| The ultimate workplace experience conference
The ultimate workplace
experience conference
| The ultimate workplace experience conference
The ultimate workplace
experience conference
Those safety manuals gathering dust in your office aren’t helping anyone. Whether you’re running a manufacturing plant, managing a corporate campus, or overseeing a retail chain, you know the reality. Safety protocols tucked away in binders or plastered on wall posters tend to fade into the background.
The numbers tell a clear story: According to Appspace’s latest report, 85% of employees—especially frontline workers—need better workplace support.
We wanted to get to the bottom of this, so we talked to people who’ve cracked the workplace safety communication code: Trina Aguirre, who transformed safety culture at Stanford Children’s Hospital by putting power in the hands of her teams, and James Smith at A-SAFE, who believes safety drives operational excellence.
Think about the last time your team faced a safety incident. Did everyone know exactly what to do? For most organizations, the answer is no. And that’s not because people don’t care about safety. It’s because we’re stuck using communication tools from the last century to solve modern communication challenges.
Safety communication only works when it’s woven into the fabric of your everyday operations. It adapts to the worker and the way they consume content, rather than all the way around.
Here are a few proven best practices from workplace safety culture leaders, along with practical ways to implement them using modern workplace tools.
Those annual safety training sessions are not enough. Real safety happens when it’s baked into every conversation, every meeting, and every decision you make. This means rethinking how your teams engage with safety day-to-day. Instead of buried spreadsheets and forgotten protocols, turn safety metrics into something your teams track as naturally as they do sales numbers. Build safety updates into your daily huddles, not just your incident reports.
James Smith, Co-CEO of A-SAFE, puts it well, as he’s observed first-hand at the companies he’s worked at: “Safety should not be looked at in isolation. When safety is part of a broader workplace strategy, that’s when results start to happen.”
Good safety protocols do double duty: they prevent incidents and create structure that improves everything else. Think about it: when your teams have clear processes for safety communication, they naturally get better at all kinds of workplace coordination. It’s like building muscle memory for good organizational habits.
James added: “A well-organized and optimized workplace is naturally safer. But the reverse is also true—safety drives that structure in the first place.” Here’s what this can look like: When a manufacturing team sets up clear safety zones and communication protocols, something interesting happens. Those same zones become natural spots for organizing tools and materials. The morning safety huddle turns into a chance to coordinate the day’s workflow. Pretty soon, the whole team is running smoother, not just safer.
Want your safety message to actually stick? Put it in the hands of people your teams already trust and listen to. Every workplace has natural leaders; those go-to people others naturally turn to for advice or help. These are your future Safety Champs, and they’re worth their weight in gold.
As Trina Aguirre learned at Stanford Children’s Hospital and founder of Corporate Exit Plan™: “People listen to their peers way more than they listen to policies from above. When we empowered team members to become safety advocates, the whole culture shifted at the hospital.” One of her Safety Champs started sharing quick safety tips during coffee breaks, and suddenly everyone was talking about safety like they’d talk about their weekend plans. Naturally and without prompting.
Here’s the thing about those safety posters on your walls—after a day or two, they might as well be invisible. The key is to shake things up, catch people’s attention in unexpected places. Break the usual pattern.
“We started putting bright floor decals with QR codes, even coffee mugs,” Trina recalls. “These unexpected reminders got noticed because they showed up where people weren’t expecting them.”
A safety protocol isn’t helpful if no one sees it in time. Yet many organizations—especially in manufacturing and other frontline-heavy sectors—are still relying on outdated, pen-and-paper systems to track incidents, share emergency procedures, or deliver safety updates. These tools are slow, siloed, and unreliable in a moment that calls for urgency.
This applies beyond manufacturing. Any workplace with dispersed teams or fast-moving operations needs a digital safety communication system that’s real-time, mobile, and easy to access, whether that’s an app, a screen, or a QR code in the break room.
These best practices become reality when you’ve got the right tools to execute them. Here’s how to implement them using Appspace’s workplace communication solutions.
To make safety part of everyday work rather than a standalone initiative, use our automated feeds to:
These feeds automatically show up in your workplace digital signage, break room displays, and team communication channels. Instead of manually updating different screens and spaces, you set up the feed once and let it maintain consistent safety messaging across your entire workplace.
Forget boring bulletin boards. These templates help you create safety content people will actually stop and read:
These templates work across your entire digital signage network, from lobby displays to break room screens, ensuring your safety messages stand out wherever people work.
Pro tip: Start with our pre-built OH&S content feed to quickly establish a foundation, then customize channels and templates to match your specific safety initiatives. The key is maintaining consistent communication while making safety information easily accessible wherever your teams work.
Tired of safety messages that nobody sees? Sign up for a free Appspace account and see what happens when you give your safety communication the tools it needs to actually work. Reach out to our sales team here if you have any questions.
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