2016
Accidents on the road to and from the workplace are the most common type of safety incidents among Sonae Sierra’s workforce. When the number of accidents reached an unusually high level in 2013, the Sustainability Office intensified its efforts on inverting this trend. Since then, incident analysis and investigation, together with training, awareness and motivational initiatives have proved to be extremely effective in preventing incidents in itinere and reducing associated costs.
Sonae Sierra has robust procedures in place to ensure that safety and health risks are quickly identified and prevented. All Sonae Sierra shopping centres, offices and construction sites implement the procedures defined by our Safety, Health and Environment Management System (SHEMS). We monitor and evaluate S&H performance on a regular basis and provide extensive training and awareness-raising on safety and health risks to all office and site workers and shopping centre users.
Nonetheless, our regular analyses of safety incidents occurring within our workforce revealed that over 60% of serious incidents were taking place on the way to work and back – in other words, in itinere incidents. Consequently this was also the main cause of absentee per work accident recorded in our Company. For these reasons, the Sustainability Office considered it a priority to take action to prevent these kinds of incidents.
In 2013, the number of in itinere incidents reached a peak hitherto unforeseen. There were a total of 11 accidents involving Sonae Sierra employees, with seven of them classified as serious incidents. So we decided to investigate in itinere incidents in greater depth, starting with data available from 2010 onwards, to better understand the nature and impact of the trend. We found that:
Overall, the investigation showed that our safety procedures and risk control processes could not adequately address and prevent these types of accidents and that urgent action was required to invert the trend.
The Sustainability Offices’ goal was to find a solution that would allow our Company to reduce the number of in itinere incidents among the workforce. But the challenge was how to address the external factors that increase the accident risk, namely the weather, the road conditions, the state of the pavements, visibility, etc. We have to accept that we cannot control these factors, and therefore our focus should be on employees’ behaviour.
First of all, we decided that in itinere incident prevention should be the subject of our annual World Day for Safety and Health at Work celebration. The Sustainability Office organized a quiz where the workforce was invited to identify, in just a matter of seconds, risky situations that could lead to in itinere accidents.
We knew that the campaign by itself would not be enough to solve the problem. So we started to envisage a more engaging action plan that would include permanent initiatives to make our workforce aware of these risks all year round.
The action plan we created included the following initiatives:
Following the campaign, there has been a significant reduction in the number of in itinere accidents occurring among the Sonae Sierra workforce. Compared to 2013, in 2016 there were:
By calculating the average cost per accident, we estimate that Sonae Sierra avoided costs of €17,930 in 2016 due to the decrease in the number of in itinere accidents since 2013.
This case study demonstrates that having a non-negotiable goal to minimise accidents, a high level of staff commitment and comprehensive safety procedures in place can bring about significant reductions in the number of incidents occurring, even in areas where direct risk prevention is outside of our control. By striving to find a new solution to a recurring problem, Sonae Sierra has not only increased the safety of its workforce, but also reduced costs related with workers’ absenteeism.
Case Studies
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