SAFETALK is a new safety game designed to help leaders and employees discuss workplace norms, human behavior, and safety culture.

A new safety game targeted at safety leaders, HSE professionals and workers has been released – combining years of HSE practice and experiences with elements from Safety II, Safety Differently, and behavioural design.
The makers of SAFETALK say all workplaces can benefit from the game, which is designed to work in any environment or industry where people work together and collaborate.
Why a safety game?
Many sectors have reduced accidents significantly over the years by focusing on technical solutions and establishing systems. However, despite legislation, safety management systems, and a commitment from both management and employees, some workplaces have experienced an accident curve that has flattened.
Many companies no longer feel that it is possible to do much more to create a safer workplace with the tools they have. It is as if safety leaders and HSE departments do more of the same without getting better.
The intention with a safety game is to create a new context in which people can talk about the unspoken norms that characterise any workplace, as well as to try and explain why people do what they do, the way they do it.
“It can be considered as a gap analysis of how the work is actually done – and the way you might think the work is done. The shadowland between systems, procedures, KPI’s, rules and the way you see the work being done on a normal day,” the developers say.
“SAFETALK is useful in creating new energy in the safety discussions in the aim to bring the accident curve even further down. Focus on the people who lead, and the people who do their work, understand their intentions, their terms, and their opportunities for action.”
“Safety will always be a common concern and something you create in unison and more than what is sentenced to a piece of paper, a statement of intent, or in a management system.”
The developers believe that people handling their own work know the challenges they face and have ideas about how to resolve them – both managers and employees.
“This is where SAFETALK is ideal, because it is those facing challenges and successes, who start dialogues about the good and the bad.”
“Over the years, there has been a paradigm shift in the way leaders as well as employees, collaborate and learn. With respect for risk assessments, safety rounds, safety meetings, KPI’s and e-learning programs, it has been the developer’s experience that these methods need to be supplemented with processes that contribute to giving effect to collaboration, ownership, motivation and commitment.”
The safety game consists of 90 situations people should talk about. Here’s some examples: