While accident reporting is often considered the purview of EHS professionals, the reality is that every employee in your workplace contributes to your accident response. The problem, of course, is that employees have to understand their role in real terms.
That’s where an accident reporting toolbox and safety talks can help. Here’s a closer look at toolbox talks and why it’s time to include accident reporting on your list of topics to review.
A toolbox talk is a type of safety talk designed to be short, sweet, and to the point. Basically, a toolbox talk is a type of short, informal safety meeting, typically conducted at the job site prior to the beginning of a work shift.
These are not full-length safety meetings, nor are they intended to replace safety meetings. They don’t offer a deep dive into safety topics, nor are they necessarily the place to introduce something brand new. Instead, this particular method is most useful to refresh your workers’ memories in between full-length safety meetings.
This is due, in large part, to the style of delivery and the shortness of the talk.
While you might spend twenty minutes or a full hour in a safety meeting, a toolbox talk typically lasts for about five minutes, though it can be helpful to conduct a 15-minute session at least once per month. Either way, brevity is the soul of toolbox talks.
This is what makes toolbox talks so effective as a safety tool. They allow you to offer safety topics to your workers in a manner that’s digestible and easy to understand. It’s also more personal than a safety meeting since it’s informal and run like a conversation.
The nice thing about toolbox talks is that they can focus on almost anything – like an accident reporting toolbox talk, for example.
PPE and safe workplace behaviors are popular subjects for toolbox talks because they’re immediately relevant to your workers, but accident reporting should not be overlooked, even though it’s easy to think of accident reporting as the sole purview of your EHS team.
The reality is that accident reporting helps you learn about the state of your safety culture, and workers are often the ones to see accidents first. In order to be useful contributors to your accident response, workers have to know what’s expected of them and what they should look for. And there’s no better place to give a reminder than a toolbox talk.
We know that EHS teams have their work cut out for them. Trying to educate employees is a full-time job, and you still have to manage all other aspects of workplace safety. That’s why accident reporting toolbox talks are essential – they give you the tools to communicate important information quickly and easily.
If you’re looking for more ideas to bring to your next round of toolbox talks, make sure to check out our blog for more great topics.