Ensuring health and safety with 3 key safety checks: correct equipment

Did you know that globally, there are around 160 million victims of occupational accidents every year?

We believe that accidents are preventable so have committed to embracing a culture of safety to ensure injuries and ill health are avoided.

One of the ways we do this is through training all employees on our ‘3 checks for safety’, which must be completed before starting any task:

1. Do I know how to do the job?
2. Do I have the right equipment?
3. Is my environment safe?

As well as following stringent safety procedures, we encourage employees to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit and introduce additional measures to improve safety.

Each year we celebrate the teams and individuals going the extra mile to ensure safety at their workplace through our ‘Have a Safe Day Awards’.

Here are some of the ideas which finalists from across Sodexo introduced last year to enhance the ‘Do I have the right equipment?’ safety check:

Preventing sharps accidents in Brazil

Transporting tools around a location is an essential task at many locations. The team at one of our Energy & Resources client locations in Brazil made sure that this task was safe by arranging for covers to be made for cutting tools so that they could be transported safely.

The covers for the tools were made of double canvas to have greater resistance to the sharp blades, eliminating the risk of cuts whilst the tools were being transported. The covers were introduced as soon as Sodexo took over the contract and thanks to this innovation and the commitment of the whole team to health and safety there have been zero accidents onsite.

Ensuring winter road safety in Hungary

Cold weather can cause problems in vehicles. One of our teams based in Hungary, where winter temperatures can get as cold as -15 degrees Celsius, worked in collaboration with their local client to assemble a winter car emergency kit. The kit included all the tools needed to resolve weather problems over the winter and was available to all employees and visitors. Accidents were prevented and all of the 400,000 employees and visitors to the location arrived safely home to their families.

Thanks to the thoughtful design, which came from practical experience, the team was able to manage all weather-related problems, including, for example, a dead battery and deflated tire.

Reducing food safety risk in Brazil

In Brazil it’s mandatory to collect samples of all food and beverages prepared at self-service restaurants so that they can be analysed for pathogens to ensure food safety at each location.

Collecting food samples can be a time-consuming exercise, but Sodexo’s manager at a Corporate Services client site, Mayara Soares and her team have found a way to both optimize and reduce food safety risk in Brazil.

The team developed a label template for food samples, which includes all the mandatory information. The benefits of implementing this new system include:

• Greater control of food samples; all vital information is included no matter who is completing the process
• 74% reduction in the time taken to complete the task
• Higher overall productivity as team members can be re-allocated to other activities.

These are just some of the ways our teams around the world are going above and beyond to help each employee, client and consumer stay safe.

This is the second article in the ‘3 checks for safety’ series. You can read the first in the series which was all about job knowledge here. Look out for the final articles in the series coming later this year.

Find out more about our Health and Safety culture