Effective toolbox talks

Make toolbox talks an effective way to keep health and safety forefront in the minds of your workers and make them aware of current risks and hazards.

Toolbox talks are an effective way to instill or maintain heightened safety awareness within any workgroup. Making these talks effective is a useful way to keep health and safety forefront in the minds of your workers and make them aware of current risks and hazards. Documented toolbox talks also enable the fulfillment of key criteria of modern OHS law, consultation and training.

Ensure talks are effective by:

• Keep talks brief and consistent with topic / plan / agenda.
• Keep talks positive.
• Listen for and be open to suggestions by workers. The purpose of any toolbox talk is to start people thinking about safety problems. Encourage workers to identify hazards and ask them to suggest possible solutions.
• Don’t rush, allow time for questions.
• Focus talks on a single topic.
• Vary the content talk by talk eg:
  • Review upcoming work schedule— What hazards are you concerned about? What safety equipment should be used? What procedures should be followed?
  • Another talk could be short training session on something relevant to the site (eg safe use of ladders).
  • Review recent injuries— What happened? Why did it happen? What should have been done? (Don’t use names, don’t blame)
  • Review recent safety violations— What was the violation? What hazard did it create? What injury could have occurred?
  • Then back to another training area etc, etc.
• Hold talks frequently and regularly for effectiveness.
• Introduce images, videos etc at different talks and as required to reinforce the message and stop talks becoming stale.
• When closing the toolbox talk, reinforce the important points discussed.
• Ensure what is discussed is recorded as are the names of attendees and date of talk.