The health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues is important to us. We want Barclays to be a safe place to work, and one that enhances colleague welfare and wellbeing.
Approach and governance
Our vision for health, safety and wellbeing is set out in our Statement of Commitment, and signed by Bob Diamond, our Chief Executive. We also have a Health & Safety Global Policy, which outlines what we expect of our businesses. Both are reviewed annually and updated where necessary. We have had a Health & Safety Steering Committee in place since 2009. It met twice in 2011, and the subjects discussed included current and proposed legislation, property, risk management and reported incidents. Its membership is currently under review and will be confirmed in 2012.
During 2011, Wealth and Investment Management and our Investment Bank had their operations in the UK, Europe, Russia, UAE, Singapore and New York/New Jersey certified to the internationally-recognised standard OHSAS 18001. Within these businesses, 77% of colleagues are covered by this certification. Our Retail and Business Banking division continues to implement its own Health & Safety management systems, and in Portugal these systems are accredited to the OHSAS standard. Absa is also developing an equivalent management system (see 2011 Integrated Annual Report).
We monitor our compliance with these standards as part of our wider Health & Safety framework. We also continue to use the auditable Health & Safety management tool across Retail and Business Banking, the Investment Bank and the Wealth and Investment Management division to monitor compliance when entering a new sector or making an acquisition.
We are developing a Barclays-wide approach to managing health, safety and wellbeing, which different parts of the organisation can adapt to the needs of their own region or site. This new approach is being rolled out during 2012.
We will focus in 2012 on setting up an integrated Health & Safety team, conducting gap analyses to identify risks across the business that need attention and developing a comprehensive Health & Safety management information system.
Performance
During 2011, we focused on collecting more robust data on our Health & Safety performance. As a result of this exercise, and the preparatory work to align policies across the organisation, we identified potential risks which needed addressing. One of these risks was the maintenance of buildings in our three largest divisions, located in the UK, Spain and the Americas. We subsequently commissioned independent research in these areas. The outcome of this report was positive indicating that property maintenance was well organised, managed and delivered. A number of weaknesses were also identified and we are now developing specific action plans to address these areas.
Health & Safety incidents are reported to the relevant local authorities as required by local legislation. For example, we record ‘reportable’ incidents in the UK to the Health & Safety Executive. This includes major injuries and any absences of more than three days as a result of a workplace incident.
Both injuries and accident rates in the UK continued to decline in 2011, reflecting our ongoing commitment to improving Health & Safety management. No fatalities occurred in 2011. Absence due to sickness remained relatively stable.
UK injuries1 and sickness
|
|
2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 | ||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
Injuries to employees |
74 |
124 |
130 |
147 | ||||||||
|
Injury rate/100,000 employees |
109 |
181 |
215 |
232 | ||||||||
|
Sickness absence2 (%) |
2.5 |
2.83 |
2.3 |
N/A | ||||||||
Wellbeing
People at Barclays enjoy a number of benefits including private healthcare and flexible working. Each region determines its own range of benefits; for example, in the UK, we offer a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme to all of our colleagues and their dependants. This is a combination of free counselling and life management services.
The support offered may differ according to local needs, and we often provide specific medical coverage or support if a particular disease is prevalent in a particular country. For example, in Mauritius, we offer all colleagues the opportunity to attend HIV/AIDS testing centres, and have run awareness seminars for our first aiders in partnership with the external organisations Prevention Information and Lutte contre le SIDA. The first aiders were then tasked with disseminating this information to their friends and colleagues.
Vantage, Barclays online retirement education programme, continues to help colleagues with their retirement planning through all the stages of their career. It provides comprehensive guidance on planning for retirement and on maximising all the benefits offered by Barclays, as well as a number of modelling tools. Since its launch in 2010, more than 45,472 visits have been made to the Vantage website. In addition to the Vantage programme, members receive an annual pensions newsletter and personalised pension statement.
Training
We rolled out specific Health & Safety training modules across Barclays in 2011, and we will be monitoring compliance against a number of KPIs from 2012 onwards. We also offer more specialised training to people who require it for their role, to meet legislative requirements or to manage specific risks.
Each individual employee is encouraged to take responsibility for their own health and safety, and we support them with a range of materials such as intranet programmes, face-to-face training, videos and promotional events. Examples in 2011 included the ‘European Week of Health & Safety’ and various ‘Lunch and Learn’ sessions in the UK.
We formally track Health & Safety training across many of our divisions and have set internal targets. For example, around 85% of colleagues in Retail and Business Banking were trained during 2011 and around 98% were trained in Wealth and Investment Management.
Engagement
Barclays is a member of a number of external industry bodies and organisations which promote good Health & Safety management, including the Confederation of British Industry Health & Safety panel, the Inter Bank Group Health & Safety forum, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the British Safety Council, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the London Banks Forum.
We won the British Safety Council International Safety Award for the third consecutive year in 2011, and the RoSPA Business Sector Award for Occupational Health & Safety for the second time. Both awards schemes are acknowledged by the Health & Safety Executive and recognise outstanding performance in this area.
