Ensuring our employee safety and security at workplace
In 2019, we digitalised the process of recording and managing our safety performance. In tandem, we also used our digital channels to provide safety training and to involve our employees with creating a safer work environment to ensure we are improving our safety record year on year.
Note: The above data covers our operation in the UAE from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019, unless otherwise indicated.
Digitalising our HSE processes and trainings
In 2019, we introduced ‘Digitalog’, an internally designed digital health and safety management platform. With the introduction of Digitalog, we have been able to monitor first-aid cases, near misses, recordable incidents, and other events that have been classified as unsafe. The platform has the capacity to both record and help in analysing safety-related incidents to gain a better understanding of our safety performance. Corrective actions are taken accordingly and are documented on the platform. The platform helps us to move away from paper-based reporting, replacing them with digital reports, therefore allowing for increased security and accessibility to any required information.
Digitalog’s functionality goes beyond record keeping and basic safety management. Digitalog stores all Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) related documents and records while also having the ability to allocate HSE inspection checklists to our on-site personnel. After inspection of each of the premises, our personnel complete the required checklists, including surveys on the level of cleanliness, the amount of waste, and the presence of non-hasardous material that have been left unattended. These completed forms are then uploaded to Digitalog and are made accessible for our HSE and Group Security teams to use when needed or when carrying out HSE audits. Digitalog can also track our employee training and competency records, as well as notify our administration when licenses, such as those needed to operate forklifts, are close to expiration.
Digitalog is a huge step forward from our previous record keeping, as it allows us to capture all relevant health and safety data and information using a secure and accessible platform.
As a result of these initiatives, we have witnessed a significant reduction in lost days, from 42 days in 2018 to only 6 days in 2019. By ensuring high standards of workplace safety and security, we build employee confidence in our working environment and promote long term efficiency for the business.
The new Digitalog system has enabled us to provide more accurate and traceable report, increasing our confidence in our workplace safety.”
Shaping the safety and security of our workplace
In order to raise awareness on employee safety and security within our offices, we began working with our Group Learning and Development department and Group communications to improve training and awareness on safety. We believe that HSE training is essential for improving our safety record year on year and have added an additional HSE training and evaluation module onto our platform in 2019, which is mandatory for all logistics staff. In addition, we also provide safety inductions for employees based at our back offices when they begin employment at Chalhoub Group.
During 2019 in the UAE, we conducted the safety and security orientation for our new employees, which was attended by 496 staff. We also launched new external training for our First Aiders and Fire Marshals and have leveraged the use of communication screens that are installed across all offices to convey basic safety messages.
Going forward in 2020, we are working again with our L&D to translate the day one orientation plus the day two START for front liners into Arabic to enable all our new employees to have access to the orientation presentation wherever they will be working, in the language of their choice. We will also introduce 4 Safety Toolbox Talks through Axonify which will focus on working more safely in our normal day to day environments.
We will also continue to use the communication boards to promote safety related topics to remind all our employees of their role in shaping the safety of our workplace.
Throughout 2019 Group Security and the local Administration teams completed a safety and security inspection for of our offices in the UAE, KSA, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Based on the findings a formulated improvement plans regarding basic safety and security measures was introduced for each location.
In 2020, Group Security will launch the second phase of our safety and security compliance program, which will involve the participation of our administration managers. The local Administration teams will self-validate security and compliance at their respective premises via the Microsoft Team software, providing photographic evidence of compliance, allowing them to be safe more efficiently. Further, we aim to introduce a dedicated online safety and security reporting platform to enable any incidents to be reported directly to Group Security, to raise the general safety awareness within our Group and improve the safety culture.