This month has been busy and it’s great to see that many businesses are back into full production and with this comes an increase in safety and training.
The CNB Safe team has been working with many workplaces sharing our messages all over the country. One of the great things about what we do is that we get to see many different approaches to keeping people safe.
Some of these activities are better than others and some just don’t work as well.
Recently I worked with a workplace that decided to celebrate and recognise some business milestones and the effort that employees have made this year so far.
They also wanted me to deliver my story and try to pass on my safety message of going home safely.
The problem was that they held it in a licensed premises and management was paying for drinks.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a wowser or against celebrating or having a good time but I found it hard to see how my story would sink in with some of these people that had already had a few drinks by the time I got there?
So just as suggestion, if you are going to arrange a celebration, that’s great, but if you are going to do some safety training have a think about where you will do it.
I would say it was one of the best days of my life.
Meeting KISS put me in such a positive frame of mind as I was not doing it for me, but for Kathy.
It was always her dream to meet her real husband, Paul Stanley, and I was her fill-in husband (I want payment for looking after her). KISS don’t do autographs but after talking to a roadie and explaining why she was not with me at the "Meet & Greet'', he took Kathy's picture away with him. The roadie came back saying "Paul was touched. Please enjoy the show" and he gave me back our picture autographed.
I had tears in my eyes but it showed me my life was actually worth living, even though I miss Kathy so much.
I went back to the town I grew up in last weekend. I caught up with a few of my old mates and we spent a bit of time reminiscing about the "Old Days".
It’s funny that the conversation would often revolve around some of the things that we did that could have ended up much worse! Motorbikes, cars, rope swings into the river, cattle yards, shooting on farms and jumping off the bridge into the Namoi River.
It was so cool to catch up with old friends and we are all now in our 50’s. At different times during the weekend they all expressed how much my accident had changed their lives.
Don’t hurt yourselves people…. The impact is huge on EVERYONE!
Before James came to share his story at Komatsu I only knew of him through a random ad on LinkedIn. We wanted to break the stigma around the "safety police" tag HSE leaders get associated with and show that we are actually a resource for the people.
Having James come in and share his personal experiences helped us engage the workforce in breaking down the barriers we have faced in our duty of care.
James story hit deep within for a lot of people and could see a genuine change in mannerism as people left the presentation. Sometimes people need that little reminder that they are not invincible.
Thanks so much for your honesty and being so open with your journey James, from all of us here at Komatsu, thank you.
Our marketing company 'Beans Marketing' recently completed a case study on the amazing communications campaign they created for '12 Reasons NOT to get hurt at work', book by James Wood.
We love working with Beans and wanted to share the video they put together showcasing all the aspects of the campaign.
Click on image below to watch the video or read more about the campaign here.
