.

When I end my presentation, “Would You Watch Out For My Safety?” I do a trick in which a dollar bill is destroyed and then appears inside a fresh lemon. The trick has people talking for weeks. Yet, that isn’t my only purpose in doing the trick. While I do the trick, I explain how I received the gloves I use in the presentation from someone who was watching out for my safety. I also use it to teach everyone how they should respond when someone watches out for their safety.

A good gauge of your success in keeping the audience’s attention is when people look forward to your next safety meeting.

Elements that help make safety fun and memorable:

• Music before a meeting and during breaks

• Entertaining videos before and during a kickoff

• Cartoons

• Visual aids that are creative and well done

• Stories told by employees

• Stories told by leadership

• Demonstrations (be sure they can see them)

• Contests

• Creative use of PowerPoint such as slide shows of employees, etc.

• Skits to illustrate safety principles.

• Games, using favorite themes of current game shows

#3 Techniques Taught

In developing my newest presentation, “Would You Watch Out For My Safety?™” I realized for years people have been telling workers to be “Their brother’s keeper.” Aside from the Biblical context that the term comes from, most people do not really understand how to be their brother’s keeper when it comes to safety. As we discussed in the first article on outcomes, specificity is important.

More importantly, it is not fair to tell someone to do something without teaching them how to do it. As with other mistakes people make in the field of safety, they just assume it is “common sense.” If it is so common, why then don’t people do it naturally? In fact, the opposite behavior seems to be the norm or more common.

The secret is we must teach people how to do whatever task we give them or at the very least confirm they already have the ability.

Thinking back on outcomes, be sure the techniques necessary to achieve your specific outcome are included. In order to check this, ask yourself if you know for certain your people have the specific skills necessary to accomplish the outcome. I for one do not like to assume anything, so I find it easier to teach the skills as a refresher for the knowledgeable. This technique shows respect and implies they already know what you are teaching. You can point out that it is a refresher for some and new information for the people who have recently joined your team.

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#4 Relevancy

Have you ever been in an audience and wondered why you had been asked to be there? Nothing seemed to relate to what you do or how you do it. The problem was that no one had considered how relevant the material was to their entire audience.

People’s time is sacred. None of us know how many days we have left enjoying this wonderful gift of life. To waste someone’s time is to waste their life. Safety speakers are stewards of their audience’s time. I make sure my material is relevant to my audience out of respect to them. By the way, they will sense your respect for them and respond accordingly.

As a safety leader or team member, I am sure you face the same challenge everyday that I do. How do you make your safety message relevant to a diverse workplace? To paint an even clearer picture, let me share with you a common scenario that I encounter.

Earlier this year, I spent several days at a coal mine in Colorado. I was doing three presentations a day in order to make sure everyone had an opportunity to see and hear my message. Every audience had a mixture of office people, machinery operators, vehicle operators, mechanics, technicians, new employees, and supervisors of one level or another. The secret is to make sure your content is relevant to all members of your audience.

The technique I have used over the years is to use stories and examples to which everyone can relate. It is possible to tell a story about someone underground to which the person working in the office above can relate. The secret is in including many facets in your kickoff. In some ways, it is like the old three ring circus. There was so much going on that there was always something for everyone.

A great example of keeping something relevant is the movie Titanic. For three hours and ten minutes, James Cameron had our attention. The story had something for everyone. I am sure there were engineers in the audience saying to themselves, “If I had designed that ship it would never have sunk.” Some people enjoyed the majesty and size of the ship and the ensuing catastrophe. Others were engaged by the romance. In addition, there were those struck by the dichotomy between the first class passengers and those who traveled in steerage.

When you plan your kickoff keep everyone in mind.

Keep in mind the gender mix in your audience. Does you kickoff team have a representative membership so all members of your organization can relate? When you have a diverse safety committee, people attending your event or meeting feel better connected and therefore, are more likely to act on what they learn.

Make sure your stories come from many backgrounds. I have heard some people do nothing but sports metaphors. For those in your audience not into sports, it can actually work against you. Review in your mind or by talking to people what the interests and hobbies of your employees are.

Keep in mind all aspects of your employee base from the security people walking around your perimeter in the snow and ice of winter to the people in the office, to those on the manufacturing floor or in the operational areas of your company. The more you know about your audience, the more relevant you will be.

The best solution to keep things relevant is to be focused on your audience instead of yourself or your team. The audience always comes first. When you think and act as an audience member you get a perspective that will make you much more effective.

#5 Content

A successful safety kickoff has many elements. The one most people think about is the content of the meeting and they forget the importance of the other elements. Once again, ask yourself does your content contribute to the outcome for which you are looking?

A Good Story Isn’t Enough

I have had the privilege of coaching several safety speakers on how to make the most impact with their speech. In fact, one client hired me to come in one day early to meet with the employees who were telling safety stories to help them have the best impact possible.

