Health and safety management systems
Our health and safety policy requires each operating company to develop, implement and continuously review its health and safety management system, consistent with local operating conditions and legislation. The policy was updated in 2007/08 and is included in our Group Governance Manual.
We oversee Group-wide health, safety and wellbeing management through our Health, Safety and Wellbeing Board. This Board meets every six months and is chaired by the Head of Global Health, Safety and Wellbeing. It is made up of senior managers from key Group functions – Human Resources, Risk Services, Corporate Responsibility, Technology, Supply Chain, Legal, Internal Communications – as well as local operating company management and health and safety specialists from Vodafone regions.
Our operating companies share information and advice through our Health, Safety and Wellbeing Network. Annual health, safety and wellbeing conferences are held for health, safety and wellbeing professionals from across the Group to meet and share ideas. The conference held in April 2008 covered topics such as the development and application of radio frequency (RF) fields policies, the successes and challenges of supply chain health, safety and wellbeing management, new product safety policies and proposals for new global initiatives.
We operate an online system for the annual auditing of Health, Safety and Wellbeing Management across the Group. The tool is linked to our Group policies and standards and is consistent with the occupational health and safety standard, OHSAS 18001.
We require every significant event such as a fatality or serious incident to be reported within 24 hours to local operating company executives and the Head of Global Health, Safety and Wellbeing. A full investigation is undertaken into the causes of the incident and key findings are circulated across the Group to help prevent a similar incident elsewhere. We are implementing a global incident reporting system to enable local operating companies to record incidents online. For details of incidents, see performance.
We provide health and security advice for employees travelling abroad on business at Group level. This includes an evaluation of the risk to employees of serious diseases, such as malaria or HIV.