The following information comes from FirstComp Insurance.  The full article can be found here.

Mention safety meetings, and you’ll likely get one of two responses; fear if you’re leading the meeting, or apathy and disdain if you have to attend. If safety meetings are so painful, why do we have them? To find the answer to this you must ask yourself, are you holding safety meetings because you have to or because it’s a health and safety program requirement?

It’s true the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a standard that requires employers to instruct employees to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions in their work environment. That being said, you should be holding safety meetings because you want to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the safe and efficient running of your organization. Basically, you want to share and receive information. You want to know if there are problems in the workplace as well as what is working well. In short, you want regular two-way communication between management and staff. Furthermore, research shows that effective, open, regular communication about safety and health issues is a critical component in preventing injuries and illnesses in the workplace.

To conduct an effective safety meeting it is important to follow established guidelines and procedures. s also important to establish and follow a meeting agenda. A safety meeting should cover the benefits associated with complying with safety policies and procedures as well as consequences or penalties for non-compliance.

The following guidelines can help destroy fear and apathy, and make every safety meeting effective:

• Safety meetings should be held at regular intervals during the year. Since safety is a state of mind regular reminders can make workers more conscious of hazards.
• Meetings should be held at a time which is convenient for all attendees.
• To get maximum cooperation try a single topic approach that involves as many people as possible, and confine your talk, suggestions and questions to that single topic. Avoid  loading your meeting with generalities, i.e., “be careful with tools” or “watch your housekeeping”. Once you deliver your points, make sure everyone understands any new rules or procedures.
• Ideally, each lesson should be conducted in an area that is most applicable to the topic at hand. Select a location near the topic being discussed where people can be comfortable and are free of distractions.
• If you are talking about portable equipment such as ladders or hand-tools, have them with you as props so you may refer to them during the discussion. Don’t let anything, i.e., phone calls interrupt the meeting.
• Inform attendees in the beginning that you are limiting the meeting to a certain time frame, i.e. 30 minutes. If discussions get lengthy continue it at the next meeting otherwise it will become boring which could turn everyone off. Read the lesson or present it in your own words; or you may state the subject of the discussion and ask questions to develop the discussion.
• After your presentation, encourage feedback among attendees.
• Review recent on-the-job accidents or injuries including near misses. Then solicit suggestions about how they could have been prevented or the violation corrected. Do not criticize anyone or anything in front of the group.
• Keep a record of the meeting and review open items at the next meeting. Prioritize any items that need to be corrected, and create a timetable for corrective