Keeping the lights on can be dangerous work

The Brief

Given a concerning injury rate for January – April 2015, it became a priority to tackle the traditionally risky return to work period in January/February 2016. Transpower’s objective was to encourage their safety leaders to be mindful and aware of their environment and responsibilities now they were back at work. To achieve this, they needed to:

• Deliver compelling messages in an easy-to-deliver format.
• Ensure the messaging was authentic and compelling, using language and imagery they could identify with.

The Solution

Due to the diversity of Transpower’s workforce (employers, age, experience, location, ethnicity and technical), content had to be relatable for a wide range of people and speak to the things they have in common. And so we focused on delivering our messages in an easily accessible and engaging format, and worked hard to ensure the messaging was authentic, using language and imagery the audience could identify with.

A ‘Switch On’ communication campaign – including a distinctive visual identity - was developed to engage the entire workforce.  ‘Mindfulness’ is a key component in behavioural safety and this became the basis of our video series.

The videos depicted an ‘average Joe’ during his day at work – from waking up to returning home. Throughout the day, he was prompted to be attentive to the tasks at hand, recognising his need to be actively aware of his environment, work, and colleagues.

• We worked with real workers (not actors) from one of Transpower’s service providers, Broadspectrum.
• We kept the material free of Transpower’s corporate branding, instead developing distinctive, bright ‘Switch On’ green and black branding, using the bright green for props throughout the videos.
• We took a functional, unpolished approach to video production to match the intended tone of the message, testing tone in the field before release.

We supported the videos with ‘Switch On’ print collateral for depots and sites based on the worker-actors and key messages.

The Results

Transpower received very positive feedback from their service provider network and their own people, and - importantly - recorded their lowest incident rate over the return to work period (January to April 2016) in three years. 

The following year’s campaign was extended to incorporate the learnings from this project, including the insights that losing focus in the lead up to Christmas could also cause accidents and that hydration was a real challenge in the warmer weather after Christmas. Over this two year period, the incident rate has more than halved.