“Don’t touch it” for Co-op

“Don’t touch it” for Co-op

Health and safety messages at work are often viewed as boring. But they are critical for protecting people. Co-op needed to explain the dangers of asbestos, which is still found in many of its sites, without alarming colleagues but ensuring they would know what to do if they found it.

How do you make a topic that is simultaneously boring yet potentially very harmful come to life?

Focusing on key actions

Crucially, if asbestos is present, there are two key actions for colleagues:

1) don’t touch it, and

2) report it.

Co-op asked us to design a message that would make these actions clear and memorable.

We needed a way to make it resonate with colleagues and managers.

So, obviously, we turned to rapper MC Hammer…

Music for memorable messages

We know that using music is a brilliant way to make messages compelling and sticky. Adding humour into the mix is another fantastic way to ‘speak to the human’ – making it more likely that people will remember and share things.

In our planning workshop, one of the Co-op team emphasised ‘don’t touch it’ as a key action when asbestos is found… MC Hammer’s eighties rap hit ‘U Can’t Touch This’ sprang to mind for our ever-imaginative consultant Rebecca.

We created a song which sounds similar to MC Hammer’s, writing lyrics that repeated the key messages and would stick in people’s minds! We commissioned a musician to create the soundalike music – which sounds recognisably like the famous pop song, but crucially without breaking any copyright laws.

The two-minute animation communicates the key messages in a fun and visual way. The graphics play with the MC Hammer idea, using Co-op characters with baggy trousers and baseball hats.

Wrapped around this mini-movie was interactive Storyline content, with two different modules for different audiences - ‘Colleagues’ and ‘Manager’, with relevant information for the roles. The ‘Colleagues’ module is narrated to give a storytelling feel, with intuitive design using an ‘invisible interface’ style. The ‘Managers’ module drills down on specific actions for managers, who are responsible for making sure all colleagues, customers and visitors understand the risks on their site.

Did it work?

The experiment worked. The project resulted in safer, more informed colleagues, and a strong signal about Co-op’s culture.

The response was immediate on launch: the ‘Asbestos awareness’ module became the fastest-completed module in Co-op history. Colleagues talked about it on channels like Yammer, on regional conference calls and across workplaces too. The learning team got emails from people around the Co-op, congratulating them on the innovative style. The Group Health, Safety and Risk team were delighted with the response.

Co-op saw some key business metrics shift. A primary objective, and key measure of success, was a reduction in calls to Co-op’s OSS Helpdesk (Operational Support Services), which handles all asbestos-related queries manually. We saw an impressive 90% reduction in asbestos-related calls to the helpdesk.

More effective and memorable learning resulted in fewer staff hours needing to be spent on training.

It was a success as an experimental new approach to learning too. The excellent results and response gave Co-op the confidence to use a more playful technique for a much larger change project soon afterwards, rolling out a new cash management system across the UK. 

Co-op colleagues said:

“Brilliant new approach – having fun while learning.”

“A good learning module, love the song – great addition!”

“The song was a fun and innovative way to help understand the risks.”

And comments from leaders included:

“Asbestos awareness is a critical issue across Co-op. We wanted to shake up our compliance training and deliver something truly unique. Through partnering with our internal specialists, operational teams, L&D and our external partner, Acteon, we’ve delivered one of the fastest-completed and most engaging modules we’ve ever had.” Chief Risk Officer, Co-op