Occupational Health and Safety 

 

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, enterprises across many industries have been forced to reassess and adjust how they maintain employees healthy and safe in the face of the threats. Fear of job security and stability is widespread, and organizations across all industries have adopted continual structural modifications to deal with the epidemic. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is continually changing as a result of changing employee expectations.

As indicated by the incorporation of occupational health and safety into the corporate value, Happy Workplace, BJC constantly emphasizes all employees' health and safety. The priority is also represented in BJC's 2022 materiality matrix, where BJC and stakeholders have prioritized workplace health and safety as a priority. The company is dedicated to preventing occupational injuries, illnesses, and deaths, as well as the resulting suffering and financial burden for employees and their families. Furthermore, BJC is dedicated to promoting the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of all individuals in order to ensure the company's long-term sustainability.

 

OHS Management Approach & Systemic Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems

BJC has various projects and measures to support the health and well-being of employees, including providing knowledge, raising awareness about health and safety, implementing practices, as well as measuring and evaluating results. Morover, Compliance with all relevant occupational health and safety laws, regulations, and standards, including OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO45001:2018, is of BJC’s utmost importance. To further the company’s commitment to, the company established the BJC Worker Health and Safety Committee to provide employees and contractors with a voice in our monthly management meetings. Beyond that, BJC also implemented a Systemic Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) and a comprehensive Safety, Occupational Health and Working Environment Policy that applies to all BJC and subsidiary operations. The goal of these systems and policies is to optimize safety at every stage of our operations, reducing the risk of accidents and hazards to the lowest possible level and ensuring the well-being of all employees, visitors, and individuals who work at BJC.

As stated in the Safety Policy, BJC actively strives to reduce the number of illnesses, injuries, and fatalities related to work, with the goal of achieving a zero-accident rate. This commitment is realized by closely monitoring and adhering to applicable laws, regulations, and standards, ensuring that BJC does not violate legal OHS requirements. In accordance to the policy, BJC is committed to the following actions;

• regular conducting occupational health and safety risk assessments to identify hazardous working environments that may result in injuries and fatalities,
• ​​​​raising awareness of occupational health and safety among employees, suppliers, and contractors through training sessions to foster safety culture, and
• monitoring OHS performance at each site through the establishment of formal safety committees, and implement customized OHS initiatives throughout each supply chain.

 

The Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) has a process as follows,

1. Policies and Management Approach

2. Communicate and Controls

3. Risk Assessment & Management (Quarterly)

4. Incident Investigation Process

5. Audit by Central (internal) and External Party 

6. Report Process Monthly to Management

 

 

Safety, Occupational Health and Working Environment Policy

BJC focuses on and supports maximum safety at all stages of operation to reduce the rate of accidents and hazards to minimum or zero, which employees may encounter while working. Therefore, the company has set important guidelines and standards that will facilitate continuous improvement and create a culture of occupational health and safety within the organization, which is an essential factor to lead the organization to achieve zero accident.

 

 

To ensure the maximum safety of every process of working, BJC has set a policy on safety, occupational health and working environment which covers development of safety management system and occupational health and working environment in accordance with laws, international standards and other relevant requirements. BJC regularly monitors and evaluates work performance according to safety, occupational health and working environment policy, in order to achieve the highest level of efficiency. Moreover, BJC encourages employees to recognize the importance of occupational health and safety through training and practice to ensure that all employees understand and comply with the policy.

Moreover, as stated in BJC's Supplier Code of Conduct, suppliers including trade partners, service providers, contractors, as well as business alliances)  shall provide their employees/workers with a safe, secure and hygienic working environment following the Occupational Health Act, relevant laws and regulations. 

 

BJC Worker Health and Safety Committee

The BJC Worker Health and Safety Committee takes its role in ensuring proper implementation of OHS compliance seriously, closely overseeing adherence at each business unit. Beyond just compliance, the Committee serves as a representative of the employees and contractors, providing a voice for their concerns in monthly management and Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE) meetings. This gives employees and contractors a direct channel to express their views and ensures their well-being remains a top priority at BJC.

Going beyond its compliance responsibilities, the BJC Worker Health and Safety Committee actively engages with employees and contractors to gather insights on OHS issues. The Committee incorporates employee engagement results into its efforts to identify and evaluate hazardous environments, investigate incidents, conduct audits and inspections, and provide training to enhance the OHSMS. In accordance with ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 standards, annual management reviews of the OHSMS are conducted to ensure that BJC continuously creates a safe and healthy workplace for all employees and contractors. By prioritizing employee and contractor well-being, BJC is committed to making the workplace a place where everyone can thrive.

