Mums sell the safety message

upport not only delivered but able to gain traction and achieve strong engagement can be a challenge when you consider the breadth of reach. Retail is the second largest hiring industry, employing more than 1.2 million people (Australian Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, November 2018). As a landlord and asset manager, Lendlease has a duty of care to every person who works in its shopping centres. While we are committed to ensuring everyone’s safety, we want every worker to take responsibility for their own wellbeing, and that of their colleagues. This is the core message in Lendlease’s Mums for Safety campaign, which was the organisation’s response to feedback from its employees and safety professionals that safety messages needed to be simpler and clearer. Dawid Sobczyk, Head of EHS and Integration, Property Australia said: “Our experiences were telling us that traditional safety campaigns had become less effective and were failing to engage our workers. “To get to the crux of the issue, we sent our senior management team out to our assets and work sites. We found a lot of clutter and noise, and critical safety messages were not getting through. “We also carried out research to understand how employees wanted to be communicated to when it comes to safety messages, what motivated them to be safe and how we can improve our safety campaigns to ultimately improve our safety record. “We worked with external consultants to come up with some creative concepts to streamline our safety messages. Mums for Safety was the stand out idea.” Mums for Safety Campaign The Mums for Safety campaign recruited real life mothers or mother figures of Lendlease employees to unify all safety messages and bring authentic humanity to communications. We shifted the approach from using the voice of the organisation, to the voice of real life Lendlease mothers. The creative idea is to reinforce that inner voice every time a Lendlease worker undertakes a job on site – that inner voice that knows you best and wants you to come home safely. The Lendlease workers, and their respective mothers, recruited for the campaign are featured in an action-packed promotional video, safety training videos, life size cut outs, posters, mugs, key rings and numerous other collateral and merchandise to promote the Mums for Safety message. “Positioning mum as the voice of safety, we have the flexibility to stretch our tone of voice between care and seriousness, engaging our audience with affection and humour,” Dawid said. Every time our people undertake a job or task, we want them to be reminded of their loved ones. Those who know them best and want them to come home safely. Whoever that may be – their mum or someone else important in their life. Lendlease officially launched the campaign across its business globally in late 2018. Already, it’s seeing results with a reduced volume of Critical Incidents within the organisation’s Property operations. The campaign was rolled out to Lendlease-managed retail precincts across Australia in June, with each asset holding a locally-tailored launch for employees, retailers and contractors. Across every Lendlease retail precinct and shopping centre, Mums for Safety messages are displayed in key work areas such as stairwells, loading docks, lunch rooms, and store rooms. The campaign has also been embedded in Lendlease’s safety processes including employee and contractor induction training, and ongoing safety toolbox meetings. Mums fo Safety Campaign launch at One Sydney Harbour, February 2019 Menai Marketplace Centre Manager, Jacqui Bell said, “Workers in the centre have really embraced the Mums for Safety message. We’ve gotten rid of the old cluttered safety signage and replaced them with Mums for Safety collateral. “We’re confident that embedding the Mums for Safety message will reduce safety incidences in the centre.” And in recognition of this unique approach, Mums for Safety recently won the World Media Festival’s 2019 Grand Prix Award and a Silver PR Lion Award at the 2019 Cannes Lions Festival, the world’s most famous advertising festival.