Safety at work

The Adecco Group strives to prevent accidents, injuries and diseases in the workplace. Recognising the risks our associates are exposed to when entering new and unfamiliar workplaces, the Adecco Group meets all statutory health and safety obligations.

Preventing accidents and diseases

Our standard measures vary from country to country. The five main elements are:

1. Health and safety coordinators and committees
We have formal joint management-worker health and safety committees in several countries.

In France, we are part of the “Comité d’hygiène, de sécurité et des conditions de travail” (CHSCT), a joint management-worker health and safety committee. In countries such as Japan, the USA and the UK & Ireland, we have dedicated health and safety coord-inator teams, specialists or working groups. In other countries, these tasks are outsourced to designated agencies: for example, Adecco Germany subcontracts to its own occupational health and safety company www.gap-arbeitsschutz.de; while in Serbia, a licensed third-party agency is employed.

2. Risk assessment in the workplace
Before placing our employees, we conduct workplace health and safety due diligence checks on clients’ premises, with regular follow-ups thereafter. The assessment tools range from sector-specific checklists through to web-based, intelligent databases, such as those used by Adecco UK, or formal client site safety evaluation processes, as implemented within Adecco USA.

3. Employee testing, training and induction
In all countries, training or briefing in accident prevention is most commonly available to our associates in the construction or industrial sector. The actual briefing or training sessions are usually carried out either directly by the clients or by Adecco.

• Xpert®
  Our candidate and associate training tool Xpert® includes specific modules which help determine an individual’s attitude to compliance with rules and safety orientation. In some countries, we also run risk awareness tests, tailored to specific jobs in the industrial sector.

• ‘S@ve Compétence’ in France
  Since 2008, Adia has successfully used and improved ‘S@ve Compétence’. This is an innovative accident prevention tool for the construction sector. It facilitates the dialogue between recruiter and candidates, addressing their level of technical knowledge in safety matters and their capacity to assess risk in the workplace. The process concludes with a debriefing from the recruiter, revealing examples of good and bad practice. The efficiency of this new approach undergoes continuous improvement because our recruiters also learn from our associates’ broad experience and good practice. The integration of S@ve Compétence as an Internet platform has made it easily adaptable to specific client area of expertise.

Country certification

• Adecco Netherlands holds the SCT [1] certification
• The Adecco Group France has specialised branches that are CEFRI [2]-certified. This certification covers validation of workers qualifications, medical checks, training in risk prevention and coaching of people working on assignment, and/or the similar MASE [3] certification for assignments at chemical and petroleum sites.
• The Adecco Group UK is accredited with ‘Achilles’, targeted towards staff working on railway infrastructure; ‘CHAS’ (Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme) for the construction sector and ‘SAFEcontractor’, an accreditation scheme that assesses the health and safety competence of contractors and service providers.

4. Medical checks
In accordance with local regulations, we conduct preliminary and periodic medical health checks, geared to the respective assignment, to protect associate’s health in high-risk working environments. Adecco Japan offers an additional range of support measures, depending on individual needs, which include a helpline staffed by specialised doctors for employees in need of mental-health counseling. Opportunities for general health checks are published on the Adecco Japan website. The company also addresses seasonal health issues, for example by organising flu vaccinations during the cold winter months.

5. Personal protection equipment
By contractual agreement with clients, the Adecco Group or the clients themselves supply our associates with personal safety and protection equipment.

Our occupational accidents decrease

In order to ensure a fair basis for comparison of our safety performance among our country organisations, we look at the development of accident frequency rates (AFR), rather than comparing absolute AFR values. This is due to the fact that our involvement in the various business sectors – and thus various risk potentials – varies significantly from subsidiary to subsidiary.

 

[1]SCT = Safety Checklist for Temporary Employment Agencies in Dutch: VCU

[2]CEFRI = Le Comité français de certification des Entreprises pour la Formation et le suivi du personnel travaillant sous Rayonnements Ionisants (www.cefri.fr).

[3]MASE = Manuel d’Amélioration Sécurité des Entreprises (www.mase.com.fr).