All employees at Lavazza Professional, a manufacturer of coffee products (and one of EHS Today’s America’s Safest Companies in 2020), gathered around the cake wondering aloud whose birthday it was. The cake and decorations were unusual, but Jason Hall is not the most traditional safety leader. In fact, he insisted that everyone sing “Happy Birthday,” although they still did not know whose birthday they were celebrating.
It turns out there was no birthday. Instead, Hall, the company’s health, safety, environmental and security manager, told employees that the amount of time it took to sing that song was the exact amount of time they needed to wash their hands to protect themselves against COVID-19.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of misinformation and fear, so I felt the best approach was to provide our workforce a clear, factual presentation of what this virus was and how we have faced other health concerns in the past,” he says. “I tried to add humor to make the information easier to digest.”
This innovative way to deal with a very difficult and frightening health concern goes beyond clever marketing to get buy-in from employees. It demonstrates an empathy for everyone at the company who had to turn on a dime and create almost error-proof methods to stop the virus from spreading.