The HSE Site Audits focuses particularly on improving safety at work
An effective safety organisation within the HARTMANN GROUP serves to guard against and avert danger and risks to persons and the environment. Avoiding halts in production, accidents, fires and other possible damage or loss means that we optimise production and work processes. Our internal evaluation in the area of work safety in accordance with internationally recognized OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) criteria confirms that our performance with regard to safety at work meets the international standard.
Workplace assessment
Only after identifying risks in the workplace can we adopt the necessary preventative measures and safety precautions. Since back in 2002, the HARTMANN GROUP has accordingly been conducting something known as workplace assessments at more than 20 European production sites, designing catalogues of measures tailored to the individual sites on the basis of potential threats we have established, and successfully implemented these. The object of our efforts is to set and document uniform safety standards for all workplaces at our production sites and logistics centres.
Zero tolerance programme
With our programme “zero tolerance on safety in the workplace” we have been able to further cut the number of work-related accidents
In 2003, after consultations with the Board of Management, the managers, staff and the works council, an initiative was launched to alert every single employee in the HARTMANN GROUP to the topic of safety in the workplace. We took as our motto “zero tolerance on safety in the workplace”, to highlight the fact that every employee is personally responsible for adhering to safety regulations in the workplace. As a result, disregarding internal safety regulations or legal requirements can have consequences under the terms of employment law. The applicable safety regulations and rules of conduct for the workplace or for specific activities are designed and implemented by staff and managers. Workshops and staff training sessions are held to communicate these safety regulations and to drill staff in them.
Recording accidents
In 2003 we devised six key performance indicators so we could better evaluate our performance in the field of safety in the workplace. These allow us to register trends in accident rates and to decide on specific courses of corrective action. This also makes it possible for us to make comparisons with outside accident figures, for instance, those of other industrial companies and in other sectors or those of the trade associations.
In the HARTMANN GROUP, we consider as an accident any incident that results in a work interruption of more than eight hours and/or contact with a doctor. The trade associations only consider work interruptions of more than three days to be accidents. Our stricter definition of work-related accidents allows us to take the consequence and initiate successful preventative measures.
