I found myself looking at my hands in a whole new light after returning from a DiVal Safety Tradeshow. Dale Lesinski give a presentation at the DiVal Safety Tradeshow on being ‘safe 4 the right reasons.’ The goal is to visualize the four people in your life who absolutely count on you being safe. And the four fingers on your hand serve as a visualization tool you always have at the ready.

What a great concept.

We are responsible for our own safety. True, to a certain point. But we also rely on our coworkers to make safe decisions around us. Do they know each others four reasons and why they’re so important?

We have a suggestion for any employer who has a workplace digital signage program: help employees share their reasons. Visual communication makes things real. It’s incredibly powerful to have pictures of employees with their safety reason right next to them. And it’s not just real; it’s memorable. Keep in mind that we forget up to 75% of what we’re told, but with visual reinforcement, we retain 85%.

Your digital signage messaging can go beyond a simple list of names. Instead, to make it even more memorable, the reasons could look more like this:

“I’m safe because I’m cooking dinner tonight for my kids.”

“I’m safe because Thor, my German Shepherd, loves to run with me.”

These are visuals employees can certainly take away with them. They personalize our coworkers. We want him or her to get that dinner ready. And we can see Thor getting antsy for his evening run. Of course, with the right digital signage, we could easily post a picture of Thor, which offers another set of benefits.

Like all safety programs, you need to stick with it. Employees come and go. Our ‘reasons’ for being safe change.  It’s important to periodically refresh the ‘reasons’ that are being displayed. Fortunately, effective workplace digital signage software makes it easy to post these kinds of updates.

What other safety programs and training could be enhanced when you further engage employees and share safety messages through workplace digital signage? After all, your organization made the investment in the program; your employees made an investment with their time. Make it pay more safety dividends with your workplace digital signage.