Health and Safety Communications Campaign

Aurecon's CEO challenged the Global Leader of H&S to shift up a gear in how we engage our workforce. Leading innovation theorist Professor Roberto Verganti believes “what makes people really passionate is not a solution; it's the discovery of new meaning”. The slogan became the vehicle for creating new meaning through inspiring and authentic storytelling by our staff. The communication model is highly flexible, seamlessly moving from the launch video, posters and intranet stories to self-published posts as staff share #MyWhy on social media. It informs how leaders communicate the refreshed strategy and staff are already owning and using the slogan in their daily work with colleagues and clients.

Family and friends are the most important aspect of life for many people. If anything were to happen to you, your family and friends would all be impacted. At the heart of this campaign is a series of beautiful black and white images taken by Aurecon photographers of Aurecon staff on their own or with loved ones. The authenticity resonates across geographies and cultures. Our models have become ambassadors for the campaign and have gone on to share their stories of why H&S matters to them. Many of these staff members are frequently exposed to high-risk work environments and the images are a powerful reminder to all staff of why they need to look after themselves and others in the workplace.

Mention the words 'health and safety' to someone and there is a good chance they will either tune out or switch off. Reversing this impact became our focus and an element of design. Our launch video was produced to lay the foundation of our communication design. After reviewing industry campaigns (largely based on incidents, fear, death or non-compliance) and research on intrinsic motivation, it was decided the campaign should be radically different to traditional campaigns. It uses emotive visuals, music and an authentic voiceover to first win the viewers' hearts so that, later, their heads will follow. The video has resonated internally amongst our 7,000 workforce with 23,000 hits in the first month.

Historically, H&S was often reduced to compliance, systems were introduced without staff consultation, and management used monologues. We knew that this approach would not inspire our people. Our strategy to be human-centric is based on the way we want to care for our people and is led from the top. The video was narrated by our Global H&S Leader in an honest tone demonstrating the sincerity of the campaign. It was closed out with a written statement from our CEO to drive home the value he places on taking care of each other. It was reinforced at the global meeting where it was launched to 50 leaders and the host Region Director shared a self-made video of the people, and dog, in his life who depend on him.

It is traditional to share knowledge through storytelling and each meeting at Aurecon opens with a 'safety moment'. This campaign is improving H&S storytelling by making it more deeply meaningful. First-person stories are published weekly on the intranet where we are profiling our H&S Ambassadors. To develop these profiles we interviewed each ambassador: Why is being healthy and safe important to you? Who depends on your being healthy and safe? Can you recall a moment at work or at home when you realised the importance of H&S? The Ambassador profiles are eliciting exceptional levels of engagement because they are truthful, authentic and relatable. Unsolicited, many staff are now sharing their #MyWhy on Yammer.

The campaign message needed to be reflected in the supporting systems and tools that we offer our people. We undertook a massive redesign of our dedicated H&S intranet site to incorporate the messaging and human-centricity provided by the campaign. This led to improving how information was located by focusing on the end-user experience. It was an opportunity to simplify by removing huge amounts of clutter and outdated information. Emphasis was placed on increasing transparency over the H&S strategy and ongoing communication of updates and incident alerts. The redesign was launched alongside the campaign video and has seen a 180% year-on-year increase in traffic to the dedicated site.

Co-designing all elements of the campaign with staff was central to its success with the added benefit of keeping costs minimal (AUD10,000). A multi-dimensional roll-out across omni-channels ensured the message reached staff on many levels. It also provided opportunities for staff to be content producers through the Ambassador Profiles, #MyWhy photographic competition, #MyWhy virtual and physical safety walls and in-person discussions at small and large events. Although primarily an internal campaign, the social media strategy is likely to increase Aurecon's brand value by demonstrating to clients and future hires that we take H&S seriously and care about our people and the people who depend on them.