Health, Safety and Wellbeing

Good health and safety practice is a responsibility that we share with all employees.

The Manufacturing Director, a Board Member, oversees health and safety for the Group. He is supported in this task by a Group Health and Safety Committee which meets twice a year to review our performance and
agrees priorities.

Ultimate responsibility for health and safety issues resides with the managing directors of each business and region. It is the responsibility of each business to set policies and procedures based on guidance from the relevant regulatory body. Where relevant, these policies are supported by codes of conduct such as for the handling of controlled chemicals. Each business has individuals responsible for health and safety issues either as a dedicated role or for smaller businesses as part of a wider remit.

For the vast majority of the Group’s offices, distribution centres and shops, the risk of serious injury is limited. We have identified that our manufacturing sites have the greatest range of health and safety issues to address.

We use an external consultancy to conduct regular audits of our manufacturing sites and workshops. In 2007/08, over 30 audits were conducted, assessing compliance with both health and safety regulations together with the effectiveness of translating policy into operating procedure and practice. These audits help to identify areas of improvement and their results are used to drive continuous improvement plans at each location.

As responsibility for health and safety management has been devolved to individual Maisons, many different systems for data collection have developed suited to national reporting requirements. In 2007 we reorganised systems to comprehensively measure, monitor and report injury data across the entire organisation. We will continue to assess and improve the quality of our data in this area.

Examples of activity at our Maisons to improve health and safety include:

Case Study: Dallas watch repair centre

Richemont recently opened a new technical centre for watch repairs in Dallas. Since its launch in September 2007, the Dallas centre has placed a strong focus on embedding robust health and safety measures.

Working alongside an external specialist company, the centre has tailored the existing corporate safety policy to meet its specific needs and has also developed a safety manual and emergency action plan. A health and safety committee, with representatives from management and employees across each of the different operational areas, was set up to understand the health and safety concerns of employees and implement initiatives to improve the day-to day working environment.

Training has helped to embed the new health and safety policies into the working culture of the new centre. One example of this has been the communication programme on hazardous materials, which trained staff on the safety procedures required when handling hazardous chemicals. In addition, the centre held a number of “Question and Answer” sessions to give all employees the opportunity to voice concerns and ideas on health and safety issues.

Case Study: Montblanc

Headquartered in Hamburg, Montblanc is a diversified group manufacturing timeless luxury products, such as writing instruments, leather goods, watches and jewellery. The company employs around 3,000 people worldwide. Of these, 1,050 are based in Hamburg which is the manufacturing centre for writing instruments and exclusive limited edition products. Over the last few years the company approach to health and safety has been completely reviewed. The review process included a revised set of policies and guidelines, an internal communication programme, extensive hands-on training sessions, and a new strategy to assess risk, provide access to occupational health specialists and to measuring performance. As a result, Montblanc’s rate of workplace accidents at 0.01% is significantly below industry standards. Montblanc is regularly audited by local authorities, and its approach has been recognised as a best practice employer by the German Health and Safety regulator.

Case Study: Cartier

Health and safety is a top priority for Cartier. The company already follows high standards in terms of the equipment it uses and the quality of the work environment it provides.

Cartier commissioned a holistic ergonomic review in its jewellery polishing departments. The aim of the project was to work with the in-house team to fully map the activities of the polishers and to evaluate opportunities for improvement in areas such as noise, air quality, posture and repetitive tasks. An external specialist consultancy carried out detailed on-site observations and analysed over 12 hours of video. The findings were shared with the polishing departments and Cartier established a working group facilitated by the external consultancy to identify and create innovative solutions to the issues raised. One ongoing project has been to design the ideal fully equipped workbench for a polisher. This year, the students of Richemont’s Creative Academy were tasked with developing proposals for the workstation and these were presented to a special jury which included teaching staff from the Creative Academy, representatives from Cartier’s jewellery manufacturing sites and a leading architecture professor. Out of 20 proposals, two have been selected for prototyping. A feasibility review will be performed on both proposals before one of them is selected for development.

Case study: Jaeger-LeCoultre

Jaeger-LeCoultre has invested significantly in health and safety training programmes for the staff in its manufacturing site in Le Sentier. It offered a number of different sessions throughout 2007/08 educating staff on the health and safety risks relevant to their workplace.All staff attended an innovative half-day training session which was designed as an interactive quiz. A separate session was attended by staff responsible for handling hazardous chemicals which covered a range of issues such as procurement, labelling and handling of chemicals. Together with the training sessions, a number of staff have been assigned specific health and safety roles. Over 100 staff received specialist training to deal with evacuation procedures in the event of an emergency, while others were trained in first-aid techniques.