Safework NSW Safety starts with you.
Too many people are opting to take the easier option when it comes to work safety, even if it puts them at risk. With a large perception of employers and workers taking unnecessary risks, it was therefore necessary to change the game.
Wages are not worth more than life. But on a daily basis people in NSW are taking and tolerating risks at work. Every year in NSW there are around 100,000 injuries at work, that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in workers compensation claims. Each of those injuries has a ripple effect on those around them, at work, at home. It’s a heavy toll for the community to bear. This drove the objective given to Bastion Creative, to build a safety culture in NSW through a workplace safety campaign.
Too many people are opting to take the easier option when it comes to work safety, even if it puts them at risk. With a large perception of employers and workers taking unnecessary risks, it was therefore necessary to change the game. The behavioural goal for this campaign was to change people’s attitudes and behaviours towards safety in the workplace, to protect and even save lives of people at risk within the NSW workforce. The campaign had a planned rollout for three years. The approach was to leverage the Du Pont Bradley Curve which evolves the behavioural goal each year – from dependent, to independent to interdependent.
Barriers / triggers identified. Nudges and steers used to encourage the desired behaviour with target.
Research identified several powerful insights into workplace accident and injuries. It was clear that there is a culture of unsafe work practices in NSW; it exists across all categories, industries and job types. In fact, 70% of NSW employees agree with the statement ‘I try to follow best practice and safety guidelines but sometimes it’s just quicker / easier to do it another way’. The fact is that they have a ‘she’ll be right attitude’ when it comes to workplace safety. But the truth is ‘she’ll be right’, is never right.
Following a process of develop strategically driven creative ideas, four ideas were tested with NSW employed individuals across workers, managers and employers. And the strongest nudge identified to create a safety culture was self-persuasion.
Our strongest basic need is to protect oneself. Individual responsibility is a key part of workplace safety and ownership of this responsibility can extend to the safety of others. We applied a nudge that showed ‘doubles’ (two of the same worker), persuading themselves to be safe.
The creative approach brought this nudge to life using safety doubles, as the visual reminder that you are responsible for your own safety. These safety doubles appear in moments of imminent danger to remind workers that they are the best person to look after their own safety. This was important to address campaign guidelines of not showing blood and gore, but still being an idea to motivate action and conversation.
As the campaign progressed through the strategic framework it evolved its’ message each year. The idea was rolled out across TV, out of home, radio, digital and collateral for workplaces. The campaign is supported by an App ‘Safe – by SafeWork NSW’ that Bastion developed. It is designed to help workplaces identify and resolve workplace safety issues.