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Free Safety Meeting Materials for Electrical Contractors

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Content courtesy of Jeremy Stiehl of safetytalkideas.com especially for WECA Members

By: Jeremy Stiehl of safetytalkideas.com

Free Safety Meeting Materials for Electrical Contractors


Electrical contractors face many dangers on the job. Due to the nature of this work, OSHA has specific regulations in place to protect the employees who work in this field. Moreover, general contractors often set even more stringent expectations in place for the subcontractors working on their jobs.

An example of such a requirement is holding safety meetings. Oftentimes, it is required by a general contractor that all subcontractors on a jobsite hold a daily or weekly safety meeting with their work crews.



What are Safety Meetings?

Safety meetings can go by various names--toolbox talks, safety talks, safety stand-downs, etc. The basic premise is to share a safety message with the work crew prior to the start of the shift. The desired outcome for these meetings is for employees to be better educated on the hazards of the work that is being done. These meetings should also educate the employees on specific mitigation actions to reduce the risk for injury and illness.

Where to Find Safety Meeting Topics?

Whether your company is completing safety meetings to comply with regulations, make your customers happy, or to follow a high standard for safety set by your own organization, it can be painful to find new ideas on what to discuss.

This post shares three resources to find new ideas for your next safety meeting.



1) Safety Talk Ideas

As the name implies, safetytalkideas.com, has a wide range of free safety meeting materials. There are over 250 free safety meeting topics published on the website. The talks can be filtered through by choosing the most appropriate category such as construction, general industry, and motor vehicle safety. You can even find behavioral safety talks and home safety talks to share topics that you may not have covered with your employees in the past.

2) OSHA's Alphabetical List of Topics

OSHA is a great resource for business owners who are striving to keep their employees safe and to stay compliant with regulations. It can sometimes be difficult to find exactly what you are looking for when doing a simple Google search for OSHA-specific information.

There is a concise and easy-to-follow alphabetical list of topics on their site, which you can browse by clicking here. This list of topics is great for finding up-to-date and trustworthy information on almost all major work activities and hazards that could be encountered on the job.

3) Your Worker Compensation Insurance Provider

Business owners often do not realize the resources that may be at their disposal through the companies that they are insured through. Your worker compensation carrier most likely has free safety meeting materials on their website or through an established partnership with another training company. It is in their interest that you run a safe operation, so check with any of your insurance providers to see what safety resources are available to you.

Summary

Safety meetings can be boring and can even be painful for those responsible for having to lead the meetings. This does not have to be the case. Browse the above resources and find new topics to discuss.

If you have to recover old topics, find new ways to present the information. A few ideas can include telling stories, incorporating humor, having employees share experiences, or having a different manager present the meeting topic. When used correctly, the time spend during safety meetings, can have a significant positive impact on your company's safety efforts.

Written by Jeremy Stiehl, CSP ARM. He also started and runs the website www.safetytalkideas.com to solve his own pain point of not having access to safety material materials.