Building a safe, inclusive culture
‘We return home safely. Every day!’ is Alfa Laval’s safety vision. The ambition is to have a workplace free from accidents and work-related illnesses.
Caring
Alfa Laval strives to continuously improve the health and safety (H&S) performance according to the global H&S Policy. An extensive safety programme was launched during 2022 and has resulted in positive development, there was a positive trend, both when it comes to Lost Time injury Frequency Rate and Minor Injuries. However, we are still not in line with our vision and aspirations in this area.
Targets and progress
Alfa Laval’s key target in the H&S area is to reduce the Lost Time injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) by 30 percent by 2023 compared to 2022. In 2022, the total number of LTIs decreased to 87 (113). The total number of lost working days was 2,707 (2,800). The target on reduction of LTIFR was however not met even if significant progress towards the target was made. Continued focus and work is needed to fulfill our targets and long-term aspirations.
Reducing the use of hazardous chemicals is also important for health and safety for our employees, and this is continuously in high focus at all our sites. Removing and substituting hazardous substances is part of our continuous improvement work.
Health and Safety priorities
During the year, Alfa Laval has had an even sharper focus on the three main areas of safety: safe culture, safe technology, and safe systems. Based on findings from last year’s review and analysis, a decision to prioritize the eight units with the most accidents was taken. Each of these units have completed a Problem Solving Sheet to find underlying causes of the negative trend and what can be done to improve in terms of health and safety. Extensive mitigation programmes for each site have been implemented with positive results during 2022. A similar approach will be used on other sites if poor performance or a negative trend becomes apparent.
Good health and well-being
The pandemic has put additional focus on health and well-being, and Alfa Laval has taken several actions to minimise the spread of Covid-19 among employees, ensure their well-being and safeguard the business. Alfa Laval believes that promoting good health is about concern for the individual as well as enabling Alfa Laval’s continued business success. Employees in certain regions have continued to work from home but employees in most regions are now back in the office most of the time.
During the year, Alfa Laval conducted an employee survey to measure, among other things, health, and well-being in the organization.
Enhancing safety performance in BHE&FHE Product Group
During 2021 pandemic, footprint projects and huge volume development impacted negatively on safety performances of BHE&FHE Product Group. It was necessary to revitalize safety tools and processes already available in the organization. BHE&FHE focused on ALPS, safety training and ‘I Care’ programme to revive safety awareness. In a few months, all efforts put in place led to an impressive reduction of LTIs, enabling the organization to come back to the usual positive safety performances.
Enhancing safety performance
Alfa Laval continues to focus on enhancing safety performance in three main areas
Safe culture
Promoting behavioural change is necessary to create a culture focused on safety in the workplace, which concerns all employees. Managers have a particularly important role in leading the development towards a better safety culture and acting as safety role models. All employees must also take responsibility for their own health and safety.
During the year, work with behavioural aspects continued and focused on a few different areas. For example, a way of working called Fair and Just has been implemented. This is a method to better understand human errors and ensure effective actions. A new digital safety module was also implemented that facilitates data collection and analyses of reported incidents and hazards.
‘I care’ is an initiative to continuously and sustainably improve the health and safety culture. ‘I care’ originates from Alfa Laval’s purpose to accelerate success for customers, people and planet and builds on four crucial steps: awareness, interest, engagement, and sustain and improve. During the year, a programme called the Walk and Talk was run, which focused on leaders and other key stakeholders to demonstrate visible leadership on the shopfloor and talk with employees about safe and unsafe behaviours.
Safe technology and equipment
An important part of Alfa Laval’s safety work is to ensure safe machines and equipment. Risk assessments are therefore carried out regularly to identify hazards and measures to reduce risks.
Safety systems: Updated Health & Safety Policy and manual
During the year, Alfa Laval updated its Health & Safety Policy to ensure that it is relevant for the organization and its risks. Alfa Laval also implemented a new Health & Safety Manual that clearly states what is expected of all Alfa Laval units in terms of health and safety.
Marine safety training for field service engineers
Each business unit within the Marine Division has a marine safety champion assigned to liaise between their entity and the other service teams. The marine safety champion creates awareness and defines common safety standards and behaviour to be followed and aligns this with the other champions. The champion, along with the local site team responsible for the health and safety of its employees, supports local safety training, provides feedback on training improvements and shares best practices to make the environment safer and better for service engineers. The safety training involves three phases:
1. Preparing for a visit
The marine field service engineer needs to prepare for a visit on a ship or a yard by ensuring every item on a checklist is ready. The checklist includes the nature and description of the task, tools and safety equipment required, contact details of people accompanying, and other important travel and work documents. Occasional visitors must also undergo a mandatory safety awareness training to familiarize themselves with the environment onboard, potential dangers and how to act in the case of an emergency.
2. Preparing for onboard tasks
Every time a marine field service engineer visits a ship or yard, the engineer must conduct a task risk analysis (TRA). It defines the task, the risks involved, the impact of potential accidents and the steps to be taken to mitigate the risk. The local safety officer can be consulted, and new findings are recorded and discussed within the team for improving safety measures onboard.
