What about the Day after Safety Day?
My greatest honor as a safety day motivational speaker, is when I hear that my safety day keynote speaking advice was remembered long after the event. In fact, I like to learn that my motivational safety day talk saved an injury or two weeks and months later.
Don’t get me wrong, me a Safety Speaker like BBQ and free T-shirts as much as the next guy, but the purpose of a safety day event should never be about “a day’s fun and done.”
The Safety Day Event
When an organization hires me to be their safety day event speaker, one of the first questions I ask is, “What are you trying to do?” If the answer is something like, “We want to bring the guys together talk little safety and share some laughs,” I get nervous. Unless we can talk about the importance of taking care of one another and our obligation to safely return home – and make sure our buddies return home safe and sound as well, nothing will have been learned.
As a workplace safety speaker, creating and maintaining a safe workplace environment and a safety consciousness, is a full-time commitment. We don’t overlook a work partner’s sloppy safety habits; we don’t overlook drug or alcohol abuse; we don’t ignore it when a fellow employee rushes a job, takes a stupid risk or cuts safety corners. More than that, what should be stressed at a Safety Day event is that we’re all in it together.
I can’t tell you how many times I have had “white collar” audience members come up to me and admit they attended Safety Day celebrations for the wine and cheese, and all of that, but soon after, got injured. Why? They believed safety was a “blue collar thing.”
Maybe they lifted a box of copy paper incorrectly and threw out their backs, or they slipped on an un-mopped puddle in the break room floor and badly twisted an ankle, or the worst, they fell from a ladder while putting up Christmas decorations.
Safety Day is for everyone. Everyone needs to hear the message. As a safety day motivational speaker, I go even further and remind my audiences (using my funniest explanations, of course) that safety has no rank. If the new intern observes the CEO taking a safety risk, she should say something. If the new truck driver observes the head of transportation tippling a wee-too-much at work, he must be empowered to say something – and without consequence.
The Ultimate Goal of Safety Day
Most importantly, the ultimate goal of safety day must be to ensure that you and your co-workers, safely return home to family and friends. Safety is not a self-centered thing, but a “we” thing. Safety Day only works when we agree to look out for one another, and that everyone matters.
As a Safety Day motivational speaker, I want to inspire everyone in the organization to care about one another. Any organization is only as good as its people. At the end of the day, a horrific injury to a co-worker (no matter their department or position), injures everyone. We must remember that the day after Safety Day as well as at the event itself.
To contact Mike Hourigan, Safety Day Motivational Speaker, for an in-person or virtual presentation, please call. Contact Mike today at (704) 875-3030 or fill out the form below.
