Safety videos: Will a more subtle approach work?
April 5, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: construction safety, Injuries, Safety training, safety video/photo, Special Report, What do you think?
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Safety videos without blood: Will they work?
About a year ago, we wrote about five safety videos produced by the Ontario, Canada, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
Each half-minute story addresses workplace safety topics in a variety of settings, including construction, manufacturing and retail.
They don’t sugar-coat the subject. One shows a restaurant worker’s scalded face after she slips and spills a large pot of boiling water on herself. They are disturbing — but they got more than 580,000 views on YouTube.
Now, several Canadian provinces, including Nova Scotia and Alberta, have released a new series of public service ads, “Before it’s an injury.”
These videos show workplace hazards, too, such as a bucket of water left in the middle of a hallway and a ladder with a rung that’s ready to break.
But in each one, the screen quickly cuts to black as the painful workplace injury is about to take place. In the one involving a nail sticking out of a piece of wood, you hear the sickening sound of the nail piercing flesh as a worker stands up and bumps into it. But you don’t see the incident. The last thing heard on the ad is someone saying, “Somebody get help.”
They leave more to the imagination. But they’re done in such a way that you can’t avoid thinking about what happens next.
So here’s the question: Do you need blood in safety videos for them to make an impact? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.
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Tags: Before it's an injury, blood, safety videos
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April 5th, 2010 at 6:29 am
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April 5th, 2010 at 9:57 am
I have a lot of male employees from ages 20-35 or so. I have noticed whenever I show a video, they all anticipate the “money shot”, someone gets hurt and fake blood is everywhere. They do understand the intent and purpose of the video is safety, not entertainment, but they still demand gory videos. They will make comments regarding the video in the days and weeks after showing the video and I use that to faciitate some followup discussions. So I guess my answer to the article’s questions is no.
April 5th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
I guess it depends on “what message you are trying to get across”, I still think
Safety the Big Picture is the blockbuster of all time, puts things into perspective.
We also use the STOP Safety Training Program-duPont to document and record
At Risk Behavior, but it is also flexible enough to highlight and reinforce Positive Behavior.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
We have a product that is hard to demonstrate and we have went to Video. (See following You Tube no blood in this one). It is working really well at letting people see how they can use this item to increase safety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbXLU9CGUow
April 6th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Sounds like with Jason, the bloody videos work to help get discussions going. The more you talk about safety and put it to use in your daily activities, the more effective whatever program you are doing will be.
I think that it isn’t neccessary…but again, if it grabs attention and makes an impact without seeing a co-worker get seriously hurt, well, it’s a no-brainer. Use the bloody video!
April 6th, 2010 at 8:22 am
I would say it depend on the audience. I am squeamish and have a vivid imagination. I don’t need to see the injury, I can imagine it just fine. Some, like me, may find gory videos too disturbing.
April 6th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Based on Jason’s answer and from my own experience with employees, it really depends on your audience – whether it is primarily male or female employees.
April 6th, 2010 at 8:44 am
I think it’s a good idea to leave more to the imagination. I agree it would make the people think more about it.
April 6th, 2010 at 8:48 am
I am always looking for workplace safety videos. Can anyone share a resource to find these?
April 6th, 2010 at 8:57 am
I think that it’s more effective when you leave the actual injury to someone’s imagination. We’ve become so jaded by CGI and special effects that most injuries in safety videos appear very fake and don’t have the intended impact. Allowing someone to form a picture in their mind’s eye avoids this problem.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Like the saying we are all familiar with… ” a picture is worth a thousand words”; in my opinion videos have a noticeable impact immediately and leave a lasting impression that the viewers still comment for days after seeing it. The videos generate a topic of conversation and indirectly allows for residual safety talks to others not directly involved in a training scenario. I have used some for training and have had people come up to me asking when the next class is because they heard their co-workers describing some of the scenes in the video or my PowerPoint presentation. Is it curiosity? Perhaps, but the main thing is that now you have an opportunity to get an attentive and interested audience for the “Safety Talk”.
If bloody videos help get the message to those individuals who may think “that won’t happen to me”; then I am in favor of using them.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:22 am
No. Emphatically, no. You should not force people to watch things they would find disturbing. A lot of people do not want to see or hear people getting hurt or killed, and you should not use those in safety training. And don’t bring up the subject of telling the assembled audience that they are disturbing scenes and they do not have to stay if they do not want to. That, one, defeats the purpose of the training if they are told they do not have to attend. Two, there will be a lot of people, for fear of being talked about by their co-workers, that will sit through something that they clearly find disturbing just so they will not be ridiculed.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Cheryl,
You can check the following for training:
http://www.safetytrainingnetwork.com/products/safetyTrainingVideos.shtml
http://oshasafetytrainingvideos.com/
April 6th, 2010 at 9:50 am
I think it has its value. Poeple see the blood and gore in the films and become desensitized to it.
Take the blood and gore out of the video just before it happens and you get their attention all of a sudden becuase they are waiting for the “second boot to drop.”
I don’t have very many gory videos, I get them from the outfit that restocks our first aid boxes and services our fire extinguishers. They are pretty bland and only similate an injury with no blood.
I’ve seen vidoes for chainsaw safety and they actually showed fresh injuries caused by chainsaws.
The idea is to get them to pay attention and it’s a good idea to change the way the message is delivered in order to keep their attention. They need to see something new or they just zone out because they’ve seen it all already and think they’ve got themselves covered.
