Health and safety

The health and safety of our employees and customers is managed under our Group-wide health and safety strategy, agreed by the O2 Board and overseen by Health and Safety Champion Peter Richardson, Chief Executive Officer, O2 Airwave.

We comply with the ILO Safety and Health Management System 2001, the UK’s HSG65 and the guidelines of OHSAS18001, to which we are certified in the UK.

In each of our markets our performance is independently reviewed as part of our insurance arrangements.

We have health and safety committees in each of our businesses. Their core membership comprises managers and non-managers, trade union and works council representatives where appropriate, Human Resources, Property and Health and Safety departments and others who may be invited on an ad hoc basis.

We regularly consult with recognised trade unions on health and safety. We are also represented on the European Social Dialogue Committee Health and Safety Working Group.

Key safety issues for O2 are safe driving, fire, work at heights, slips, trips and falls, the use of display-screen equipment, control of contractors and violence to staff in our retail stores.

Focusing on these key aspects, our health and safety policies include mandatory training for all employees.

Our health and safety policies include mandatory training for all employees and we have a permanent target of zero tolerance to accidents in the workplace. During the year we received no health and safety enforcement notices and have no such actions pending.

During 2005/06 there were 201 accidents resulting in 477 days lost in sick absences. Based on our total workforce, this is equivalent to 12.05 accidents and 28.6 days lost in sick absences per 1,000 full-time equivalent staff. About 25 per cent of our UK employees have undertaken driver training/assessment. 

In Germany, during 2005/06, two third-party contractors were killed during the maintenance of one of our network sites. O2 Germany’s health and safety department consequently extended their health and safety training to all maintenance contractors to raise awareness of the importance of following mandatory procedures. In addition, O2 carried out an audit of the third party contractor to assess their practices and ensure that safety standards, as stipulated by O2, were adhered to by third party maintenance and construction contractors.