Safety campaign - Redhouse Lane Communications

BAA: Safety campaign

How BAA built a safety culture

Challenge

Safety has to be a priority for any bigconstruction project, and Heathrow’s Terminal 5 build was one of the biggest inEurope.

The project’s 5,000 construction workers, manyof whom spoke English as a second language, needed to bond into a communitythat shared camaraderie, a common purpose and a culture of safety.

Our response

Reader research told us that our audience read thered-tops, overwhelmingly The Sun. We produced a monthly paper that both lookedlike The Sun and shared its economy of expression and bluntness of phrase –communicating in a style and idiom contractors understood and trusted.

We supplemented this with face-to-face contact, handingout copies to earn the trust and respect of contractors arriving for work atdawn and – in those dim and distant pre-Facebook days – use the verbal feedbackto inform our editorial strategy and generate discussion.

Result

Terminal 5 achieved a safety record four times better thanthe industry average. That record helped BAA attract skilled workers as theproject progressed, reduce insurance premiums and complete the project onbudget and on schedule.

The Site was named best newspaper of the year by theInstitute of Internal Communication (then Communicators in Business), while afront page report on drugs won a national journalism award for its role inchanging employee behaviour.