Providing a safe working environment for all our employees 

Work/life balance

We encourage our employees to have a good work/life balance and offer them the flexibility to allow this. Mothers returning from work, for example, may prefer flexible working to balance the needs of their children with their career. Where possible we support part-time working, job sharing, change of work location, and working from home. In 2009, 15% of our employees were working part time.

Health and Safety

We are committed to the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and contractors. We operate a health and safety management system across the Group which includes our health and safety policy.

A team of Safety Health and Environment (SH&E) advisers run a wide range of internal courses and produce comprehensive guidance and information for all our employees. More than 3,500 managers and SH&E advisers have attended the Group’s Health and Safety management courses over the last 3 years, and specific training has been provided for any employees facing safety risks.

This year saw the introduction of the new online SH&E audit solution. The web-based solution is designed to help site managers and SH&E advisers manage their day to day processes more  efficiently,  allowing all locations across the Group to accurately record, track and report data.

In 2009 our RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurences Regulations) accident frequency rate for employees and contractors was 1.65 per 1,000 employees (2008: 1.57). The slight increase resulted from a change in employment mix as we expanded our various field operations. The number of claims for personal injury has also reduced.

Health and safety record

We review those areas where accidents have been most frequent. In two areas we have introduced key initiatives to reduce safety risks. At TV Licensing, where we have a large field force, we commissioned an investigation to understand why the rate of verbal and physical assaults on some field officers was much higher than on others. We found that this is influenced by individual field officers’ approach to dealing with potentially aggressive situations. As a result we have introduced a training programme to provide them with the skills to help them in avoiding and diffusing these situations.

At Capita’s document storage and retrieval facility, the work involves a large element of manual handling and fork lift truck operations and historically, prior to Capita assuming management of the operation in 2004, had a poor safety record. We recruited a full time Health & Safety Manager, introduced a formal health and safety management plan, including individual targets and training for all line managers. We introduced in-house improved manual handling training which approximately 90% of all staff have now completed And we set up a health and safety forum, involving different staff from all levels in the business, in addition to the existing health and safety meetings with union safety representatives. All these measures have helped improve health and safety at this site.

Injury management
Our Group Insurance and SH&E team engaged with Zurich Rehabilitation. This innovative approach to injury management, brings together traditional insurance, risk management and injury management to help employees return to work sooner and therefore helps to manage the cost of business risk.