Health and Safety
Introduction
Good health and safety practices are integral both to employee welfare and to the success of the Group, and each Divisional Managing Director is responsible to the Board for Health and Safety in their division. We are continually reviewing our procedures and our training in order to develop and adopt methods of working which reduce the likelihood of accidents occurring. Both divisions operate in a time-critical environment: newspaper deliveries work to a tight schedule, with any delay losing sales for ourselves and our customers.
Ground handling operations focus on aircraft, where any slip can delay departure or damage a customer’s aircraft. Reports on health and safety performance are the first operating item at all meetings of the Group Board and at Divisional Operating Board meetings. They include injury statistics and trends as well as lessons learned, training performance, contacts with regulators and legislative changes. The Group’s health and safety policy statement, which is published on our website, focuses on establishing a suitable environment, providing proper training, and communication and consultation with employees.
Each division has a specialist health and safety manager, who is supported by local management.
Menzies Aviation
The division has a comprehensive safety management programme called MORSE (Menzies Operating Responsibly Safely and Effectively), which focuses on:
• personal injury;
• aircraft damages;
• damage to equipment;
• emergency response;
• security awareness; and
• avoiding the cost of carelessness.
The MORSE safety management system and network safety team provide a dedicated resource within each region to support the field organization and ensure we maintain a strong safety compliance focus. The network team works together to set policy, agree standard operational procedures and communicate regular safety awareness information to the field organisation. With operations at 107 airports worldwide, our priority has been to continue standardising safety processes. One key feature of MORSE is that it incorporates an intranetbased network reporting and investigation system for the recording of all incidents, including near misses, to UK standards. Follow-up action is taken so that lessons are learned and shared. MORSE is continually updated and refreshed to promote its safety and security awareness message. A newly enhanced version was developed in 2008, and was launched at the start of 2009. Additionally, the division provided Occupational Health and Safety certification training with the British Safety Council for its European regional safety managers, who successfully achieved an International Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety.
An Incident Review Board chaired by the division’s Managing Director meets monthly to review major (category A) incidents, shifting the emphasis to prevention rather than cure.
Menzies Aviation continues to take a proactive position with representation on industry groups such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airside Safety Group and The International Aviation Handlers Association (IAHA). Representation at these groups continues to underpin a strong message to the industry and regulators that Menzies Aviation is proactive in their commitment to safety. Menzies Aviation took a leading role in successfully lobbying industry stakeholders to further reduce the maximum permissible weight of a single piece of baggage from 32kg to 23kg to reduce muscular skeletal injuries to employees, which was approved and will be incorporated in the 2009 IATA Airport Handling Manual.
Menzies Distribution
The most common injuries in this business are those sustained from manual handling, slips and trips, and moving objects. Menzies Distribution also uses the MORSE programme, and the division is now moving into the final year of its three-year safety strategy. The year saw the introduction of the Supervisors ‘Stepping Up’ training programme which includes supervisors’ safety responsibilities.
In total, 116 supervisors completed the five day course with a further 80 to follow in the coming year. Innovative use of the intranet has made specialist Ergonomic and Manual handling assessments available to all managers as well as more detailed generic assessments. The division continued to improve its vehicle movement practices, separating workplace vehicle movements from people movements, and has significantly reduced the possibility of accidents occurring. Our practices were highly commended in 2005 by the Freight Transport Association and the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) which has led to the HSE publishing a case study on their website highlighting Menzies Distribution’s safe systems of work as the blueprint for good working practices.
Our ‘pack-by-light’ newspaper allocation system has enabled standardisation of pack sizes, reducing our exposure to lifting injuries. In terms of motor and vehicle-related incidents, Distribution continually keeps its fleet under review to ensure that the most appropriate vehicles are used for driving/training purposes, loading/unloading and accessing routes for making deliveries. Consideration is also given to environmental impact when choosing fleet suppliers. All staff receive health and safety training relevant to the tasks they perform. CDbased training materials are also available, including our driver training programme which covers safety as well as advanced driving skills to maximize fuel savings.
Injury and Incident Reporting
Whilst both divisions utilise key performance measures to monitor trends and to improve our performance in this area, they operate in very different sectors. Statistics for each division are analysed individually, as comparing injury or incident statistics between them, or overall Group figures against figures published by comparator companies would be meaningless.
In 2008, Menzies Aviation had 79 (2007: 52) injuries reportable under UK RIDDOR with an equivalent rate per 100 FTE employees of 2.3 (2007: 1.5). In 2008, Menzies Distribution had 51 (2007: 42) incidents during the year that resulted in injuries reportable under UK RIDDOR, which is equivalent to an injury rate per 100 FTE employees of 0.12 (2007: 1.16). The total figure includes businesses acquired during 2008.
In respect of Menzies Aviation’s overseas operations, there is no comparable UK RIDDOR,as each country where it operates has different reporting requirements. However, under the MORSE incident reporting system, all injuries are reported under standard categories depending on seriousness, where category A would be for the most serious incidents. Category A level is not the
same as UK RIDDOR, but it includes major/serious incidents involving fatality, serious harm, dangerous occurrence or aircraft damage, including significant near misses.
There were 100 category A incidents altogether reported worldwide during 2008 (2007: 107). Of the 100 incidents, 54 involved aircraft damage and 46 involved personal injury. This total of 100 includes injuries reported under UK RIDDOR that were serious enough to be classed under MORSE as being category A incidents. To provide some context, another significant figure that we monitor is the number of Category A incidents per 100 FTEs which decreased from 0.33 in 2007, to 0.24 in 2008. We also monitor the figures involving aircraft damage per 1,000 turns handled, which is an industry recognised measure. In 2008, our incident rate per 1,000 aircraft turns for category A aircraft damage was 0.09 (2007: 0.10) which compares against an IATA published benchmark figure of 0.67 and IAHA’s figure for 2008 of 0.15 per 1,000 turns.