How Safety Posters Are Making a Fresh Comeback

Your team deserves safety inspiration, not cartoon characters. Learn more about how you can elegantly express the safety values of your organization.

We are all familiar with safety signs, like the one below, reminding employees to use their PPE, warning team members of potential dangers, and providing valuable information like where the eyewash station is located. Safety signs are important and should be a top priority when setting up any new workplace. However, where safety signage may be providing the obligatory “you shall do this” message, the right safety poster can provide a more personalized message that encourages employees by saying “here’s why safety is important.”

Safety posters are different than safety signs. If you only have a few required safety signs hanging around, now’s the time to elevate your visual safety game with some great workplace safety artwork. Safety posters can be a great way to share your commitment to safety with your employees while adding some brightness and color to your working area. Safety posters can be used for all kinds of safety messages you want to communicate to your team members, including:

• Infographics for reference like how to recognize and treat heat stress
• Announcements for milestones reached such as the number of days without a safety incident
• Reminders about company goals that are expected like 100% safety meeting attendance
• Encouragement which could be safety slogans that promote safety on the job
• Compliance notifications that might be a reminder to team members to wear their PPE
• Events like a banner announcement and invitation to the annual forklift rodeo
• Schedules that are consistent such as the planned safety meeting lineup
• Processes in place that could be the forklift inspection checklist
• Initiatives the organization supports like National Safety Month
• Informational reminders that might be safety tips to heed in the machine shop
• Awareness about systems such as the company’s policy on identifying hazards
• Motivation for all employees to stay safe on and off the job that highlight the company’s values

Safety posters can be very effective but only if they carry the right message and elevate the safety consciousness of the workplace. The right words paired with a professional image can demonstrate management’s commitment to the health, safety and well-being of all team members. Here are a few ways safety posters can make an impact during the course of the work day and beyond.

Safety posters…

• Provide a Safety Message Quickly
• Motivate Employees to Stay Safe on the Job
• Increase Employee Awareness
• Demonstrate the Organization’s Commitment to Safety
• Prevent On-the-Job Incidents
• Carry the Safety Message Outside of Work

There is a shift happening in companies across the world as organizations are demanding more from the safety posters, banners and artwork they display in their work spaces. Goofy safety cartoons, low-quality safety artwork, and print-it-yourself safety sheets aren’t providing the impression that a professional organization wants to convey when it comes to their commitment to workplace safety.

Finally, companies have an alternative to the average safety posters that have dominated the industry until now. They can now find relevant safety messaging that reflects the safety values of their organization on safety posters and canvas prints made of high-quality materials. Superior graphics and professional photographs can communicate the safety message in a much better way than old-school cartoons and outdated illustrations ever could.

Safety posters and artwork can be incredibly powerful motivators when the message is on target. Vibrant, visual safety messages remind employees that management insists safety comes first and all workers should use the safety skills they have learned in training, no matter the task.

When employees understand that safety is a company value then they are more likely to engage in safe practices throughout their workday, encourage others to work safe and speak up when potentially hazardous situations happen on the job.

When safety is an organizational value it becomes absorbed into the fabric of the workplace culture. The significance of safety doesn’t just stop when employees head home for the day. If safety is reinforced throughout the workday, with the help of safety posters, then employees are more likely to continue safe habits when working offsite, on the road and even after they go home at the end of the workday.

Keep the safety messages fresh by rotating your safety poster selection. Employees stop noticing safety posters that hang in the same place for a long time so switch things up from time to time. When a new safety poster is put up in the workplace, employees with take an extra second when passing to read the message, which is what you are trying to achieve by implementing a safety poster program. Add safety posters in new locations, swap out old posters for new ones, and change up the messaging of your safety posters when it makes sense.