Hi Michael,

We have recently completed a global safety standdown, as the company I work for is located on every continent. The initiative was lead from our overseas head office with members from every department scheduled to set sessions (to promote pan-department discussions), and ensure that everyone got a chance to attend without totally stopping the business for the day. At each session, everyone was divided in tables of 8, with a manager at each to 'hear' their concerns and keep them on task.

The discussions were good and robust, with the usual extra vocal individuals coming up against their match from other departments, and where the quiet ones had confidence speak because they were not in their familiar teams.

Each table was also asked to write down their concerns or the things they liked and what they wanted to see more of (sort of stop,start,continue but only from what was recognizable only from the discussions) the issues/concerns/output was recorded a 1 pager in bullet points, and collated with other tables/sessions.

Later, every individual was independently surveyed about their experience, and what if anything they might like to further add/change given they had some additional time to digest the discussions post event. Again an opportunity to allow input.

While the results are still being collated and yet to be released, anecdotally from feedback it was a success.

Note, this was not about gaining commitment from the workers to be better at safety as individuals. It was about "how as an organization could we do better for them?". Headoffice will publish the results and subsequent approach in due course.

So based on my observations of this event I liked it, I think the level of participation and richness in the discussions was a good indicator, plus workers are still talking about it in day to day conversations.

A World Cafe style activity with a skilled, independent facilitator could be a good way of going about this. Having someone from outside the business facilitate allows managers and the H&S team to participate as equals. Organise some relevant questions for participants to brainstorm in small groups and get them to mingle for subsequent questions, with time allocated at the end to return to their original group, share what they learned, consolidate, then each group present back to the big group. Collect ideas on poster paper or long rolls of paper during the event, then gather these up at the end to write up as session notes, then distribute to all participants.

When conducted properly, the World Cafe style event combines all the best elements of small groups, brainstorming, and presenting positive and constructive ideas that can be developed into projects and plans.

We ran a successful Safe to Start programme after the lockdown last year. No-one could start work until they had been through the programme, including this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCr3I5ErXfw . We also ran a similar Stop for Safety campaign at the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2VT787mDw
Incidentally a reduction in lost time injuries and ACC costs, while certainly positive, isn't a measure of h&s performance or risk, hence the silly near misses that could lead to much more serious incidents.