How many of Stanwell Power Station’s (SPS) overhauls have had safety hashtags?
You guessed it, none! That was until Health and Safety Graduate, Brianna Hickson decided to change the communication landscape during SPS’s Unit 1 overhaul by using hashtags and selfies to draw people’s attention to some key Health and Safety focus areas. Brianna and the rest of the Health and Safety team are taking this novel approach to drive conversations and reinforce the value of safe behaviours during the outage.
We caught up with Brianna to get the #lowdown on keeping people safe.
If you’re not familiar with hashtags and how they work click here.
What were your main challenges when introducing something like a hashtag, which has only been around since it was first used on Twitter in 2007?
I went into this knowing many of the people in our target audience might not even know what a hashtag is, or how they are used. However, with the support of a team who are always looking for new ways to cut through the noise to make sure Health and Safety messages are heard loud and clear, it eventually started to grow on everyone.
The concept is new to most people, so it’s made a great talking point and provided the opportunity for people to ask questions and seek clarification. While the overhaul hashtags were initially designed to be used in a Facebook group dedicated to people working on the SPS Unit 1 overhaul, the concept is catching on and now people are using hashtags in other communication to draw attention to a certain point. I did see a team mate even signed off an email with #haveagreatweekend!
We heard you got everyone in the overhaul launch to leave their seats and gather together for a selfie! Tell us more about this?
The main goal of introducing some fresh language, like selfie and hashtag, was to simply kick start a conversation in a new way. Health and safety messages can get a bit repetitive, so introducing some fun has allowed us to use the same key messages as last outage, but engage people with the content in a whole new way.
In regard to the selfie, I took some inspiration from Ellen Degeneres’ selfie at the Oscars in 2014 – which was hailed the ‘most famous selfie in the world’. With the star power of Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper and Meryl Streep featuring in the photo it’s easy to see why… While the outage selfie may have lacked actual movie stars, it did feature the stars that will drive the success of the outage.
What are you looking forward to most about Unit 1 overhaul?
A great thing about working on such a large-scale project like an outage is the contact you get with so many different people, from various backgrounds, all with different experiences. This engagement means there is always something to learn that I can apply to ensure I’m doing the best job I can.
Why is a safe outage important to you?
It’s important to me that I play a proactive role in safely sending people home to their families – that’s why I entered this field of work. During an overhaul we have so many extra people on site, and while they will be familiar with their role, there are always hazards that are unique to particular workplaces. It’s important to me that I do what I can to ensure that questions can be answered and workers feel safe when they come to Stanwell Power Station.