Health and Safety

Overview

Halfords is committed to operating high standards of Health and Safety, designed to minimise the risk of injuries and ill health to employees, contractors, visitors and others who come into contact with the business. The Group believes that Health and Safety is a fundamental ingredient to a successful business and we constantly review our standards for effectiveness, driving through and embedding a Health and Safety culture throughout the organisation. Regular audits are undertaken as part of the Group’s improvement strategy to help benchmark against both legal requirements and the Group’s procedures.

Risk reduction

Our philosophy is to enable confident proportionate occupational Health and Safety management and actively pursue targeted risk reduction measures.

We are encouraged by the successes from our risk-focused agenda throughout the year:

• A comprehensive site transport safety strategy has been applied and shared with our main haulage partner, waste collection company, third party carriers and direct delivery suppliers.
• Storage and handling at height has been made safer through supply chain initiatives, clearer storage disciplines, improved means of access and additional handholds on bicycle packaging.
• Fire detection, warning and evacuation measures in our older high street stores have been upgraded.
• Evacuation chairs have been retrofitted into super mezzanine stores to provide an additional means for prompt, safe evacuation of persons with limited mobility from the mezzanine area.
• A programme to upgrade water systems in stores with calorifiers and storage tanks was commenced to remove environments where legionella could proliferate.
• A new wefit canopy has been introduced incorporating safe construction and use principles.

Achievements

Our annual injury incident rate for colleagues remains below the industry benchmark.

We have put great emphasis on producing occupational safety documentation information for distribution and retail operational colleagues that is tailored for them to use effectively. Our first priority is for safety procedures to be suitable for the user rather than compliance with the textbook requirements. Over the past twelve months the following actions have been taken:

• The occupational safety and fire monitoring processes were combined into a “one stop” safety review tool.
• Risk specific training guides were issued for stores e.g. for working safely around large goods vehicles and with roll cages.
• A new induction process and DVD were produced for stores with extensive occupational fire and safety coverage.
• Occupational safety elements were integrated into new guides and DVDs and supplier training for store colleagues for wefit activities such as air conditioning checking and recharging, battery and bulb fitting.

Occupational and risk assessment workshops have been held for store and deputy managers, store safety coordinators and DC team leaders. The workshops have all included emphasis on analysis of corporate safety culture and individual safety behaviour to build the confidence to shift behaviour and challenge accepted practices.

We introduced our occupational safety risk management model to our store operational colleagues in the Czech Republic, which their safety consultancy wove into the Czech store safety management procedures.

We have continued to build on our relationships with our lead authority partners. We have liaised closely with our occupational safety lead authority partners at Stoke City Council on our risk reduction strategy. This has assisted us to ensure that our actions and timescales are appropriate. We have a unique tripartite lead authority partnership with Stoke City Council Building Control and North Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service. This has enabled us to consistently and effectively improve fire safety management.