Health, Safety and Work Environment

For people to be receptive to development and perform at their best, they require a good work/life balance and good health. Optimar is an industrial company, and employees perform tasks associated with risk, such as welding, use of heavy machinery, automation and assembly. We believe in building a strong safety culture through involvement and training

Sick leave and work-related injuries

Our goal is zero workplace injuries that result in employees being absent for a workday or more, otherwise known as Lost Time Injuries (LTIs). In 2022, we focused heavily on the reporting of near misses and actual injuries. We also launched a new reporting system where HSE and quality-related non-conformances can be reported via an app, to make it more convenient for our field service engineers and production workers. Easier access to reporting created an increase in reported events and reported LTIs, which we consider a step in the right direction towards a transparent and strong safety culture.

In 2022, we experienced 11 recorded injuries at Optimar, seven of which were LTIs.

The table below shows the number and rate of work-related injuries per million hours worked (GRI 403-9) for Optimar globally.

*(FTE*1940h per year) x 1 million hours

Average sick leave increased from 3.6 per cent in 2021 to 4.3 per cent in 2022. Our target is a monthly global sickness absence rate of less than 3 per cent, and we follow up both managers and employees to track performance in this area. In comparison, the average sick leave rate for industrial companies in Norway was 5.9 per cent in 2022 according to the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO).

A total of eight sick leave events were registered as work-related sick leave or LTIs in 2022. No special measures to lower the rate of sick leave were implemented in 2022 and our target of 3.0 per cent remains the same for 2023.

Employee engagement

We used to measure employee engagement twice a year with the eNPS model. We experienced that the method chosen was not well implemented and very time consuming, while managers did not find it provided particularly high-value insights. In September 2022, we decided to abandon the survey. Our goal for 2023 is to implement a new employee engagement survey during the year.