This article explores why communication is important in health and safety, highlighting how it is delivered through formal channels such as training, signage, and briefings, as well as informal interactions like peer discussions and supervisor check-ins.
Drawing on current research and legal obligations, we examine how safety communication helps prevent incidents, promotes shared accountability, and enables employees to contribute to a safer, more resilient workplace.
In every organisation communication plays a critical role in maintaining a safe and healthy working environment. But what does effective health and safety communication look like in practice? How does it support risk management, legal compliance, and a positive safety culture?
What is health and safety communication?
Health and safety communication is the ongoing process of sharing information, instructions, expectations, and feedback related to workplace health, safety, and wellbeing. It is about making sure that essential safety information is clearly delivered, understood, and acted upon by everyone in the organisation.
Effective communication ensures that employees across teams, roles and departments understand potential hazards, know what procedures to follow, and feel confident to report unsafe conditions or behaviours.
A 2023 systematic review published by Frontiers in Public Health found that workplaces with a culture of open, supportive communication are strongly associated with better safety commitment and performance.
What does effective health and safety communication look like?
Effective health and safety communication is clear, consistent, inclusive, and continuous. It creates a shared understanding of risks, responsibilities, and safe behaviours across an organisation.
Communicating safety well means making sure that people engage with, remember, and act on information. Here are the core features of strong safety communication:
Clarity and accessibility
Information should be straightforward, relevant, and adapted to suit a diverse workforce. Effective communication avoids jargon, aligns with day-to-day tasks, and considers different learning styles, languages, and literacy levels.
Everyone, from new starters to senior managers, should receive information they can clearly understand and apply.
Mutual dialogue and trust
Safety communication should be a two-way process. Organisations that encourage open, respectful dialogue create space for employees to voice concerns, ask questions, and share local knowledge.
Supervisors and managers play a key role in fostering this environment by actively listening and responding constructively, reinforcing that all input is valued.
Timeliness and responsiveness
Strong communication is both proactive and reactive. Safety messages should be timely โanticipating risks before work begins โ and responsive to change, such as emerging hazards or regulatory updates.
Gaps in communication can delay critical decisions, so timely updates are essential to support safe operations.
Consistency across levels
A consistent message across an organisation helps build credibility and confidence. Mixed messages or inconsistent enforcement of safety procedures can undermine engagement and create confusion.
When communication is aligned across departments and roles, it reinforces a shared sense of purpose and responsibility.
Leadership that communicates visibly
Managers and supervisors shape how information is perceived. Leaders who speak regularly and confidently about health and safety, and back up their words with action, help embed safety as a core value.
Visible engagement from leadership sends a strong message that safety matters at every level of the organisation.
Follow-through and accountability
Effective communication should not end once a message is delivered. It includes feedback loops โ keeping employees informed about what has been done in response to their reports or concerns. This demonstrates that communication leads to action, builds trust, and reinforces a learning culture.
Examples of health and safety communication
Effective health and safety communication does not rely on a single method. Instead, it involves a range of formal and informal channels used consistently across an organisation. Together, these methods create multiple touchpoints for communicating safety, ensuring that messages are accessible, relevant, and reinforced over time. Choosing the right combination is key. The goal is to ensure information is understood, remembered, and applied.
These are some examples of communication methods:
Toolbox talks
Toolbox talks are short, focused safety discussions usually led by a supervisor or team leader at the start of a shift or before high-risk tasks.
These talks address immediate or site-specific topics (such as recent incidents, weather-related hazards, or task-specific precautions) and provide an opportunity for open discussion. They are particularly effective because they bring safety messages into the flow of daily work, making them relevant, timely, and action oriented.
As a two-way communication tool, they also encourage employee feedback and help managers stay connected to frontline concerns.
Safety signage and notices
Visual communication tools โ including warning signs, procedural posters, PPE reminders, and evacuation diagrams โ provide immediate and easily accessible safety information. These tools are the key to reinforcing messages delivered during training, helping workers recall procedures and stay alert to risks.
High-quality signage also supports inclusive communication by reaching diverse workforces, including those with different levels of literacy or first-language fluency.
Incident and near-miss reporting
A structured, accessible system enables employees to report unsafe conditions, incidents, or near misses is vital for risk management.
These reports are a form of safety communication that enables organisations to detect trends, address root causes, and prevent future harm. To be effective, the system must be supported by a culture that values openness and psychological safety, where employees feel comfortable speaking up without fear of blame.
Digital platforms are increasingly used to streamline this process and enable real-time reporting and follow-up.
Supervisor briefings and team meetings
Regular briefings and meetings provide a consistent forum for discussing safety issues, sharing updates, and reinforcing roles and responsibilities. These sessions are especially valuable for communicating operational changes, new procedures, or lessons learned from incidents.
When supervisors prioritise safety in these forums, they demonstrate its importance and reinforce a culture of shared accountability. This is also a space where feedback can be gathered and actioned, supporting continuous improvement.
Health and safety training
Training is the foundation of effective health and safety communication. Delivered through a mix of formats (such as classroom instruction, online modules, on-the-job coaching, and interactive digital platforms) training ensures that employees understand the hazards they face and how to manage them. It covers everything from general awareness (e.g. fire safety, manual handling) to role-specific risks (e.g. working at height, COSHH, confined spaces), and includes mandatory induction training for new starters.
Crucially, health and safety training must be suitable for the audience, legally compliant, and regularly refreshed. As a formal communication channel, it is vital for building competence, confidence, and a shared understanding of safe working practices.
How does effective communication prevent incidents?
Effective communication is a cornerstone of workplace safety, enabling the identification and management of risks before they escalate into incidents. When safety procedures, expectations, and feedback are clearly conveyed and understood, employees are more able to respond appropriately to potential hazards.
Research underscores the critical role of communication in preventing workplace accidents. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has identified poor communication as a contributing factor in many incidents, particularly in high-risk industries such as construction and manufacturing.
Further studies have also shown that organisations with effective safety communication strategies experience significantly fewer incidents. A study by Mearns and Flin (1999) found that companies with strong communication practices had a 40% reduction in workplace accidents.
Communication and legal compliance
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of their employees so far as is reasonably practicable. As part of this duty, Section 2(2)(c) specifies the need to provide โsuch information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessaryโ to ensure people can work safely. Effective communication is fundamental to delivering this requirement.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 further emphasise the importance of clear and relevant communication. Regulation 10 requires employers to provide employees with information on risks and protective measures in a comprehensible form, while Regulation 13 highlights the need for adequate training, adapted to changes in risk and delivered within working hours.
By focusing on communicating safety clearly and consistently through training, briefings, signage, and open dialogue, organisations ensure that health and safety messages are properly understood and applied in practice.
Strengthen safety communication with targeted training
Recognising why communication is important in health and safety is essential to building a safer, more compliant organisation. At Praxis42, our IOSH Approved, CPD Certified training courses support clear, consistent safety communication, helping you meet legal obligations, reduce risk, and foster a positive safety culture.
Explore our library of online health and safety training or contact our friendly team today to discuss tailored solutions that meet the specific needs of your workforce: 0203 011 4242/info@praxis42.com
Adam Clarke
Managing Director (Consulting)
