Responsible Business Report 2019

Health and Safety

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Highlights

Our safest year
16%
2019 has been the best ever performance with a Lost Time Accident (LTA) Rate of 0.53 – improving by 16% year-on-year.
Continued improvement in 2019
26%
Our Working Days Lost (WDL) rate of 10.99 improved by 26% year-on-year – our best ever performance.
Electricity risk mitigation
90%
Implemented in 2019, our new Golden Rules on electrical safety was deployed to approx. 90% of our sales and service colleagues across the group in the first year.
Since 2014, our Lost Time Accident rate has improved by 47%, and the Working Days Lost rate has improved by 62%.
Andy Ransom | CEO
Rentokil Initial plc
Our Approach

There is nothing more important in Rentokil Initial than ensuring that ‘Everyone Goes Home Safe’ at the end of their working day. Our colleagues, our families and our customers rely on this commitment. Health and safety will always be our first priority and there can be no compromise on this. Our colleagues are at the heart of THE RIGHT WAY plan and health and safety is embedded in this.

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Safety Performance in 2019

In 2019 our safety standards continued to make significant improvement.

Our Lost Time Accident (LTA) rate improved by 16% and Working Days Lost (WDL) rate improved by 26% year-on-year – both exceeded our targets for 2019.

Our 5-year Safety Performance Chart

 

Key Indicators

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Lost Time Accidents (LTA)

0.53

0.63

0.58

0.63

0.76

Working Days Lost (WDL)

10.99

14.77

11.65

16.14

19.59

The LTA rate is calculated as the number of lost time accidents (injuries and illnesses) per 100,000 hours worked.
The WDL rate is calculated as the number of working days that colleagues could not work because of lost time accidents (injuries and illnesses) per 100,000 hours worked.

Awards and Recognition

In 2019, we were awarded the International Risk Initiative of the Year from the International Institute for Risk and Safety Management. The award recognises the successful (and continuing) implementation of our global SHE Golden Rules programme and the significant role it plays in sustaining our safety-first culture and keeping our colleagues safe.

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Long-term Focus on Safety

The Company’s health and safety performance has shown a long-term improvement in Lost Time Accidents (LTA) and Working Days Lost (WDL).

Since 2014, our LTA rate has improved by 47%, and our WDL rate has improved by improved by nearly 62%.

As we look ahead to 2020 and beyond, our strategy will continue to focus on ensuring that ‘Everyone Goes Home Safe’ with our key objective being to improve our LTA and WDL rates to ensure all regions operate at World Class standards:

Major Incidents

There were no health and safety prosecutions pending or fines imposed on the Company in 2019. Regrettably, there were two fatal road traffic incidents this year.

In North America, one of our service vehicles slid on a slippery road surface and collided with the car in front, pushing it into oncoming traffic. A woman in the third party vehicle died as a result. In Colombia, a Hygiene technician sustained fatal injuries and died at the scene after his motorcycle collided with the rear of a truck.

We continue to enforce the Driving at Work minimum standards for all colleagues who drive. In 2018, we introduced an advanced Behind the Wheel’ training for drivers in North America working in high traffic areas with a risk of high collision rates. In addition, at the end of last year we commenced the deployment of SafeDrivePod – a new mobile phone blocking technology which blocks calls whilst driving. This has been rolled out in Europe and implementation has recently commenced in our Pacific region.

Safety in Action

In 2019 we undertook a wide range of safety initiatives and programmes to enhance our safely performance.

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Exoskeletons to reduce back and shoulder injuries
Case Study

Our French Workwear business has experienced several long-term absence incidents due to back and shoulder pain caused by the repetitive processes of moving a large number of garments and the manipulation of heavy mats.

In 2019 the business undertook a pilot to assess if the benefits of using Exoskeletons could improve posture and reduce any associated pain from this work. The pilot concluded that for certain roles the Exoskeletons were extremely effective, specifically for staff carrying out tasks were garments are loaded into vehicles above head high.

Exoskeletons have now been introduced across a number of our operations.

Managers learning about harness awareness
Case Study

In 2019, our North American health and safety team facilitated 15 training sessions across the United States focusing on educating managers on updated regulations for working at height. Colleagues included Pest and Ambius District Managers, Technical Service Managers, Bird Division Managers, Fumigation Managers and other select operational leads, who attended the three-day course.

The course included classroom learning, testing and hands-on training. Specifically, each participant practiced donning a harness, being lifted off the ground and deploying the rescue trauma straps. An outside expert contributed to the training by reviewing sections on risk assessment, equipment selection, usage, and inspection and rescue plans for each job.

Not only did the training provide extensive training on working at height but it also took advantage to cover a plethora of other topics such as ARC flash safety, aerial work platform practices, LTA management, ladder safety, dropped object protection, accident reporting procedures and how to use the new safety supply ordering portal.

Our Responsible Business

Environment

Find out more about our seven environmental work streams, our 2019 performance and ambitions.

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Workplace

Find out more about our workplace and diversity programmes, our 2019 performance and future ambitions.

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Governance

Find out more about how we manage and encourage the right culture across our business.

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