Note 12: People safety

Overall performance indicators for people safety show that the company continues to make sustained improvement towards the targets set for 2020. Implementation of the people safety programs coincides with a continued decrease in the number of injuries to employees, and supervised and independent contractors.

• The overall TRR for employees and supervised contractors decreased to 1.4 (2015: 1.6), in line with our 2016 target (1.4)
• 75 percent of our sites have been recordable-free for more than one year (45 percent for three years or more)
• There were no employee or contractor fatalities during the last four years
• The lost time injury (LTI) rate for employees and supervised contractors continues to decrease to 0.6 (2015: 0.7)
• The overall downward trend in reportable injuries coincides with the implementation of our Life-Saving Rules at all facilities and across all work groups, and with the global roll-out of the people, process and product safety programs that are part of the Safety Common Platform
• The downward trend in TRR extended to the TRR of independent contractors, which also decreased to 2.4 (2015: 2.8). This is still above the TRR for employees, so there will be increased focus on the contractor safety management processes in 2017 to further reduce the rate
• In order to further reduce the number of injuries globally, the introduction of a standardized permit to work process has started and will be finalized in 2017

Behavior-based safety (BBS)

The BBS process, which actively engages all personnel in identifying and addressing at-risk behavior, has been implemented across all locations and work groups. In order to ensure that BBS is embedded as a sustainable process, BBS reviews have been completed by independent people safety experts across all locations. These reviews enable the sites and locations to establish and carry out actions to improve the BBS process, further reducing exposures to hazards.

• Formal review of the BBS process was completed at all manufacturing sites and 99 percent of our locations
• Sites and locations have established and implemented improvement actions based on the BBS reviews, improving employee engagement and the quality of the observations. The main actions areas for improvement include:
  • Increasing the percentage of coached observations to improve the confidence and capability of observers
  • Establishing observation strategies that focus on the most important hazards
  • Communicating results in an engaging way

Learning from incidents

Embedding the use of our company-wide Incident Reporting System (IRS) facilitates the sharing of learning from incidents (including near misses) locally, by business, regionally or company-wide as appropriate. The IRS is an interactive database which is available to everyone in the company, enabling them to promptly report any incident (including near misses). The IRS provides management with visible data, enabling the progress of investigations and resultant actions to be monitored through to completion. During 2016, almost 16,000 incidents (including near misses) were reported via the IRS (2015: more than 9,500), illustrating the desire to report, investigate and learn from near misses and giving an increased opportunity for learning and prevention.

The main areas of learning in 2016 have led to increased focus on:

• Avoiding injuries due to slips, trips or falls
• Preventing “line of fire” incidents
• Improving written procedures to include foreseeable deviations

Company-wide learning from incidents is shared through:

• The publication of one-page HSE Alerts (in eight languages)
• Webinars on specific topics, such as the prevention of static electricity during the manufacture of coatings
• A monthly incident learning newsletter

Employee health

As well as ensuring a safe working environment, healthy working conditions and managing illness-related absenteeism, we also foster employee health and well-being. Examples include the site-level industrial hygiene programs, and the promotion and use of our health risk appraisal tool, the Wellness Checkpoint.

• The total illness absence rate (TIAR) has improved slightly to 2.0 percent (2015: 2.1 percent). We continue to monitor this indicator for the whole company, aiming to stay at a level of around 1.9 percent
• The occupational illness frequency rate (OIFR) for employees and supervised contractors has significantly decreased to 0.06 illnesses per million hours worked (2015: 0.14). As the absolute numbers of occupational illnesses are low, small variations in numbers can cause large fluctuations in the OIFR. However, we will continue to monitor and learn from all incidents
• Our health risk appraisal tool, the Wellness Checkpoint, is appreciated and used by an increasing number of employees and their families. By the end of 2016, more then 17,400 people had joined the program since its launch in 2008. During 2016, a further 8 percent of employees joined (2015: 16,209)

Motor vehicle and distribution incidents

Distribution and motor vehicle incidents continue to be a risk to the safety of employees, contractors and the general public. Most incidents occur on the road, and in countries where enforcement of traffic regulations is still developing.

• The number of distribution incidents reduced to 43 in 2016 (2015: 49)
• Most distribution incidents (79 percent of the incidents in 2016) occurred on the road, and involved the transportation of our products by third party contractors

• Through our product stewardship program (see Note 14) we insist that contractors assess all risks involved in the distribution process and take the right safety measures. We also audit their performance related to these requirements
• The focus on safe driving continues through our risk-based Safe Driving program. The number of motor vehicle incidents which resulted in injury has further decreased to 12 (2015: 18)
• A further 800 employees globally, who each drive more than 20,000 kilometers a year, completed the practical hands-on defensive driving training. This brings the total number of drivers who have received this training to 3,010, which is 99 percent of the target population
• During 2017, the remaining company drivers in this category will be trained and the program will continue to run with ongoing e-learning modules and practical refresher training at least every five years