 

Occupational Health and Safety Identification Assessment and Management

Guided by the established Systemic Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS), all occupational health and safety related risks and hazardous environment in all BJC operations are regularly assessed to minimize all types of risks and injuries. This assessment focuses on production process at manufacturing based operations, and all Big C stores, where there are large and heavy machineries, presenting high injury risk levels for employees and contractors.

 

BJC conducts OHS assessment at least semi-annually, in accordance with ISO standards, aiming to actively identify operations with significant negative OHS risks. In addition,  assessments are conducted for all service providers and external contractors to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of OHS management and frequency of OHS incident in normal, abnormal and emergency conditions, in order to rank risks levels accordingly.

 

Throughout 2022, BJC has continuously developed and implemented various controls and mitigation measures to manage relevant OHS risk and lower risk impacts on employees, contractors, and BJC's operations. Controls that have been implemented include updating operational controls to account for OHS risks, improving engineering designs to reduce risks, and integrating ambitious OHS objectives or targets into operations. In order to evaluate the continuous improvement of the OHSMS, the performance of implemented changes is monitored by on-site OHS personnel and reviewed by the responsible department head.

 

In order to address those OHS risks, BJC and its subsidiaries use Lost-Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) as quantified targets, which the 2022 targets are; 1.93 per million hours worked for LTIFR employees and 0.55 per million hours worked for LTIFR contractors.  The company regards the targets along with risk assessment and analysis to prioritize the risks and integrate them to action plans accordingly. The incident investigation process is elaborated below.

 

Incident Investigation Process

Employees are responsible for following the Incident Investigation Process if they identify or observe a work-related hazardous environment or situation. The same procedure applies if contractors identify or observe work-related hazardous environments or situations. The incident investigation process also covers work-related injuries, ill health and diseases.

 

1. Incident Response

Employees are responsible for reporting incidents to relevant supervisors, who are responsible for addressing each concern and following the investigation process to remediate the hazardous incident as soon as possible. It is emphasized that if any employee believes that an incident poses a high risk to the health and well-being of employees and their respective peers, all employees have the right to declare a stop work situation in order to remove themselves and their peers from the unsafe environment, and they are guaranteed to be protected from retaliation.

2. Record Data

All identified or observed work-related hazardous environment or circumstance must be accurately recorded by relevant supervisors into the centralized system.

3. Root Cause Investigation & Preventive Actions

Relevant supervisors are responsible for conducting a transparent incident investigation process to review the situation and identify the root cause of such event so that it can be managed appropriately and avoided in the future.

4. Report

To finish, if a hazardous event occurs in an operation that poses an obvious OHS risk, BJC will disclose the incident to all subsidiaries for investigation, in order to reduce the possibility of a similar incident occurring in other subsidiaries

 

2022 Performance

 

Fatalities

	2019	2020	2021	2022	2022 Target
Employee	0	0	0	0	0
Contractor	0	0	0	0	0

 

LTIFR - Employee

	Unit	2019	2020	2021	2022	2022 Target
Employees	n/millions of hours worked	2.26	3.29	1.98	1.79	1.93
Data Coverage	% of revenues	87.69	87.58	89.98	91.37

 

LTIFR - Contractor

	Unit	2019	2020	2021	2022	2022 Target
Employees	n/millions of hours worked	0.87	0.79	0.57	0.51	0.55
Data Coverage	% of revenues	87.69	87.58	89.98	91.37

Remark: LTIFR - Contractor does not include working hours of the contractors that promote sales of product or service such as product consultants.

 

Working Hours
 

• Employee: 84,550,727 hours
• Contractor: 27,187,478 hours

 

Occupational Health and Safety Training

To effectively reduce OHS incidents, BJC believes that all employees must actively participate in identifying and reporting potential OHS risk environments and incidents to supervisors. To accomplish this, all employees must be equipped with the knowledge and skills required to effectively identify potential OHS hazards in the workplace. BJC has included OHS training as part of the mandatory training that all employees must complete as part of the orientation process. This is to raise OHS awareness and highlight BJC's commitment to employee occupational health and safety. Moreover, all employees are also given training in office ergonomics, basic first aid and CPR, and basic firefighting. Relevant topic professionals such as Advance Firefighters and the Emergency Response Team conduct training sessions for first aid and CPR, ensuring competent and accurate training material for employees. To protect the health and safety of contractors and visitors, all contractors receive OHS training, which ensures compliance with safety practices and lowers the risk of injuries throughout the value chain. 

