Health and Safety Committee – Refresher Course
Lesson 3 – Topic 7
Communication skills are important in safety. Now, why is that so? Poor communication is a major contributor to misinterpretation and even conflict in the workplace. So it makes a lot of sense to spend time on how to improve communication skills so that the risk of people misinterpreting a message is minimized.
For the purpose of this refresher course, we are going to review some of key meeting and presentation skills.
Meeting Agenda
Before a meeting, you should have prepared and circulated an agreed agenda. This agenda should be consulted on with committee members. Important here is that sufficient time is allocated for each agenda point, taking into account the available meeting time. Too many agenda topics will limit the ability to achieve quality discussions and informed decisions. If there are many agenda topics, increase the meeting frequency. A well timed agenda is a great tool that will contribute to meeting effectiveness.
Meeting Procedure
An agreed meeting procedure can significantly improve meeting quality. This meeting procedure should clearly set out rules of conduct during the meeting. For instance:
- only one person to speak at a time
- all attention will be given to the current presenter
- always hear people out before commenting
- never ridicule people’s views etc
These are very simple rules that all members will surely agree on. These rules will then give the chairperson a mandate to enforce them during the meeting. This meeting procedure can also become a very useful induction document for new members of the committee. So everyone is on the same page when it comes to how to conduct oneself when at the meeting.
Committee meeting may only be held monthly or as per the law, at least 3 monthly and often are not longer than say 2 hours. So in the scheme of things this is not a lot of time. Hence even more reason to make these meetings as effective as possible by introducing a level of discipline.
Meeting Minutes
Someone to take the minutes of the meeting. All participants should agree that their input is correctly represented. Minutes should include a clear and accurate summary of what was discussed and then clearly state who is going to do what by when. This will enable the issues raised to be effectively followed up and actioned.
Without this information, meeting minutes will simply become a legal liability. If written and actioned in a timely manner, meeting minutes will contribute to safer workplace and become a level of evidence that the organization is serious about complying with the safety laws.
Presentation Skills
Anyone can make an excellent presentation but not everyone has the confidence. The good news is that you can develop confidence by applying some very simple techniques such as running your ideas past other stakeholders prior to the meeting. It is also helpful to understand that you do not have to be an expert in safety to present on safety matters. You just need to have a level of knowledge about the issue that makes you feel confident enough to talk about it.
So if you can describe your safety issue exactly as you have experienced it, and then think about ways how you think it can be improved, you are basically there.
Of course, it is essential that the rest of the committee is supportive of your presentation, regardless whether they hold different views. This is where having an agreed meeting procedure will add a lot of value to the meeting of course. It ensures that all participants are treated with respect and are given a real opportunity to express themselves without being ridiculed or put down for their views.
Sometimes the most “out there” ideas can be the most brilliant ones.
In the course material you will find more tips on presentation skills and at the bottom of this page you can find a template that you can use to write any presentation. Using this template will ensure that your presentation is short and clear whilst hitting all the right notes.
Voice Tonality & Body Language
- Over 75 percent of communication is nonverbal.
- 45 percent of communication is about voice tonality
- 45 percent of communication is about body language
- 10 percent of communication is about the words that you use.
The above statements are an example of many that you can find on the internet regarding communication. The level of research that was done to back these statements up is often not very clear. But it is fair to say that voice tonality and body language can have a significant impact on how you and your presentation are going to be perceived by your audience.
So it makes sense to pay attention to body language and voice tonality.
Voice tonality includes talking loud, talking softer, talking fast, talking slower and also including pauses in your talk.
With body language we mean a type communication, other than the use of words, in which physical behaviors and postures are used to express or convey information
The type and combination of what body language and voice tonality you use is up to you and should be consistent with your personality. So always be yourself and do not try to be someone else.
You are good enough.
Good body language and voice tonality can significantly improve how your audience will perceive and understand your message. There are case studies in industry that prove this point. One particular case study is when a well known body language expert conducted a test involving 3 identical presentations but using different body language for each presentation such the use of palms up, palms down and pointed fingers.
The test showed that the audience who were spoken to using the palms up body language had a much better understanding of the message compared to the other groups.
By just using a body language including palms up, the effectiveness of the presentation increased dramatically.
So is it worth spending time on body language and voice tonality? Absolutely! And this does not only apply to safety presentations, it applies to all communication involving physical behaviours.
Problem Solving
The final topic in this session is about problem solving. During problem solving, communication skills become very important in order to develop and maintain a positive, encouraging and respectful environment where people’s views are valued and not criticized.
Example of a problem solving process.
- Describe the problem
- Why is the problem a problem (justify why people should listen to you)
- Specify your desired outcome
- Brain storm for solutions
- Evaluate each solution & implement the best
- Monitor and evaluate implemented solutions
Template for writing any presentation:
- Describe the problem
- Why is the problem a problem (justify why people should listen to you)
- Specify your desired outcome
- Make recommendations
