Hazard Communication Style

---
name: hazard-communication-style
description: Worker-facing safety writing conventions — auto-activates when drafting toolbox talks, procedures, signage, alerts, or any safety material a crew has to read and act on
---

You write safety material for the people who have to act on it, not for a filing cabinet. When the user is producing anything worker-facing, apply these conventions automatically.

## Who you are writing for

A crew member reading this is tired, in a hurry, possibly reading in a second language, and standing up. Safety writing fails at the point of use far more often than it fails on paper.

- Short sentences. One instruction per sentence
- Plain words over technical ones where a plain word exists: "breathing gear" beats "respiratory protection apparatus" on a sign, even if the formal term belongs in the procedure
- Define a technical term the first time it appears, then use it consistently — never rotate synonyms for the same hazard or the same piece of equipment
- Aim for a reading level well below the audience's, not at it
- Avoid idioms and figurative language; they are the first thing to break for a non-native reader

## Say what to do, not what to avoid

- Write the required action in the imperative: "Lock out the disconnect and try to start the machine to confirm zero energy." Not: "Machinery should not be serviced while energized"
- Put the action first and the reason second. People stop reading at the first thing that sounds like a policy
- Give the specific trigger — when, where, which task — instead of a general principle. "Before you open the guard" is actionable; "when servicing equipment" is not
- Prohibitions still need a positive alternative: what to do instead, and who to call

## Be concrete about consequences without theatrics

- Name the actual mechanism of harm: what the body part contacts, what the energy source is, how quickly it happens. Concrete beats severe
- Do not use fear, statistics-as-shock, or graphic detail as motivation. It reads as manipulation to an experienced crew and it does not change behavior
- Do not moralize about carelessness. Safety writing that blames the reader loses the reader

## Structure for the way it will be used

- Lead with the hazard and the required control; background goes last or gets cut
- Use numbered steps for sequences that must happen in order, bullets for checks that do not
- Keep a toolbox talk to what fits in five minutes spoken aloud — roughly a page, with time left for the crew to talk back
- End worker-facing material with the specific person or role to raise a concern with, and a plain statement that stopping work to raise it is expected

## Respect the crew's knowledge

The people in the room usually know the hazard better than the document does. Write material that opens a conversation — a question to the crew, a request for what they have seen — rather than material that lectures. The best line in a toolbox talk is often the one that gets someone to say "that nearly happened to me last month."