 

Occupational Health and Safety Services

Beyond merely complying with relevant laws and regulations, BJC has taken a proactive approach to promoting employee health and well-being. Regular assessments of hazardous and occupational health and safety are conducted across all operations, and flexible working environments, childcare facilities and maternity and paternity leave initiatives are all in place to support employees. In 2022 BJC continued to offer its OHS services and had introduced new programs and initiatives to meet the needs of its employees.

 

 

Food Journey Project

At BJC, the health and well-being of our employees is a top priority, and the company has taken steps to promote healthy living through every aspect of its operations, from upstream to downstream. In 2022, Food Journey Project was launched, with the motto of "Good for Us, Good for the Planet," to bring the corporate-wide Health and Nutrition Policy to life. The project’s objective was to provide the employees with access to nutritious food that not only support their health but also had a positive impact on the environment. This project was planned for a long run, with activities taking place throughout the year, that demonstrate  BJC’s unwavering commitment to supporting the health and well-being of its employees and creating a more sustainable future for everyone. For 2022, the projects consisted of the following activities;

1. Food Journey: Healthy Food Fair

BJC head office and Big C Rama 4 branch hosted a thriving Healthy Food Fair, where over 30 vendors showcasing healthy and sustainable food options were on hand for employees and surrounding community members to discover, learn about, and purchase. The company collaborated closely with suppliers and SMEs to put together the event.

             2. Food Journey: Special Talk

A knowledge sharing session was conducted under Food Journey Project, which all employees could register to participate both onsite and online. The session aimed to equip the participating employees with health knowledge and the consumption habits that support good health.  The guest speakers included experts in healthy food and healthy living and celebrities who were well-known for their healthy lifestyle.

Big C Foodplace: Healthy Food Store

Beyond simply providing a convenient location for employees, the 11th branch of Big C Foodplace at BJC head office promotes healthy living. Opened in 2022, the "Healthy  Food Store" was designed with employees in mind, offering a wide selection of quality, healthy food products at affordable  prices. Whether the employees look for a quick, ready-to-eat meal or organic options, the Healthy Food Store offers a wide selection of healthy products for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. BJC is dedicated to supporting the well-being of its employees and this new branch is just one of the many ways the company is going above and beyond to promote health and wellness in the workplace.

 

Fitness Center and Exercise Classes

The fitness center has been completed in 2022, where all employees could access during 06:00 – 22:00 hours on week day.  Beyond that, the company also initiated special corporate rates for its employees who would like to apply for a membership at Jetts Fitness center nationwide.  Moreover, every Wednesday after working hours, an exercise class was available for the employees to join.  The class took place at the new auditorium and it comprised of cardio exercise such as body combat and Zumba dance.

 

OHS Standard

In 2022 BJC subsidiaries have been recognized by International Organization for Standardizations for ISO45001:2018 as follows;

• Berli Jucker Cellox (CPC)

• Berli Jucker Food (BJF)

• Thai Beverage Can (TBC)

• Thai Glass Industries (TGI)

• Thai Malaya Glass (TMG)

 

OHS Awards and Recognitions

Berli Jucker Cellox (CPC)

• Excellent practices establishment on occupational safety and health national level as the 6th year of achievement. From : Ministry of Labour to CPC Bang Plee Plant
• Excellent practices establishment on labour relations and welfare national level as the 4th year of achievement.  From : Ministry of Labour to CPC Prachinburi Plant
• Zero Accident Campaign 2022 Silver Level Year 3.  From : Ministry of Labour to CPC  Prachinburi Plant
• Zero Accident Campaign 2022  bronze level.    From : Ministry of Labour to CPC Bang Plee Plant

Thai Glass Industries (TGI)

• Excellent Practices Establishment on Occupational Health and Safety, National Level, as the 4^th year of achievement. From: The Ministry of Labor
• The Standard on Prevention and Solution to Drug Problems. From: Samutprakan Province
• Zero Accident Campaign 2022. From : The Ministry of Labor
• Low Emission Support Scheme : LESS. From : The Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (Public Organization)
• Smoke-free Workplaces. From : National Alliance For Tobacco Free Thailand
• Workplace against COVID-19 in the New Normal. : The Department of Disease Control

Thai Malaya Glass (TMG)

• Excellent Practices Establishment on Occupational Health and Safety, National Level, as the 3rd year of achievement. From: The Ministry of Labor
• Zero Accident Campaign 2022. From : The Ministry of Labor
• Green Industry Level 4. From : The Department of Industrial Works

Rubia Industries (RIL)

• Excellent Practices Establishment on Occupational Health and Safety, National Level, as the 5th year of achievement. From: The Ministry of Labor

Berli Jucker Foods (BJF)

• The Standard on Prevention and Solution to Drug Problems. From: Samutprakan Province