Farm safety conversations are a deliberate and proactive way to periodically “check-in” on safety throughout the day. 

Conversations should be encouraged between everyone on the farm – the owner, family workers, employees, contractors or visitors.

You can try working conversations about safety into regular communication. This could be while:

• planning the day
• checking in throughout the day
• morning tea or lunch
• when something goes wrong
• when something’s going well
• at the end of the day

Use the opportunity to steer the conversation proactively and deliberately towards health, safety and/or wellbeing. Ask an “open” question that can’t be answered with just a yes or no.

Here’s some conversation starters to get you underway:

• What’s the plan for today?
• What jobs do we have to do this week?
• What’s different from last week?
• Who is on the farm this week? Do we have contractors? What do we need to do to look after them?
• What kind of dangers do we need to consider with this work?
• How would you do this?
• What do we need to do to keep ourselves safe?
• Do we need to do this right now, or at all?
• What should we do if conditions change? What is our plan B?
• Are we up for this work today? How do we feel?
• Are we confident we know how to do this right?
• Do we know how to do this task well? Or is there another way to do this?
• Have we got the right tools and equipment for the job?
• Have we allowed enough time to do this properly?
•  Why did our day go well?
•  What is working well?