The safety-speaking field is an interesting one. Practically any outside speaker you bring in will get comments from the audience that they are the best safety speaker they have ever seen. The reason for those comments is that too often they have been exposed to boring safety material. A mistake safety kickoff organizers sometimes make is to confuse positive feedback with effectiveness. Too often a great and moving emotional story has the audience in their grasp but because they haven’t studied the science of communication they don’t get the outcome for which you are looking. It takes someone with a knowledge of speech coaching and effectiveness to engineer a story so that it gets a result. Be careful who you put in front of your employees.

PowerPoint Presentation Tips

“Luke, beware the dark side of the Force.”  Yoda

“Beware the dark side of Power Point.”     Drebinger

A big part of many kickoffs today is some form of a PowerPoint presentation. I have actually had applause when an audience finds out I am not using PowerPoint. The challenge is it has been abused just as many great tools get abused.

The key to a great Power Point presentation is to avoid being seduced by the technology and forgetting your message. Recently, I interviewed some great trainers. I asked them how many hours they spent preparing for their presentation and then, I asked them of those hours how many went into preparing their Power Point presentation. For many of them, they spent more time on the Power Point than on their content.

Here are some simple tips:

• Keep slides to a minimum.

• Avoid every cute trick. Once again, ask the question, “Does this contribute to the outcome of my presentation?” If the answer is no, you may have a problem.

• Just because you think it is so cool that characters can noisily arrive on the page, not everyone else does. It seems disproportionately wonderful to you because you just spent hours discovering how to use the technology and want to share it with everyone.

• As a show, make sure they can hear the music.

• Check visibility by sitting in different places in the room.

Great uses of Power Point

• Using Power Point as a multi-media slide show is one of its best uses.

• You can mix music and photos into a presentation to run before your meeting, during your meeting, or during breaks.

• Combined with digital photography you can put photos from that day right into the pre-prepared presentation.

#6 Employee Participation / Involvement

Participation may take many roles. There are those who help with the planning and execution of the kickoff. There are those who need to help only the day of the presentation. The list goes on. If you want to have one of the best kickoffs ever, involve as many people as possible. Also, if you have logistical people at your facility that set the room up as part of their job, please recognize them as being part of the event. The extra recognition is often appreciated.

Make sure as many people as possible own a piece of the safety kickoff.

Some Tips to Help Involve Many People:

Delegate – Delegate – Delegate

Ask yourself, “Is there someone or anyone else capable of this task?” Not to avoid doing the work but to involve others.

This actually takes more work but gets better participation.

Ways You Can Involve People

Raffles

Logistics

Music – you may have employees who are musicians

Remember some of the most talented people are in your workforce. Look around and ask for assistance. Ask people if they know anyone who has special skills or talents that could help out.

Food set up

Clean up

Door monitors

Pass out materials

Audio Visual

Attendance

Employees Teach Employees

Oftentimes there is an opportunity to teach at a safety kickoff. I love it when you use employees for this function. Some of the advantages are:

Improves participation.

Enhances learning of employee teacher.

Puts them in the position of being a role model.

Adds credibility as it is coming from someone who is doing the work.

This also sets the stage for the employee to move into the training function thereby increasing their motivation to understand the concepts being taught.

When you have an employee train others they must consider the fact they are being observed and since they told others how it should be done they almost have to do it that way themselves or look hypocritical.

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#7 Logistics

Announce logistical details during the first morning. Emergency information, exits, restrooms, food, or anything else pertinent to your kickoff.

Cell Phones & Pagers

There are creative ways of asking people to turn off cell phones, such as theatre announcements using old movie cuts, jokes, skits, etc. Then announce to please turn phones and pagers off. Provide cell phone and pager breaks so your people may check their messages and voice mail during the breaks. However if you have read any of my newsletters I have mentioned that you can reinforce your safety message by having people text their friends what they have learned.

Breaks

Announce to your audience how and when you are going to take breaks. Let them know if they are scheduled or will be taken when the presenter feels they are necessary.

PA Systems – Make Sure You Can Be Heard

Use a microphone for all questions or comments. Be sure to repeat all questions from the audience so everyone can hear what was asked. You can bring in one of the best safety motivational speakers such as John and if he can’t be heard it really hurts your outcome.

Questions

Encourage people to feel free to ask questions anytime during the presentation.

There are several different formats for handling questions. If having people raise their hand during a video or a person’s talk is difficult, let people know they can write their questions down and hand them in at the breaks. This also allows for those too shy or intimidated to ask a question. Please have them put their name on the card so you can get clarification if necessary.

Never mention their name from the card when reading the question out loud. To encourage questions, ask a few people to submit questions ahead of time and then begin by calling on them. Make sure you give them a copy of their question back so when you call on them they have it. Also suggest to people during the meeting to write down questions in note form so when the microphone gets to them, they haven’t forgotten their question or comment.

Tell people, “Feel free to ask a question anytime.” This wording is important! Too often I hear people say, “Feel free to INTERRUPT anytime with a question.” The word interrupt has too many negative connotations and is by nature something people will avoid. You are subliminally telling them not to ask questions because since they grew up their mom, dad and teachers have always told them not to interrupt. Your invitation will not overcome that programing.

Questions In or Out of Meetings

You have often heard, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” Well, I wonder if that is true. We, as trainers or presenters, may not think the question is a stupid one but that is looking at it from our viewpoint. Think like your audience! If the person asking or thinking of a question thinks it’s stupid, then to them it is and they won’t ask it.

