For some companies, toolbox meetings can be a real drag with disinterested staff and the safety manager trying desperately to motivate staff and change behaviour.
Often, safety professionals will let me know that they're disappointed at how their toolbox talks are being run. They lament that staff aren't getting involved and that their supervisors are leading employees to boredom.
One of the main issues is that toolbox talks are being lead from a compliance perspective. While safety compliance is, of course, important, it actually means that you get a dry toolbox talk.
After all, companies that are great at safety, don't religiously follow compliance. Sure, they tick off all the legislative boxes, but they go a step beyond. They look at how to encourage and inspire people on safety and they include those techniques in their toolbox talks. They run their safety meetings, so that they are the best at communicating, discussing and sharing safety related information. They don't do safety meetings because they have to, they do them because they want to. And that's a big difference.
4 Steps to Improve your Toolbox Talks
Great leaders know that leading any meeting is all about keeping it fun, friendly, open and real. To make toolbox talks more interesting, those leading toolbox talks need to learn that:
- Toolbox talks are a great way to communicate and share notes on safety - They keep everyone aligned with your safety messages and companies that have open, trustworthy discourse on safety have higher safety performance.
- Get people together - Humans like being with other humans. Being part of a tribe is one of the basic building blocks of any large human effort. We need to feel connected to our workmates. Toolbox talks should be a great way for people to learn about one another and discover other people's safety concerns and work together on solutions.
- Work towards a common goal - We all like to know that what we're doing is important. Use your toolbox talk to reinforce your safety goal and the importance of working safely.
- Use right brain techniques - Rather than rely on dry, technical information to discuss with employees, use right brained communication such as photos, video and stories. By combining both left brained and right brained communication, you will not only make toolbox talks more engaging, but also help team members remember information.
Often, supervisors who lead toolbox talks in, let's face it, in a boring manner, treat it like a task that they have to do. Their dread (and most probably their lack of personnel skills) stops the toolbox talk from developing into a relaxing, fun and collaborative way to work together on safety.
On the other hand, supervisors can still lead toolbox talks in a mind-numbing fashion because that's how they are. They know no better.
Being able to lead meetings in a way that brings out the best in people - collaboration, respect for one another and a desire to solve problems, is essentially what running a toolbox talk is about. It's also how you make them interesting.
That's why we've created training called 9 Creative Communication Techniques to Improve Toolbox Talks to provide supervisors with the skills to motivate, inspire, communicate and lead on safety, in a way that creates a high performance safety culture.
This new innovative training course teaches supervisors a new, engaging way to run toolbox meetings. It even includes an easy toolbox talk template that can be followed to improve your safety meetings every time! This means that it's really easy for supervisors to improve their toolbox talks week after week, by simply following the template.
This course has been created for supervisors who want a new way to incorporate engaging communication techniques to create high powered toolbox talks that gets everyone talking and collaborating on safety.
Remember, by improving your safety communication you will automatically improve safety in your organisation.
