Presentation of Matthew Holder, Communications manager, British Safety Council

1. Communicating health and safety
messages.
Matthew Holder: Communications manager

2. Point of view
• Matthew Holder, policy and communication issues for the British Safety
Council
• Video on safe cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV-rhiGRFTE
• See your worksite with the eyes of a new or young worker.
• Video demonstrates the point of view of a driver. It also shows the limits of
anyone’s point of view.
• Important that any health and safety campaign recognises – and builds
into its message and design – the point of view of those it is trying to
reach. You must start with another’s point of view if you want to shift that
view to take into account reality. Otherwise can be patronising.
• Campaigns need to get people out of the cab.
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3. Young people campaign
• The British Safety Council’s priority is to educate young people about
occupational safety and health. ‘Cradle to the grave.’
• We have a campaign called Speak Up, Stay Safe.
• The campaign has developed a set of resources to try and get OSH
messages across to young people.
• There are challenges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBoDONHZPts
(3.12)
• Of course, occupational safety and health is a difficult subject to make
interesting for young people.
• Our experience with working at schools shows that children are interested
and like tasks like hazard spotting. The problem is when they get a bit
older and move into work.
• May reflect how ‘technical’ and ‘isolated’ OSH can be at work.
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4. Young people campaign
• Speak Up, Stay Safe starts from the basis that we take young people as
they are.
• The design, look and feel of the campaign and resources are built around
young people – how they see the world, their interests, their technological
know-how.
• This is the website:
https://www.britsafe.org/speakupstaysafe
• The underlying message is one that we hope young people can relate to
– that we all assess risks in our day to day lives; we just need some extra
tools and information to do it at work. Trust your instincts – Speak Up.
• We also make the point that risk and reward is related – we do not want
to produce a generation of risk-aversion.
• The campaign combines serious and funny to shift viewpoints.
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5. Young people campaign
• We started by working with schools and youth groups. We held
workshops to talk about issues and visualise them.
• Some examples:
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6. Building resources
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7. Building resources
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8. Building resources
• From this we get to:
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9. Building resources
• And this:
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10. Building resources
• Campaign for young people, by young people.
• Graffiti style, strong colours
• Bold statements, like Speak Up.
• Mixture of key messages, fact sheets, video, mobile app. Plus me to give
talks in schools.
• Different tones – some serious (video interview with the mother of a
sixteen year old boy killed at work), some factual (the fact sheets
explaining rights and responsibilities), some ‘point of view,’ linking work
and OSH (work-based videos), some funny or silly (our cartoons) or
‘infotainment’ (the app game).
• Built in social media such as twitter and facebook to generate a
movement
• Some examples.
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11. Video
• Video is important to us – good opportunity to see with the ‘eyes of a
young person’ and listen to what they have to say.
• This is our most recent production:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsMVa_UomOM
• Appeared in the Sun
• The danger is the videos can be vehicles for that organisation to get
publicity. However without their involvement it would not be possible for
us to produce these videos.
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12. Video
• Video is also an opportunity to do something fun and get messages
across, such as these cartoons which have been very popular:
• https://www.britsafe.org/speakupstaysafe/films
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13. App
• Getting messages across in an interactive and fun way is crucial to any
campaign aimed at young people.
• We developed this app game, with a story about two young people
seeking the truth of what happened to their parents in a kind of dystopian
future.
• In their search, the player needs to spot various hazards, including
working at height, electrical cables, fire, machinery and also zombies!
• https://www.britsafe.org/speakupstaysafe/the-missing
• This had its challenges, many couldn’t see the link to OSH; some wanted
our organisation more clearly identified with the game.
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14. Message and audience
• As an aside, this poster was interesting to develop for relating message to
audience:
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15. Message and audience
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16. Measuring success
• We know that the website has had many thousands of hits, the videos
have been watched by thousands in over 100 countries, the app played
by thousands and these resources have been used by people responsible
for induction and training.
• No magic answer to measuring success, but we have the advantage of
checking against our members who are involved in the educational and
operational side of OSH.
• Generally positive but there are huge challenges for a campaign to get
young people to take OSH seriously. Not least the culture of the
workplace they work in – something that they have little control over.
• But my message to anyone developing campaigns is to be clear about the
substance, design and point of view. Together.
• In the words of HSE on why the Olympics was successful, “the most
important thing? Value of the relationships between individuals and
organisations…most critical were respect and clarity - they underpin
everything.”
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