Kevin Ian Schmidt

As part of a quality safety committee in the workplace, you need a good “Why I work Safely Slogan” for your team to drive safety awareness, and highlight the importance of safety of employees in the workplace.

Importance of a “Why I Work Safely Slogan”for your Safety Committee

Having a company safety slogan for your safety committee to champion provides a guide for the team to share with co-workers, it provides a memorable message for employees to keep safety in mind, it allows for good safety banners/memos/emails/giveaways, and most importantly it shows a company’s dedication to safety in the workplace.

A strong safety slogan should be the cornerstone of your workplace safety campaign, not the only part of it. Share the message to your employees through the workplace safety committee, through all company emails, memos and banners. Build your campaign around your “Why I Work Safely Slogan”.

“Why I work Safely” Slogan and campaign ideas:

• Safety is Personal: This message tells your employees that their safety is personal to them, it effects not just the company, but their lives, it shows that the company cares about them as people and not just cogs in the company machine.
  • The campaign around this should start with a dedicated top down message, where C-level executives are invited to share stories as to why they work safely, this could be kicked off through company email, or video sharing, then invite people to submit their personal stories for why they work safely.
  • You could distribute magnets for company lockers in various shapes, like families, cars, boats, fitness themes, here is a chance to have your marketing department get creative.
  • You can share pictures of low term employees with their stories of why safety is personal to them in employee break-rooms and on the company intranet.
  • You make t-shirts with the slogan to distribute to your safety committee to wear around work, even change the message a little and have it save “Ask me why safety is personal to me”, again, this is the time to get creative.
  • Banners and posters could be put up around the workplace to further drive this message, include the slogan, include safety tips.
    • If I were invited to participate in such a campaign, I would share this story: “Safety is personal to me because I have been injured at work before. I know how a workplace injury impacts my day to day life. I broke 3 ribs at work, from lifting improperly and losing my footing, after which I was laid up at home for a month. I could not enjoy simple things like exercising, or even going for a walk, because even simple tasks like grocery shopping caused me substantial pain. I take safety very personal, because no amount of personal protective equipment can protect me from not paying attention to little tasks like ensuring my footing before picking something up, it is completely up to me to ensure basic safety procedures are followed every day, every time.”

Check out the book offerings I have concerning Safety Committees

• Safety 365: A safety campaign built around this slogan should be about raising workplace safety awareness to reduce workplace accidents to 0 in 365 days. A great logo is important for a campaign like this.
  • The campaign could kick off with putting up a large electronic billboard that counts the days without an accident, make sure to include the drive for going 1yr without a safety incident.
  • If you have multiple work locations, share the days without an incident of all locations, drive a feeling of competition among the workplaces.
  • You can release pins of the logo to increase employee awareness, and encourage their participation.
  • Partner this with a safety bingo campaign, that gives out gift cards to the winners, build up higher prizes as the game continues without a safety incident. Start with a $25 gift card, then a $50 gift card, and on and on. If your average accident costs your company $1,000 and you on average have 12 workplace accidents on average a year, if you spend $2,500 on the campaign, you have saved 91% over the year.
  • Include a raffle as part of this, at milestones, like every 30 days without an incident. Make the prizes highly desirable, so people are talking about them, which raises safety awareness. If you average $500 a month in prizes, this will cost you $3,000 annually, even when coupled with the bingo giveaways, you will have only spend $5,500, for a total annual savings of 55%.
  • Celebrate ALL raffle winners, ALL bingo winners, and most importantly ALL milestones reached on the goal to 365 days without an incident. This will drive safety awareness in the workplace as employees get excited over the milestone celebrations.

If your company has a high occurrence of workplace accidents, check out my post to reduce workplace accidents

• I am Safety: This slogan is to highlight that your employees are the most important part of workplace safety, and that should be the focus of this campaign.
  • A successful part of this campaign should empower your safety committee to be proactive in identifying employees who are seen working safely. Give them awards to hand out, these could be vending machine coupons, these could be raffle tickets for a monthly prize, get creative on what to give away to reward employees that work safely.
  • T-shirts can be a big part of this campaign, print them up first for your safety committee, then begin passing them out to the rest of the workforce. Instead of t-shirts, you can do polo shirts for your safety committee, and t-shirts for the rest of the workforce, it will make your committee look more professional, and empower them.
  • The banners and posters for this campaign can be done using your safety committee; take pictures of them, and share them around the company with the safety slogan.

“Why I Work Safely” slogans

The following are “Why I work safely” slogans without campaigns, which you can use to empower your safety committee in partnership with your marketing department to design the safety campaign around it.

• Why Safety Matters to Me
• Accidents Hurt, Safety Doesn’t
• Choose Safety for your Family
• Don’t Learn Safety by Accident
• Knock out… Accidents
• Safety Starts with ME
• When You Gamble with Safety, You Bet Your Life.
• Safety First, Always.
• Work Smart, Work Safe.
• Safe Work, Strong Future.
• Protect Yourself, Protect Your Team.
• Safety Begins with Me.
• Stay Safe, Stay Strong.
• Safety: It’s Not Optional.
• Work Safely, Live Fully.
• Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility.
• Think Safe, Act Safe.
• Safety is the Key to Success.
• Safety: Your Best Investment.
• Working Together for Safety.
• Safety Today, Success Tomorrow.
• Safety Starts with You.
• Safety: Our Priority, Your Priority.
• Protect Your Tomorrow, Work Safe Today.
• Safety: A Habit, Not a Choice.
• Safeguarding Our Future, One Safe Step at a Time.
• Safety Matters, Every Day.
• Safe Work is Good Work.
• Be Proactive, Be Safe.
• Commit to Safety, Achieve Excellence.
• Safety: The Foundation of Productivity.
• Because Your Safety Matters Most.

Check Out: Importance of Safety Policy & Committee

These are just some suggestions of a “Why I Work Safely” slogan that you can use to empower your safety committee, and drive workplace safety awareness. Feel free to use any slogan and campaign listed here, or feel free to share your suggestions below.
If you don’t have a strong safety committee, or worse, don’t have a safety committee, here are sample guidelines to help your company out.