Ensuring a safe work environment is the responsibility of the entire industry - Skanska Safety Week celebrates ten years
The Skanska Global Safety Week is now being arranged for the tenth consecutive year. This year will also see industry colleagues being invited to participate in the activities under the theme “Working together for everyone’s safety.”
“In our projects, we cooperate with customers, partners and suppliers; sometimes several construction companies share the same worksite. To achieve the goal of a safe workplace, it is necessary for all parties to cooperate, not compete. We will not be satisfied until everybody is safe at work,” says Johan Karlström, President and CEO of Skanska.
Skanska Safety Week is the world’s largest occupational health and safety initiative organized by a single company. This year, the week will be even bigger, with competitors in the majority of Skanska’s home markets participating. A few examples of industry initiatives are listed below:
- In the US, Safety Week is being carried out jointly with 31 major companies.
- In Finland, the week will be arranged together with the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries.
- In the Czech Republic and Slovakia meetings will take place with 40 key subcontractors to talk about safety and how it can improve.
- In Norway, Skanska’s construction and project development units are cooperating with their joint venture partners.
- In Sweden, Skanska Sweden’s President has invited industry colleagues to participate in a health and safety discussion.
- In Poland, eight construction companies are arranging various health and safety activities in collaboration with Skanska.
Skanska has a Zero accident vision aimed at reducing worksite accidents and is working methodically to achieve this target. The interim goal is to eliminate three of four worksite accidents by 2015. To prevent accidents from occurring, Skanska also follows up incidents that could have lead to accidents. Over the past seven years, Skanska has reduced the number of accidents by 55 percent.
During Safety Week, May 5-12, thousands of activities will take place at Skanska worksites across the globe. These are not only aimed at Skanska’s 57,000 employees, but will also include sub-contractors, partners and customers – more than a quarter of a million people in total.
Aside from seminars and workshops, training sessions will also be held, dealing with such areas as working at heights, life-saving procedures, first aid and fire prevention. For more information: www.skanska.se/safetyweek