SAFETY & EMPLOYEE WELLBEING

Our HSE team partners with all stakeholders to provide trusted advice, support regional needs and uphold global standards to eliminate work-related injuries and illness.

Further information regarding our commitment to safety can be found in our Health, Safety and Environment Policy at the About US > QHSE section of our website.

Key safety initiatives for FY20

• Implementing safety target engagement scores
  
• Enhancing safety communication
  
• Progressing an integrated management system (IMS) incorporating all support functions
  
• Regional IMS compliance audits
• Additional iAuditor templates to enhance the efficiency of safety compliance and reporting
• Enhance existing HSE employee training modules
• Providing a HSE IMS fundamentals course
• Regional incident investigation training – incident cause analysis method
• Regional lead auditors training
• A global manual handling initiative

A notable achievement throughout the year included the success of iAuditor to enhance safety engagement. Accumulative participation of 100% exceeded our target of 75%. Our engagement score of 19 also exceeded our target of 6.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

QHSE 18001:2007 Standards are central to our IMDEX Management System. These Standards form a robust framework to minimise operational risk, provide a safe working environment and protect the health and wellbeing of our team.

The QHSE Standards cover anyone who performs work at any of our locations, across a range of activities including: research and development, manufacture and repair, sales, corporate services, consultancy and training.

HAZARD IDENTIFICATION, RISK ASSESSMENT AND INCIDENT INVESTIGATION

The identification of workplace hazards during routine and non-routine tasks is supported by online applications, for example Take 5 and Safety Observations, together with detailed workplace inspections and job safety analysis.

All hazards and incidents are managed via our IMDEX Quality Alert system. We have also adopted the Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) to investigate incidents, identify causal factors and implement improvement opportunities.

Leadership is a key part of our safety culture. Leaders perform physical and virtual Safety Walkthroughs, engage with team members and promote safe work practices.

Insights from Safety Walkthroughs are discussed in team meetings, communicated to our global group via Safety Alerts and form part of regular management reviews.

Managers are accountable for the risk assessments and registers that relate to their teams. All workers are responsible for workplace safety and are encouraged to stop if the job is unsafe.

WORKERS COVERED BY AN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The QHSE Standards cover all employees and workers at any of our locations globally and everyone is required to adhere to our IMDEX QHSE Management System. To enhance the effectiveness of this System, an internal audit program is in place to target higher risk activities.

Our seven largest sites around the world are independently certified to ISO 9001:2015 and OHSAS 18001:2007. Our objective in FY21 is to transition to ISO 45001:2018.

WORK-RELATED INJURIES

During FY20 there were no fatalities and the most common injuries were strains.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES AND TRAINING

During the year we complemented our confidential Employee Assistance Program with an IMDEX Wellness Series and other courses on our online training platform IMDEX Academy. Courses include Safe Driving, Manual Handling, and Mental Health Awareness for Managers.

Other opportunities for safety participation and training include:

• Monthly Health & Safety meetings
• Our online Quality Alert System
• Our Digital Workplace, which provides mobile access to all resources and business applications.