You’re standing in front of twenty employees about to give a safety speech. Your notes are on cards. The projector is ready to show your PowerPoint slides.
But first you’re going to tell a little joke you heard about a safety inspector, an insurance sales rep and a turtle.
If you haven’t caught on yet, that joke, however it may go, can bring you far more trouble than it’s worth.
It may be hilarious to your audience to run an imaginary conversation with the company’s owner as a below-average person who can’t understand a simple safety rule. Setting your company’s safety manual to music may enliven the meeting. Portraying an on-stage inspection that ends with the supervisor being hauled off the set by the inspector could be taken in a good spirit by all concerned and drive a vital safety point home.
The problem is that safety is not funny. When you make jokes about rules that involve the health and safety of your workers, you are demeaning their importance.
Worse, you may anger people who have been made the subject of your humor. Most people don’t like to have others laughing at them.
Smiles and even an occasional comment that draws a laugh may be appropriate as a way to “bring it home” to your workers. A cheerful attitude is refreshing and inspiring. Just be cautious about what you’re laughing at.
Safety isn’t funny.
