World Day for Safety and Health at Work, a major topic for Viaposte

At Viaposte, occupational health and safety is subject to serious commitments and ongoing actions. Indeed, due to the nature of their activities, the company's employees may be exposed to risks that need to be known in order to reduce them and limit accidents to their lowest possible level.

While the Apollo lean management program integrates methods and processes to ensure the highest possible level of security, Viaposte also uses other tools to act on three key indicators:

> Employee frequency rate: the number of accidents with a work stoppage of more than one day per million hours worked over a 12-month period.

> Temporary workers’ frequency rate

> Severity rate: this represents the number of days not worked per 1,000 hours worked, i.e. the number of days lost due to temporary disability per 1,000 hours worked.

1. Individual prevention actions and an objectives system per site

To prevent accident risks and promote the well-being of its employees, Viaposte relies primarily on regulatory obligations. The company thus studies the various situations that may be a source of risk, such as carrying a heavy load, by following a precise procedure:

> Viaposte tries to eliminate this risk without creating new ones.

> It implements tools to reduce load carrying, such as sorters that can handle non-standard and/or heavy parcels, thus adapting the work to the man and not the other way round.

> If this is not possible, it sets up collective prevention actions.

> It implements individual prevention actions (PPE).

> Finally, and with the help of managers, a reminder of the rules is given orally.

> Personal protective equipment varies according to the positions held by employees. At the very least, it corresponds to the wearing of gloves to avoid cuts, a safety vest and safety shoes.

At the same time, Viaposte has defined personalized annual objectives for each of its sites based on their activity and the results of previous years in terms of accidentology. Each employee receives a bonus when the targets are met.

Viaposte has set up a software program for monitoring workplace accidents, with or without work stoppage, which allows for a better reporting of minor and serious malfunctions in order to reduce dangerous situations to a minimum. And as soon as an accident occurs, the site must assemble a team to analyse the accident according to the Five Whys method.

2. On-site visits for the implementation of tailor-made actions

To ensure that all its employees work in the best possible conditions, Viaposte has developed 2 types of visit:

> The STOP AT: all managers regularly have on-site visits, invoke a STOP AT and look at the frozen picture to note which situations are satisfactory and which need to be improved. The objective is to force them to take the time to analyse their work environment in order to avoid passing by a dangerous situation every day without countering it.

> Behavioural safety visits: conducted by trained and voluntary people, but also previously informed about working conditions, the purpose of these visits is to observe employees individually for 15 minutes and then have a debrief with them. Actions to be implemented are then decided by mutual agreement. Each employee receives this type of visit at least once a year.

3. Teambuilding actions around security

To reinforce its employees' reflexes and knowledge on how to ensure a high level of safety in their daily work, Viaposte regularly organises fun workshops.
For example, during its biggest annual event "The 2019 Summer Tour" - a festive event organised each year at all its sites - the company emphasised health and safety at work and organised a teambuilding activity around this issue.
Employees were thus faced with the challenge of building, in teams, a forklift truck with its interior and exterior structures with a maximum number of safety features (rear-view mirror, belt, etc.).

To do this, they had to use the material kit provided and build this truck in a tidy space using safe organizational methods throughout the workshop. They also had to wear PPE appropriate to the task at hand and consume the materials reasonably to avoid waste.

These various measures are constantly evolving and are adapted to each location in order to best suit the teams and activities of the sites.