Health & Safety

10 Years of Commitment in Health  

Lafarge recognised HIV/AIDS as a strong economic and social challenge in 2001 and started to work with NGOS, unions and international bodies to structure its Health approach.  As a result, the Group implemented its first programs to fight against HIV/AIDs in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2003. 

Since then, from public health to general well-being, from developing countries to mature ones, Lafarge has rapidly evolved to better adapt to local issues thanks to the experience it had gained in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Follow this retrospective of a 10-year commitment to Health issues in pictures.

For Lafarge, Safety of its employees and contractors is an absolute priority.  Already one of the safest companies in its sector, Lafarge has nonetheless set itself the objective of becoming one of the world's leading industrial groups in terms of Safety.  To achieve this, in 2006, the Group drew up an ambitious roadmap, covering all aspects of performance in terms of health and safety.

One of Lafarge's efforts to raise strong awareness among its employees and contractors is holding an annual "Safety Month" in June at all of the Group's 3,000 sites.  During the month, each site organises events to raise awareness and communication campaigns on Health and Safety for employees, their families, contractors and the local communities living near the Group's business operation. 

In Malaysia, in conjunction with Lafarge Safety Month, various activities were organised and participated by employees, their families, contractors, drivers, stakeholders, local authorities and communities in the whole month of June.  Some of the activities held were on Industrial Safety, Road and Transportation Safety, Safety at Home and General Health & Safety and the Industrial Safety Conference.  

This year marks the sixth consecutive year that the Industrial Safety Conference (ISC) was held.  The event was held at SIRIM's premises in Shah Alam on 11 June 2011.  

More than 220 contractors and employees from the Head Office, Plants and Singapore operations as well as employees from other Divisions were invited to this event. 

The half-day conference was to share key safety findings and highlight the importance to work together towards a safety culture. To kick-start the conference, participants were invited to take part in a dynamic "warm-up" session which involved stretching their bodies to the rhythm of the music. 

Exhibition booths were set-up by the plants employees where participants took turns to visit all the booths.  Besides gathering knowledge at the booths, participants were invited to take part in quizzes and were rewarded with prizes.  In addition, a guest speaker was invited to share about visible felt leadership.

For the seventh consecutive year, Lafarge Malayan Cement (LMC)  organised Lafarge Transporters' Safety Day with the objective of rewarding the transporters and drivers for their excellent  performance in 2010. It was held at Perangsang Templer Club, Rawang on 3 July 2011, attended by 630 persons, the largest participation ever since this annual event was organised.   This year's theme was "Love Your Family, Wear Seat Belt".

The set-up of safety exhibition booths by of our transporters including the Road Safety Department, Selangor was one of the highlights of the conference.   Each exhibition booth was assigned a safety topic based on Lafarge's Safety Standards & Advisories and safety requirements where transporters designed, displayed the relevant information and gadgets to demonstrate the way to carry them out safely.

In addition, we have created an initiative known as Road Safety Ambassador (RSA) for our drivers which was launched during the conference this year. RSA is an initiative aimed to recognise our drivers for their excellent achievement in health and safety. 

There were also games and lots of prizes to enhance the occasion with fun and safety in mind. The networking was invaluable and the participation by transporters, drivers and drivers' spouses was encouraging. 

Since the beginning of the year, “Health and Safety Hour for Head Office” was launched with the objective of promoting a learning culture on safety through knowledge sharing led by Lafarge Malayan Cement Executive Committee. The following Health & Safety topics were shared:

a) Road Safety
b) Home Safety
c) Personnel Protective Protection
d) Office Safety
e) Manual Handling Safety
f) Tyre Safety
g) Safety Behaviour
h) Kitchen Safety
i) Fire Safety
j) Job Planning, HIRARC and Pre Job Meeting (JHP) Process
k) Defensive Road Safety

At Lafarge, we believe that safety leadership starts from the top. VFL programme was first introduced to the management employees to ensure that they become an active part of building a safety culture. In 2010, the programme was extended to 85 line managers to reemphasise that line management is also accountable for the safety culture and performance at our operations. Significant improvements have been seen in the way line managers approached their teams and contractors at site to discuss safety practices and behaviour particularly during major maintenance shutdown to reduce unsafe acts and increase the number of safe working practices.

Across the organisation, we manage safety through the Group’s Safety Standards and Advisories. Our line managers are accountable for the implementation of these Standards and Advisories. They are responsible for ensuring that supporting systems and procedures are in place. Throughout 2010, our Executive Committee and line managers initiated awareness training to every employee to improve our safety competency on Standards and Advisories.  

During the year, we continued to highlight to our employees on the importance of Safety Observation and Near Miss reporting as the key leading indicators  for the prevention of injuries and fatalities.  Lafarge Malayan Cement introduced the Safety Reporting System (SRS) to enable effective and efficient  sharing of learning, and at the same time, to follow up on the corrective actions.  Analysis of accident was circulated on weekly basis to all employees throughout the organisation

Lafarge Malayan Cement launched the “HOUSE” programme with the theme “With family spirit, we transform our Workplace to be as clean and as safe as our House”. Since the launched, there were major improvements in the cleanliness at our sites.

A Safety Dialogue with 36 major contractors was held in April 2010. The agenda of the dialogue was Contractor Safety Management Standard and Building a Safety Culture through Strong Safety Leadership. We proudly note that 14 contractors shared their safety initiatives during the dialogue.

In our continuing efforts to improve the safety management of our contractors and transporters, follow up audits were conducted to validate the implementation of the agreed action plans. The purpose is to gauge the safety commitment of the contractors and transporters towards Lafarge Malayan Cement’s safety requirements through an annual audit. We have seen significant improvements on the way contractors and transporters are managing their safety.  

Compliance on wearing seat belt has improved since the implementation of reflective strips on the seat belts in 2009. Throughout the year, the seat belt check blitzes were conducted not only by the Supply Chain team but also by the Plant team. We received positive feedback from our customers and local government agencies on seat belt compliance by the truck drivers. 

Around 38 customers’ sites have been assessed by Supply Chain team together with Sales team and customers’ representatives. The main objective was to minimise risk of all drivers while entering or delivering cement to customers’ site. We saw major changes particularly on the access route to the customers’ site as a result of this assessment.

During Lafarge Safety Day, a new Safety Vision: “Safety Our Way of Life” (“Keselamatan Amalan Hidup Kita”) and  Job Planning, HIRARC (Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment, Risk Control) and Pre-Job Meeting (JHP) programme were launched. We believe every employee cares about safety.  However, we need to change the way we behave. Safety must be part of everything we do. It's a way of life. We learned from all the accidents in Lafarge Malayan Cement that we should prepare our jobs well; we learned that we needed to discuss risks and control them; we learned how powerful these conversations could do. We learned that with proper JHP, supervision and attention, we could achieve ZERO injury. 

A half-day Safety Dialogue with 28 suppliers was held in November 2010. The aim of the dialogue was to improve communication with key suppliers on safety initiatives and to follow up any safety issue or concern. Shell Malaysia, one of the companies with good safety standards, was invited to share its safety practices with the participants. 

A Safety Dialogue with 34 transporters was held in December 2010. The aim of the dialogue was to share all the key safety issues, performance and exchange views with the transporters. A best in class transporter in safety was invited to share its safety practices with the participants.

In the last quarter of the year, major focus was given on Job Planning, HIRARC and JHP site implementation and Road Safety campaign. Several line managers and company drivers  participated in the Defensive Driving Training to increase their safety awareness on road safety.