Knauf Insulation marked the safest year in its history in 2020 with 10 plants recording more than 12 months without a Lost Time Accident (LTA).
From 2019 to 2020 there was a 31% reduction in Lost Time Accidents (LTA) across Knauf Insulation sites marking an overall decrease of 63.6% since our baseline year of 2010.
As a result, the company recorded its safest year in its history with 10 plants going more than 12 months without an LTA, up from seven in 2019.
By June 11, 2020, Knauf Insulation had marked a major milestone — a hundred days without an LTA.
In 2019 we also changed from recording accidents as LTAs to Total Recordable Accidents with our Total Recordable Accident Rate (TRIR).
TRIR is important to Knauf Insulation because it records ALL significant accidents, not just those that result in lost time. It is calculated by dividing the number of injuries by the total number of hours worked by all employees and then multiplied by a million — a methodology used across a range of industries to compare the effectiveness of safety programmes.
In 2013 our TRIR hit a high of 21.12. By the end of 2019 the figure was 9.1 and at the end of 2020 the number was 6.5. We are committed to reduce this figure to 5.0 at a maximum by 2023.
In 2020 there were also considerable achievements in terms of risk management. Hazard-spotting tours were up 50% compared to 2019, safety observations had increased by 21% and safety dialogues had increased by an impressive 85%. In addition, lower severity incidents — First Aid incidents — were reduced by 15% from 2019 to 2020.
Philippe Coune, Group HSE Lead EMEA & APAC, says: “The pandemic heightened our employees’ safety awareness. People went beyond rules to demonstrate real care for one another.
“They were more sensitive to health and safety in every part of the company and the Group HSE team highlighted the importance of taking care everywhere to stay safe outside of work as well as on site.
“Colleagues became more aware of risks and there was less rush, more focus on protecting one another. Last minute risk assessments became standard and by reducing unexpected changes our workplaces became safer and more efficient.”
Take Care Everywhere
Do you hold handrails going downstairs? Do you scroll your phone while crossing the street? Would you dry a wet floor if you thought it was dangerous?
More than 80% of accidents at work and at home can be prevented by the way we behave (intentionally or not) — the things we do (or don’t) and the things we say (or don’t).
That is why we launched our safety campaign Take Care Everywhere in 2021.
Using online videos, posters at all our sites, weekly shared stories on our internal communication platform as well as talks and presentations by HSE managers across Knauf Insulation, we called on everyone to Take Care Everywhere by following The Safety Principles (see below).
Featuring our safety superstar Ki on all posters, information and presentations, the principles continue to remind us to improve our safety and reduce risk at work, at home and everywhere in between.
*The Knauf Insulation Safety Principles are: Expect the unexpected — Managing risk keeps us safe; Investigate all incidents — Share lessons learned; Fix risk rapidly — Don’t ignore it. Solve it; Accept mistakes happen — Make work fail-safe; Speak up, listen up — Let’s work together for safety; Stay safe outside work — We care everywhere; Give transparent feedback — Total honesty is essential; Put safety first. Always — It’s our top priority every day.
Picture in the header: Safety visit: Head of Knauf Insulation Dominique Bossan at the company’s Visé plant in Belgium
‘SAFETY CANNOT BE ONLY ABOUT WORDS ON A SAFETY POSTER’
Better risk management, upgraded equipment and training, training, training is making a difference at Knauf Insulation’s Simbach plant in Germany.
‘WE CANNOT ELIMINATE RISK COMPLETELY, BUT WE CAN MANAGE IT’
Lagging indicators such as lost time accident figures to benchmark ‘what has happened’ are insufficient when it comes to safety. These figures must be seen in the context of risk management, ‘what could happen’, says the safety team at our St Helens site in the UK.
Enjoy our Annual Review 2021