By R. Bruce Wright, CPCU

This is a good time to re-examine the way monthly safety meetings are run.

Many of you have suspended your regular monthly safety meetings during the Coronavirus Pandemic while others have modified them by using videos, computer based meetings, or other alternatives to the usual gathering in the lineman’s room. Most providers — statewide associations, outside consultants, etc. — stopped sending JT&S reps to lead these meetings too, leaving a bit of a vacuum. In my recent contacts with our utility customers I have heard of a wide variety of alternative methods that have been used to keep “safety front and center” as the crews go into the field to work. Increased use of site visits, one-on-one counseling, video meetings, and many other variations have been used, according to what I have heard from you in our conversations. 

As time goes on, however, more of you are beginning to return to your more traditional meeting approaches. A few clients have never stopped their regular meeting rotation, others are still working in semi isolation, while most are easing back slowly, practicing social distancing, using masks, meeting in large or airy spaces like garages. Regardless of where your company is along the path toward whatever the “new normal” will be, this is a good time to reexamine the way the monthly safety meetings are run. After all, gathering everyone for an hour or more each month is a significant financial commitment, so why not do your best to make that investment pay off?

These meetings can be instrumental in raising safety awareness and keeping job hazards “top of mind,” providing a forum for both new instruction and refreshers on a wide array of safety topic. But, all too often, safety meetings wind up being little more than a monthly ritual, just a habitual requirement.  Why not take this “restart” as an opportunity to reinvigorate your approach to safety meetings, making them more interesting, interactive, and helpful in raising awareness and improving results while energizing the line workers.  To that end, here are some ideas on how to make these meetings more effective.

Lean on your home grown experts

Don’t get into the trap of trying to lead every meeting yourself. Choose a veteran from the group to demonstrate how to do a particular task. Got a serviceman who knows the ins and outs of trouble shooting? Have him explain to the group how he does it. Have a meter expert? Why not let that worker be your expert on the topic? Do you get “near miss” reports? Ask one of the reporters to tell everyone about it, not for the sake of embarrassment, but for education so that no one else will ever make that same error. Have a new lineman who learned the latest and greatest techniques in Line College? Give him a chance to show what he learned.

Get out of the meeting room

Use monthly meetings as an opportunity to get out of the building and into the field, where you can visit sites such as a recent complicated job that everyone can learn from, or the site of a near miss so everyone can see how things happened, or to see a defect that was just found so everyone can see what you want reported, or, or, or. So many opportunities exist!

Let senior managers show their colors

Does your GM routinely come to the meetings? If not, why not? Invite the GM or other top managers to come to the monthly meetings and give them an opportunity show their support, to even address the group from time to time when they have a good message to deliver. Mostly let them tell everyone how well the workers are doing! 

Use outside specialists

Set a goal to bring in an outside speaker periodically, say once each quarter; an outside speaker meaning not just the JT&S rep, but someone really outside the regular routine. Be creative! How about a local medical expert, which seems timely for our current situation? Maybe you could cut a deal with the safety manager at a neighboring utility where you can each visit the other’s meeting to talk to their group. Just look around for some outside folks with special expertise, to change up the routine. 

Special events

Every now and then, why not have a completely different focus for a gathering? A recognition barbecue, where the top managers cook for the line workers. A trivia contest focused on your procedures manual. (You could organize teams and prizes.)  

You can undoubtedly think of many other ideas that would add some variety to your basic monthly meetings and prevent the humdrum from overtaking them. It will require a little effort from you; for example you will need to do some prep work before standing a new lineman up in front of the group, but how better to consolidate learning than to teach it to others? By investing in better, more innovative safety meetings, you can engage your workers’ interest and inspire them to striver toward a greater commitment to safety and error free performance.