How can you ensure safety communication is accessible to all employees?

1 Assess your audience

Before you design and deliver your safety messages, you need to know who your audience is and what their needs are. Conduct a survey or a focus group to identify the different groups of employees who work at your airport, such as ground staff, security personnel, air traffic controllers, maintenance workers, and so on. Find out what their main safety concerns and challenges are, what channels they use to receive and share information, and what barriers they may face to access safety communication.

2 Choose appropriate formats

Once you have a clear picture of your audience, you can choose the most appropriate formats for your safety communication. For example, you may use posters, flyers, newsletters, videos, podcasts, webinars, or mobile apps to convey your safety messages. However, you should also consider the accessibility of these formats for employees who may have visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments, or who may not speak English as their first language. You may need to provide subtitles, captions, transcripts, translations, or alternative text for your safety communication materials.

4 Involve and empower employees

Safety communication should not be a one-way process, but a dialogue that involves and empowers employees. You should encourage feedback, questions, suggestions, and complaints from your employees, and respond to them promptly and respectfully. You should also create opportunities for employees to share their experiences, opinions, and best practices with each other, such as through forums, meetings, or peer-to-peer mentoring. You should also recognize and reward employees who demonstrate good safety performance or behavior.

5 Evaluate and improve

Finally, you should evaluate and improve your safety communication strategy regularly. You should measure the effectiveness of your safety communication materials and channels, using indicators such as reach, engagement, retention, satisfaction, and behavior change. You should also collect and analyze data on safety incidents, injuries, and near misses, and identify any gaps or weaknesses in your safety communication. You should use this information to update and refine your safety communication plan and materials, and communicate any changes or improvements to your employees.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?