If it means giving training for the same topic that you gave last year, then a different video would be better. It’s kind of like the difference between watching the old version of “Clash of the Titans” and the new version.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Well said Peter. I agree, your audience dictates the types of materials used. For my 20-something production workers, the bloodier the better. It keeps their attention, generates buzz, and gets the message across. Do I use the same type of materials when training the office staff? Absolutely not. I tailor the materials I use to my audience.
For example, when training on our Emergency Action Plan, I use a snippet from “The Office” (Dwight gets mad everyone ignored his training and he starts a small fire to prove a point) to train the office and clerical staff. Everyone gets a laugh and we start out the meeting with everyone smiling.
For production employees, I use a video from the 70′s which shows people running out the building on fire. The entire room erupts in laughter, not at the subject but at the cheesy production and even cheesier ‘special’ effects. The message is still relevant and present.
I start both meetings with videos and use them as an ice breaker. After everyone has a good chuckle, I get down to business and I find it much easier to hold their attention. I have never had anyone complain about being ‘forced’ to watch a gory video. I always make training feedback forms available to all attendees so I would hope that if anyone was offended, they would speak up. I am always amazed at how much discussions take place after the initial training due to the materials presented in the training session. They generate buzz, increase awareness, and facilitate discussion which are some of the primary goals of my training.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:50 am
What about the impact of speakers that have lived through a tragic safety incident and now tour the country speaking? My husband worked at a large oil company that prided itself on safety. They looked the other way while safety short cuts were routinely taken, by my husband included. Then one day they had a speaker come who survived a horrible explosion that happened because he (the speaker) took a safety shortcut and didn’t shut off his truck. The sight of this horribly disfigured man who spoke of how the consiquences of his actions affected his family touched my husband in a way that no safety film had ever done. He never took a safety shortcut again. Talk about gory? Since then I have always customized my safety training to reflect what it does to those who love you. For some people, that is what motivates them.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Possibly the BEST safety video I’ve ever seen (http://www.harsco.com/onsite-value/safety-and-environment.aspx/video/safety/index.html Go about halfway down the page and click the “Click here to view the video” link) has no blood and guts, and manages to provide a building series of cliff-hangers. It’s exceptionally well done, and is a terrific general safety awareness tool.
As far as I’m concerned, it isn’t the gore or lack of gore, but the content.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:08 am
The speaker Cheryl wrote about is Charlie Morecraft. I’ve seen him a few times at safety conferences. It is a powerful speech.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Free, I meant free safety videos Peter….. lol
Sometimes you find good ones on YouTube. Anyone seen this one on YouTube? Presswerk_China.wmv (I can’t paste a link) I also found a great lifting one where toodlers are used as examples for proper lifting techniques.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Cheryl,
I actually came across that article of the guy that was seriously burned because he didn’t turn off his truck and the fumes reached his still running engine. I made a copy of that article and read it in my safety training for PPE because that guy ingnored his PPE and wore sunglasses in training so no one could tell if he was sleeping during training.
I got a lot of praise from the people in my training class for relating that story to them.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I have found the “gory” safety videos to be counter productive in many cases. One in particular, although it only showed the result of the injury (a severe burn) was so disturbing to one employee, he had nightmares for weeks afterward. He had been severely burned months earlier. If we cannot train adults without gore, we are missing the mark. If they want gore, go to the movies…not the training room. Just my opinion.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
The clips were all great. Viewed them this morning. Certainly you have to know your audience and what works with them.
Having said that, I am conflicted this morning. I live and work not too far from the Tesoro plant that had a fire last Friday. Today’s paper had the obituary of one of the workers who lived in the small town where I work. No, we don’t know what happened yet, but if it was worker error(s), what would it have taken for them to do the right things? To keep each other safe?
April 6th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
i buy all my videos from http://www.safetyvideodirect.com.
they have videos on every subject and at a reasonable price.
sandy
April 6th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Excellent video Nancy New !
April 6th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
The blood is distracting; some of the people watching were more concerned about the blood being real or not that they lost the intended point of the video. And these tended to be people that really needed to get the point. I favor the more subtle, bloodless, approach if the core message is delivered in an otherwise effective way.
April 7th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Discomfort is not a reason to avoid training. The discomfort is a representative sliver compared to what will be felt in a real injury event.
April 7th, 2010 at 7:55 am
Discomfort is not a reason to avoid training. Any discomfort felt during training is a representative sliver compared to what will be felt in a real injury event.
April 7th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Excellent video Nancy New !….
Thanks, Cheryl. I was really impressed by it. The “if this, then” format really works, and the first time I saw it, I really WAS surprised by the ending.
And not only is it the best safety video I’ve seen–it’s FREE!
April 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I’ve written and directed safety videos for over 25 years for various industries and although some people might be waiting for the “money shot”, 99% of my clients never want me to show blood. They feel it’s disturbing to the point of getting in the way of the training. I’m guessing that if someone is overly sensitive to the blood, legal issues might be at stake as well.
For an innovative way to train employees to locate and identify hazards in the workplace, check out the interactive, customized game-theory based training created by Quicksilver Associates. They have a brief (non-interactive) demo on their site: http://www.quicksilvernow.com/InteractiveTraining/default.aspx – it’s very cool and there’s nothing like it that I’ve seen anywhere else.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
[...] more information on this topic, see a related article I found on Safety News [...]
May 14th, 2010 at 4:14 am
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