How we protect our staff and partners

Protecting our employees and stakeholders during coronavirus

At LafargeHolcim Health and Safety is a core value. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic we have continued to live up to this core value, acting quickly and with great solidarity to protect employees, contractors and all our stakeholders in the time of Coronavirus (Covid-19).

Overarching aim and objectives

We aim to safeguard the Health and Safety of our staff and partners, and ensure that the business does not suffer of inadequate planning or poor decision making in the time of Coronavirus (Covid-19). Our objectives are:

• Protect the health and wellbeing of our people, their families, our stakeholders through medical preparedness, awareness and training
• Maintain business activities through continuity planning and proactive supply chain management
• Protect and strengthen long term relationships with our partners and the communities in which we operate

The Business Resilience Team (BRT)

In early January 2020 we mobilized Business Resilience Teams at Group and country levels to meet this challenge. They put in place their expertise in HR, Health & Safety, Communications, Operations, Procurement, IT, Legal, Compliance, Security and Resilience to provide monitoring, guidance, advice and reporting on the preparedness of our country organizations. The country Teams are coordinated by the Group Business Resilience Team. Our country organizations prepare their response using a four alert level Trigger Action Response Plan (TARP), with specific actions at each deteriorating alert level. Our Teams are accountable to comply with their national health regulatory requirements and the execution of central guidance on a risk basis. 

Our global and local measures

We have put in place a range of global and local measures are in place to protect our teams and contribute to the containment of the disease. These measures include:

• Strict adherence to social distancing in operations and our offices
• Adaption of our Health and Safety guidance for all our operations in relation to COVID-19
• Creation of company-wide COVID-19 online resource center available to all our employees
• Group wide webinars for employees on keeping themselves and their families safe
• Local employee support programs and global webinars for mental wellbeing and resilience
• Travel restrictions and work-from-home arrangements wherever possible
• Strong promotion of digital (i.e., ‘contactless’) initiatives in our markets
• Clear metrics to measure the readiness of all our countries in respect of the protection of our employees and contractors while on our site

All these measures have been added to our standing practices to enforce and incentivize Health & Safety and safe business practices in the face of the Corona-crisis. We are constantly monitoring and adapting our approach for each country, carefully following developments as well as the instructions of local health authorities to help in every way we can.

Awareness and information for all employees around the world

The Coronavirus intranet page is continuously updated with additional materials and guidelines. The material includes:

• Webinar for all employees
• Posters & toolbox talks (basic hygiene measures, wash hands, use of face masks…)
• Site recommendations (operational readiness checklist, minimum safety requirements...)
• Communications and support provided to our business partners
• Patient contact register
• Business Resilience-related plans (scenario risk cards, exercise, ...)
• Meeting assessment template
• FAQs with practical scenarios and questions