| Although sales and marketing and office-based activities are perceived as having fewer EHS hazards and risks than research & development or manufacturing, the commercial organisation's 2003 lost time injury and illness rate of 0.33 lost time injuries and illnesses per 100,000 hours worked is greater than most groups within our manufacturing organisation. The key health and safety risks that must be managed in a commercial setting are driver safety, emergency planning (especially fire and first aid), ergonomics, mental wellbeing and resilience and accident investigation and reporting. The environmental issues most relevant to Commercial are the proper management of energy and waste and the design and labelling of products and packaging. Programmes are being developed to help the commercial businesses implement appropriate EHS programmes. As a minimum we expect them to have a written environment, health and safety policy and to have documented and assigned responsibilities for implementing the policy.
Driver Safety
Sales representatives can be at risk especially from road
traffic accidents, and ergonomic stressors such as manual handling.
Our 2003 data shows 21% of the lost time injuries are due to motor
vehicle accidents, making them one of the main causes of lost time
injuries in the company. In addition, four of the five employee
fatalities that occurred in 2003 were from motor vehicle accidents.
Therefore, reducing the number of motor vehicle accidents in commercial
operations is one of our key priorities and the aim of GlaxoSmithKline's
driver safety programme is to reduce fatalities, injuries and illnesses
to drivers driving on company business. Our Driver Safety programme
focuses on three key elements, the driver, the vehicle and the management
processes in place to manage the driver and vehicles.
In GlaxoSmithKline the driver is expected to help reduce the risk
of road traffic accidents by avoiding, where possible, the need
to drive by using alternative options such as video or teleconferencing.
In addition, the driver and passengers must wear seat belts and
the driver must not drive if under the influence of alcohol, drugs
or medication, nor when fatigued. The driver must not use a hand-held
mobile phone while driving and should minimise the use of a hands-free
phone.
GlaxoSmithKline's vehicles must be selected to avoid back,
posture or other ergonomic injury or illness and must be in safe
working order.
We expect management processes to be implemented to ensure that
anyone driving on company business has been approved to do so and
is medically fit to drive. For instance, pre-employment screening
includes a review of motor vehicle driving license and penalty points
or violations (driver history). All accidents must be reported,
documented, appropriately investigated and corrective actions implemented.
Performance is monitored and feedback is given to drivers.
A number of businesses across GlaxoSmithKline have successfully
implemented safe driving programmes. For instance, in the Philippines,
we require all sales representatives to attend defensive driving
courses and undertake both written safe driving and practical driving
examinations. These examinations are in addition to national requirements.
Employees may have their vehicle benefits suspended if they demonstrate
unsafe or discourteous driving behaviours or have poor accident
records. GlaxoSmithKline in Poland and the United States operate
driver incentive schemes whereby employees with good accident records
receive a range of awards and drivers with poor accident records
are penalised.
Driving and the environment
It is estimated that GlaxoSmithKline has over 32,000 vehicles
across the globe and each year spends over £165 million on
purchasing, replacing, repairing, insuring, maintaining, leasing,
renting and fuelling vehicles. We buy over 5,000 tyres per year
in the UK alone, which equates to about 50,000 tyres per year across
GlaxoSmithKline as a whole. Our estimated annual fuel bill for vehicles
is about £30 million and we use over 20 million litres of
fuel in Europe, which means our European drivers drove over 140
million miles or 5,600 times around the world in 2003. In addition,
we spend about £10 million repairing our own vehicles and
paying for third party repairs.
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