Effective toolbox talks are essential in fostering a safe work environment. They reinforce protocols and open dialogue between team members, to achieve a stronger understanding of regulations and compliance.
Many are now choosing to digitize toolbox talks, making the process more effective. This is a particularly necessary step when teams are split across multiple sites or work remotely.
It removes the hurdles of physical distance and creates a space all can reference without diving through folders of complicated documentation in search of information that could be outdated.
In this article we’ll discuss how to organize and deliver an effective toolbox talk, and how software that supports digitized toolbox talks, such as Fluix, makes the process smooth, streamlined, and stress free.
Contents:
What Is a Toolbox Talk?
A toolbox talk is a quick safety meeting between supervisors or managers and their teams.
They’re a good way to refresh employees on vital information, or a particular process, and encourage open safety communication between team members.
By using a dedicated toolbox talk process, managers can create a safer working environment where everyone is better protected.
Things to Consider When Running a Toolbox Talk
When deciding how to conduct a toolbox meeting, it’s important to take multiple factors into consideration during the planning stage.
Don’t forget to:
· Define the flow of talk in advance: Map out planned steps and ensure all documentation and forms are to hand. Using an automated safety workflow app, all templates and documents are to hand. Any required forms are easily accessible and all information is uploaded to company storage so there’s an easy-to-follow path of evidence for the toolbox talk.
· Choose a specific and relevant topic: There are countless common safety topics a toolbox talk serves as an effective reminder of. Choose one that’s relevant to the team’s project, and is something that has arisen recently. For example, if a construction worker has encountered a hazardous situation with onsite machinery.
· Check the legalities: Before beginning, check all relevant legalities and compliance laws. This safeguards the company against misinformation and mitigates any risks taken by employees. A well-run toolbox meeting will address this and ensure content and suggested solutions adhere to the relevant legalities.
· Decide who will participate: Assess the worker’s experience and skill levels. This will allow the toolbox talk to be tailored to its specific participants, and ensure it’s comprehensive, and relevant. This allows optimization of how the toolbox talk is run and a clear level of understanding.
· Choose delivery method: There are many ways to run toolbox meetings effectively. They can be conducted over email, as a quick informal chat, by providing a handout, or the most effective and error-free way: using an automated workflow app, such as Fluix.
This is usually the best choice as it streamlines toolbox talks, provides a way to follow-up on documentation easily, and keeps everything in one simple, accessible place, reducing the likelihood of safety incidents.
The next step is figuring out the most effective way to run the toolbox talk.
Technicians at RWE were able to deliver all toolbox talk documents at the start of every day using Fluix.
This means any safety documentation is available to technicians at the start of every new relevant job, and can be signed and sent over individually by each employee.
This allowed for greater communication between the teams and a reduction in form completion time by 45%, making it the fastest and most efficient way to deliver a toolbox talk.
Read More: How to manage health and safety documentation for compliance and workplace safety
6 Tips for an Effective Toolbox Talk
Toolbox talks are essential for a safe and well-informed work environment. These discussions ensure practices are followed, documentation is read, and risks are mitigated.
1. Keep Toolbox Talks Brief
A well-run toolbox meeting should be around 10-15 minutes in length. Rather than get into the weeds, zero in on a particular issue and dedicate the time of the talk to that alone.
This ensures employees remain engaged and attentive, and respects their time. These shorter talks allow a supervisor to cut straight to the heart of a particular safety concern or matter and deliver key, essential information concisely.
2. Keep It Informal
There’s no good throwing around a bunch of jargon because it sounds more official. The most effective toolbox talks are communicated in a manner everyone understands. If a team has a common turn of phrase or name for a specific piece of equipment, it’s better to use that than its real name like the FCX5-800; which might not even be recognized.
Speaking to people like people and not like a corporate rulebook personalizes the topic and encourages relatability.
3. Stay Positive and Enthusiastic
Keep toolbox talks interactive and light. Encourage questions and if necessary, use visual aids or demonstrations to form a connection with employees on the topic. If using digital means to deliver a toolbox talk, managers and supervisors can encourage participation through the use of quizzes or surveys that will assess understanding and store answers in an easily accessible, central location.
4. Use Toolbox Talks to Demonstrate Authority
Keep it informal but use it as an opportunity to show knowledge. Managers are the foremost authority on the subject and by demonstrating this, a team will feel more comfortable coming to their team leader with any questions they might have.
Having the right documentation to hand and accessible to all are key in planning how to conduct your toolbox meeting. Much like how a pilot may need flight manuals, a safety talk requires the correct procedure. Rather than flipping through a multitude of safety documents to find it however, an app like Fluix can provide it all at the touch of a button.
Titan Airways found this when they automated their flight bags using Fluix to streamline their turnaround times for important documents and created dedicated workflows for their engine health monitoring, eliminating human error.
As a result, they’ve eliminated up to 45 kg of paper from each flight deck and are able to tightly monitor expiring qualifications and changing legal requirements.
5. Record All Toolbox Talks
Rather than expecting everyone to keep track of multiple documents and remembering to sign them off by a specific date, the customized automated workflow will move this along automatically, thanks to Fluix-provided toolbox talk templates.
Each person will receive information on what they are required to do with the appropriate documents attached to fill in.
Once completed, it’s digitally transferred to the next person in the chain, cutting down on human error, admin, and reducing turnaround time by a significant margin. This means easy access to all important toolbox talk information and the ability to react in real-time to any potential issues or process inefficiencies.
Delivering Effective Toolbox Talks with Fluix
Fluix is workflow automation software that can assist in facilitating toolbox talks by providing a digital platform that streamlines the preparation, delivery, and documentation of these important safety meetings. Here’s how it does it:
- Digital safety talk distribution
- Remote access from mobile devices
- Interactive forms and checklists
- Digital signature
- Automated workflows
- Integration-based safety reporting
This digital platform will ensure that toolbox talks are not only conducted effectively but also contribute to building a culture of safety within your organization.
