Corporate practices: Enel’s occupational safety strategy

Coaching contracting and subcontracting firms, developing innovative training and information methods for employees, spreading the best practices and improving social dialogue… these are the key elements of the security strategy of Enel Group (73,700 employees worldwide, 36,200 in Italy).  Pursuing a ‘zero accident’ objective, security has become a priority for the Italian energy group the “primary value” and “the prerequisite for efficiency and competitiveness.”  As a result, in the past three years, severe and deadly accidents were cut by 75% for direct staff and 70% in contracting firms.  Alda Paola Baldi, group health and safety representative, is telling Planet Labor about the most innovative aspects of this strategy.  (Ref.  130264)
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Safety coaching. Within the framework of the promotion of security among “appaltatori” (businesses that are awarded its contract, hereafter ‘contractors’), Enel has been testing, since 2011, a new training modality: safety coaching. The point is to guarantee the adoption of joint, homogeneous security standards, to provide tools to improve safety/quality performance by consulting experts, and to strengthen/improve interaction with them. On March 26, the 2013 edition started at Enel’s training center in L’Aquila, covering businesses taking care of pruning and cutting plants along the electrical network in Latium, Abruzzo and Molise. Previous editions already covered over 500 workers in 22 businesses operating in the construction and maintenance of power lines and public lighting in these three regions. Training is composed of a technical stage (legislative/conventional standards, technical aspects, managing operations from a security perspective), a technical/practical stage (including the analysis of the quality of labor and of safety procedures, with activities in the training centers, before Enel and company experts), and in the field with expert technicians.

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