Some Tips For Dealing With Questions:

• Have them write down questions so no one will know they

asked the stupid question.

• In asking an audience questions, too often we leave them without being able to answer or not giving enough time to develop an answer; therefore we shut them down.

• Questions asked of an audience should be pre-framed or simple enough to cover with an answer right away.

• Ask questions of the group but always call on individuals for answers.

• Never go fishing for answers when people don’t know answers (when audience keeps getting it wrong it kills audience participation). It teaches them not to raise their hand.

• Make sure whenever possible that you help the audience succeed if you want to continue the specific behavior.

Kickoff or Celebration Team Members

Let people know who to contact on your team if they have any special needs which you can help with. Many teams wear a distinctive shirt that allows them to stand out in a crowd. This also builds team spirit and is a nice way to thank them for all their extra work.

Some Other Kickoff Tips

• The magic of one word – using name tags. Calling people by name is very powerful.

• Preferred seating arrangements. Make sure people can see and hear.

• Insist that all speakers use public address systems – some people are hearing impaired.

• Use your physiology to convey passion.

• Remove any podium – let your audience see you.

• Take breaks as the audience needs them. Your experienced workers may need more restroom breaks than their twenty year old counterparts.

#8 Creativity

Some thoughts on creativity:

• Creativity is the key to discovering new solutions.

• Creativity is learned.

• Creativity improves with practice.

• Look for models of creativity such as Walt Disney, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, etc.

• Begin by believing it might be possible.

• Or at least believing it’s not impossible.

• Ask yourself empowering questions.

• Help others to be creative.

Examples of Creativity that add to a meeting:

• Give-aways

• Themes such as making the Kickoff like a game show, seasonal ideas, doing the Kickoff as if they were all on a flight and you were giving an Airplane Safety Briefing

• Music

• Safety Slogans

• Safety Posters

• Clothing with Safety slogan

• Candy Bars with Safety Slogan Wrappers

• Skits that convey a safety message

What You Need to Know About Safety Slogans

As a safety speaker I was speaking for one company and as we entered their meeting room, the first thing I saw was a giant four feet tall by twelve feet wide safety banner. It was one of those with grommets that you can post outside on a chain link fence or between posts. As I looked around the room, all the walls had similar banners presumably from previous years.

This was a great idea and a great use of old safety banners. The only problem was the first banner I saw was an example of a well-intentioned but incorrectly written safety slogan. The banner said, “Accidents happen in the blink of an eye!” Obviously, meant to convey that an injury could happen very quickly and unexpectedly. So, what could possibly be wrong with that? Let me print more of what it actually looked like.

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

In the blink of an eye!

The problem was the predominate message was, “Accidents Happen.” You would agree it is not the most useful belief. I explained everyone who walked into the room received the message unconsciously that accidents happen, which takes prevention and personal responsibility out of the equation. Happily, they removed the banner and threw it away a few minutes later.

This is not the only incorrectly worded banner I have ever seen.

You must be cautious when choosing a safety slogan or even drawing a safety poster. Too often you can send the wrong message.

#9 Scheduling

When Is The Best Time To Hold A Safety Kickoff?

Simple, any time all your people can attend. Now, I know logistically that is a challenge for some of you. Because of your operations, it is impractical to get everyone together all at one time. You need a big place to hold everyone. You would have to shut down operations.

Some companies actually do a safety stand down day where they do nothing but health and safety events. This is great if you can do it.

More commonly, safety teams schedule two to three meetings per day for one or a series of days in order to allow all shifts to attend. Involve the night shift. Making it possible for them to enjoy the same kickoff as everyone else does a lot for morale and lets them know you really care about them.

Also, location is not critical. I have spoken next to a turbine at a hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River. One construction supply company used a stack of sheet rock as a stage with rails. Turnaround or Outage lunchroom tents have served as my speaking venue many times over the years. One refinery rented chairs and used their firehouse to hold the meeting. I am sure you get my point.

Should Attendance at Safety Kickoffs and Meetings be Mandatory?

As with much of safety communication, congruency tells the real story. The answer for me is achieved by asking a follow-up question. Are your marketing meetings mandatory? If all your other departmental meetings are mandatory, and if safety isn’t, it sends the message that safety isn’t one of your company’s corporate values.

I actually prefer mandatory meetings, as that way I know no one will miss my message. It is so frustrating for me to be leaving a site heading for the airport and finding myself talking with someone in the parking lot who asks if I will be doing meetings the next day because they heard how great it was and now they want to attend.

Lunch Versus a Dedicated Meeting

Safety and the messages you want to get across are far too important to stack on top of lunch unless the presentation is done after or before everyone has eaten. The distractions are just too great. Have I done luncheon presentations? Yes, but I know they are less effective than they could be. Once again, it speaks of the value your leadership puts on safety. If there isn’t time to do it right then everyone understands that safety takes a back seat to everything else.

#10 Food

As a safety speaker I have noticed that 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 (I hope I spelled that right) 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.

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