The Safety Second

As Montana’s leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance, Montana State Fund has long championed workplace safety. However, the 2020 shift to a hybrid work model fundamentally redefined what “workplace” meant for employees. The Safety Committee faced a new challenge to support a strong culture of safety across both home and office environments. To address this, I led a creative internal campaign that humanized safety, fostered engagement, and connected employees across distances.

When traditional in person safety training became impractical, the organization needed a modern way to keep safety top of mind. Leveraging data from internal engagement metrics, I analyzed communication channel performance and discovered that the monthly employee newsletter enjoyed an 80% open rate, and that short form video content resonated most with staff. These insights shaped the foundation of our innovative approach.

Collaborating with the Safety Committee, I launched The Safety Second, a monthly internal video series delivering key safety messages in concise, engaging segments in under one minute. Each video was embedded in the company newsletter and distributed through a dedicated email for maximum reach.

The campaign followed four guiding principles:

• Short & Relevant: Keep content quick, impactful, and easy to digest.

 

• Human Connection: Feature a different committee member each month to personalize messaging and put faces to the initiative.

 

• Authentic Storytelling: Select topics that reflect each speaker’s personal connection to safety, creating authenticity and relatability.

 

• Resourceful Execution: With no dedicated budget, we maximized existing tools and talent, filming with in house equipment, green screens, and stock images, to produce professional quality videos at minimal cost.

Video Sample

This is a sample safety second video.