The animated scene begins with a piece of sandpaper entering a construction worksite porta-potty and closing the door. A wrench and saw suddenly appear and begin to rock to the toilet.
“Welcome to the jobsite, ya rookie,” laughs the saw.
“Who’s out there?” asks the irritated sandpaper.
“Oh what, poor baby’s getting wet,” the wrench retorts gruffly as the port-a-potty tips over with the sandpaper still inside.
The cartoon ends with the wrench and saw laughing as they walk away. The sandpaper emerges from the tipped porta-potty – drenched, of course.
It’s part of a “Don’t be a Tool” promo on a Builders Code crew worksite training app developed for the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) to help construction workers recognize bad behaviour.
The easy-to-use app, developed by Denman Digital, shows animated construction tools in a variety of workplace scenarios that depict either model behaviour or actions that compromise safety and productivity.
The app uses animation and humour to address bullying and other behaviours on a construction worksite.
We have gamified it a little bit so it’s fun, it’s engaging,
— Lisa Stevens
British Columbia Construction Association
“Everything that these tools are doing is based on what we’ve heard from tradespeople as to what some of the culture challenges and negative behaviours are on the jobsite,” explains Lisa Stevens, BCCA’s chief strategy officer and architect of the Builders Code. “The animated tools give us a way to look at these problems in a more exaggerated and more lighthearted way and it makes the whole issue much more approachable for discussion. It’s really a tried and true way to tackle tough conversations.”
The app deals with bullying, hazing, abusive language and yelling, exclusion, harassment, non-consensual touching, gender bias, and patronizing behaviour. Non-gender-specific animated tools featured in the scenes depict real-life situations that happen on jobsites, the purpose being to raise awareness.
As part of the app, workers get a couple of entertaining and fun questions to answer each day to create a heightened awareness of positive worksite behaviour. They’re asked to identify inappropriate actions in a scenario and are then provided with the correct response and a message that reinforces the appropriate action.
“What it’s really trying to do is get people thinking about their behaviour, the behaviour of others and the negative impact of behaviours that you might think are not negative,” says Stevens. “It might just be part of the culture that you’re used to, and you’re not really thinking about how those behaviours impact others.”
The tools are gender-neutral, she says, because abusive behaviour like hazing and bullying on jobsites can impact everyone regardless of sexual orientation.
“This is about fixing the system and making it better for everyone. Everyone should have the confidence that they are able to go to work in the morning and not be hazed.”
The app has been in the testing phase and is scheduled to be launched in February for individual tradespersons and employers.
“The app is designed to be used so employers can share it with their team to send a message that this is important and also to support any other work they’re doing as an employer around code of conduct or policies,” says Stevens.
There are 180,000 people on the tools in B.C., but many leave the construction industry because of a negative worksite culture, she says, so the BCCA launched the Builders Code, a baseline code of conduct for workers on construction sites in B.C., to change attitudes and improve the retention of workers.
“It’s hard to take tradespeople off the tools and go into a classroom setting to do a day of training like you might do for an owner of a company or an executive on the leadership team or even site supers,” says Stevens. “We use the animated tools in a way that is engaging yet it isn’t pointing the finger at anyone.”
In another of the animated scenes, a nasty wrench is swearing at a bottle of glue. There’s glue everywhere because the bottle cap was loose, and the bottle’s foot is stuck. The foul language is bleeped out.
“When you play that video in the training session people will laugh and half of the room will point to that and say, ‘Yeah, I know that guy,’ and some will even point and say, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’” says Stevens. “It’s a great way to get that conversation going in a non-threatening way.”
The app itself took some time to develop because it had to be simple to download, use and fun.
“We have gamified it a little bit so it’s fun, it’s engaging,” says Stevens. “It’s not a test so there’s no need to be nervous. Rather than describe it as educational, it’s more accurate to call it engagement and awareness-building.”
While the app is a helpful tool, she notes that the change in worksite culture is only going to happen if everybody’s on board with the program, particularly older workers.
“The influencers on a jobsite aren’t necessarily the apprentices. They’re not the ones that have the social power, so we’re really trying to reach the people that have been around a while and have the power to make it better.”
For more information on the app, go to www.builderscode.ca.
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