3. Last-minute preparation
Last-minute risk analysis needs to be conducted by the service engineers before they visit a ship or yard. This helps them to assess the risks involved in the task and surroundings, and provides information about safety precautions, the use of personal protection equipment, and what needs to be done if an accident occurs. This follows the Stop-Think-Act approach.
Inclusion & diversity
During 2022, Alfa Laval continued its journey towards being an inclusive and diverse workplace, which enables both people and the company to reach their full potential.
Alfa Laval’s vision is to be recognized as an inclusive workplace where diversity is essential to achieve the company’s objectives. The composition of our people should reflect the diversity of the markets where we operate and society at large.
We promote a safe, inclusive culture both within our company and in our relationships with external partners. Alfa Laval’s workplace shows a set of behaviours and unique values that make people feel valued, respected, and involved. They reach their full potential based on competence, experience and performance. All traits and attributes people bring to the workplace help to build strong and diverse teams.
Ambitions
Our ambitions towards 2025 are:
35%
35 percent employees to be women
25%
25 percent managers to be women
<70%
<70 percent homogeneity in senior management teams
Progress
Inclusion & Diversity
Through the course of the unprecedented challenges faced due to the pandemic over the last couple of years, Alfa Laval continues to have women comprising 21 percent of our total employee base and 22 percent women representation in our managerial population. 34 percent of all new hires in Alfa Laval in the white collared talent pool were women in 2022, showing our commitment to increase the representation of women in the company. Being an international company, Alfa Laval aims to be diverse and inclusive organization. In 2022, homogeneity in senior management teams, from a gender and citizenship perspective, reached 70 percent in line with our targets. In the annual engagement survey ‘VOICE’, the dimension of inclusive leaders was scored at 69 percent by the employees. In December 2022, Alfa Laval has been ranked by Financial Times and Statista number 4 in Europe in the engineering category companies in our peer group.
Local I&D action plans
There is no single ‘silver-bullet’ in making the change to become a truly inclusive and diverse workplace, which is why Alfa Laval has built its I&D strategy on a long list of initiatives: awareness and change management, education and training, culture and leadership, people processes, local activities, targets and data, and communication.
Based on the feedback from sixty I&D workshops with senior management across the organization, including Group Management in 2021, and with more than 500 leaders participating, Alfa Laval included decentralized I&D planning in different parts of the organization in 2022. This is to better adapt to local needs and commitment levels.
We continue to build awareness in the organization with I&D workshops with management teams across Alfa Laval, leading to local I&D plans. The local plans contain regular management team discussions and follow-ups on targets, communication plans and initiatives, talent management, different reports to identify pay gaps, VOICE and I&D pulse (people surveys), inclusive leadership practices and training, as well as other initiatives and changes.
For example, in Latin America, the creation of the Top Woman support network is empowering and inspiring female employees. Another initiative – the Workshop Immersion programme – is helping to bridge gaps between different departments within the company, especially between the office areas and the shopfloor. Meanwhile, the Alfa Young network brings together employees under 35 in both Sweden and Denmark.
This is just a selection of examples that represent many more local initiatives that are driven by the business, HR, or employees themselves, while receiving full support from top management.
Policy
On 1 January 2022, a new Global Inclusion and Diversity Policy was launched. The purpose is to provide guidance and clarify our commitment to offer a workplace with a welcoming, inclusive environment based on diversity and a sense of belonging. The Global Inclusion and Diversity Policy covers the following topics: Creating a sense of belonging, equal opportunities, anti-discrimination, non-harassment and bullying in the workplace.
Learning
During 2022, Alfa Laval continued its education and training activities for leaders and employees globally in themes like globalinclusion, acting inclusively and how to mitigate unconscious bias. Examples include: ‘Becoming an inclusive leader’ which is aimed at managers on all levels throughout the company, and the ‘Global Inclusive Course’ which all employees are encouraged to take. At TMC (Top Management Conference) in June 2022, the top 200 leaders participated in a session on self-reflection and deeper insights into inclusive leadership behaviours.
In 2022, more than 800 e-learnings on the global I&D program were taken. The training was supported by Alfa Laval’s Learning Portal, eLearning tools, and a toolbox for recruiting and leading with I&D leadership in mind.
Networks
A group of 18 business and HR representatives, including senior managers, have been certified as I&D leaders in 2021. This network of facilitators inspires and supports ongoing and new local initiatives and contributes to ensuring that I&D stays on the agenda at all levels of the organization.
Diversity networks and employee resource groups have been initiated by employees and supported by the group throughout the organization. Examples include ‘Women in Tumba’, ‘Young@Alfa Laval Lund’, ‘Alfa Laval Women in India’ (ALWIN), ‘Alfa Laval Young Professionals in Aalborg’ and ‘Women in Southeast Asia’.
Communications
Communications play an important role in putting and keeping I&D high on the agenda. It is also important for promoting the benefits of an inclusive and diverse workplace among leaders and employees in the whole organization.
Communication activities in 2022 focused on endorsing the many initiatives via testimonials from participants in trainings, workshops and networks.
Listening
In 2022, Alfa Laval conducted the people engagement survey ‘VOICE’ to allow all employees to make themselves heard and contribute to making the workplace more inclusive and attractive. This year as many as 86 percent of Alfa Laval’s employees completed the survey, a 5 percent increase in comparison to last year.