Global Citizenship

Creating a Culture of Citizenship > Our Workplace Employee Health and Safety

Safe Driving for Our Sales Force

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Accident Rate Decline

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Global Vehicle Accident Rate

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Safe driving for our sales force is one focus of our health and safety programs. For example, Abbott True Care’s Fleet Safety program consists of a one-day, behind-the-wheel driver training course for new hires and issuance of a government-approved helmet.

Our new education program, Helping Employees Reduce Risk Across the Organization (HERO), teaches employees – particularly our field sales force – about the risks of distracted driving. The program helped contribute to a drop in accidents this year.

Abbott has clear, consistent global policies and standards requiring that we operate in a manner that promotes employee health, safety and productivity while also protecting the environment. Among other tenets, our Global Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Policy aims to:

• Foster a work environment that is ultimately free of injuries
• Improve the efficiency and sustainability of all our business activities
• Require contractors working on behalf of Abbott to conform to regulatory requirements and meet applicable internal EHS standards
• Integrate sound health and safety practices consistent with our management system into all aspects of the business
• Establish goals and strategies for the enterprise and report publicly on our progress

Our global standards and technical program requirements include metrics, audit and reporting mechanisms that serve as a baseline expectation for health and safety performance worldwide. Each Abbott manufacturing plant, R&D center and commercial operation implements a plan based on these standards and is evaluated regularly.

Our management standards set minimum requirements in the following areas:

• Health and Safety Policy and Program
• Strategic Planning
• Self-Assessment/Risk Assessment
• Business Integration
• Training and Awareness
• Communication and Information
• Performance Measures
• Assurance Reviews
• Health and Safety Global Standards

These technical standards allow Abbott to have consistent technical expectations at all our sites around the world.

Health and Safety Management and Training

Improving our performance requires clear lines of accountability and senior-level leadership and support. We have multiple levels of Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) management oversight within our business units and across the company. The Senior Vice President Quality Assurance, Regulatory and Global Engineering Services, a corporate officer, reviews metrics, key programs and progress with the Chairman and CEO on a regular basis.

We recognize that continuously improving our health and safety performance demands clear lines of accountability and senior-level leadership and support. The following groups implement our health and safety programs and initiatives:

• Environment, Health and Safety Executive Council: This body sets priorities for all Abbott work sites and assures that resources are made available to meet local needs. Sponsored by a corporate officer, the council consists of EHS heads in each operating business.
• Commercial Environment, Health and Safety Executive Council: This council sets and implements EHS goals and objectives for our sales operations around the world. A corporate officer chairs this group.

Reducing Accidents

We believe that all employee health and safety incidents are preventable, and that safety is the responsibility of every manager. As in other areas of citizenship reporting, we use an annual review process and routine performance reporting to help us set and monitor appropriate health and safety targets and to drive continuous improvement in our performance. Two of our key health and safety goals are reducing the number of incidents that result in time off work and reducing the incidence of vehicle accidents among our employees.

At the end of 2009, we set a new lost workday case rate target for 2015 of 0.18 cases per 100 employees – a 55 percent reduction from our 2005 baseline year. In 2011, our rate of 0.3 cases per 100 employees was slightly higher than our performance in 2010, due to a number of vehicle incidents within a newly acquired commercial organization in India. However, we remain vigilant and focused on reducing these incidents and thereby reducing the rate to 0.18 by 2015.

To achieve our 2015 goal, Abbott will continue to focus on two key areas. First, a risk-based system focuses on the specific facilities with the greatest opportunity for health and safety performance improvement each year. Each business unit is responsible for addressing the concerns in its identified facilities by reviewing specific risks and implementing measures to improve performance.

The second area of focus is behavior-based safety. Senior leaders in each Abbott organization have embraced our safety culture strategy, Moving to Zero. Throughout 2011, we continued to implement and refresh our Moving to Zero CARE program – a behavior-based education program designed to increase health and safety awareness around the globe. The program focuses on behaviors designed to drive Concentration, Attitude and Recognition for Everyone (CARE). Among other educational initiatives, in 2011 we launched an electronic training module on safe lifting – which was delivered in employee meetings and safety committee meetings across the company. Additionally, our Chairman and CEO delivered a video message on our commitment to safety to all employees worldwide in early 2012.

To complement these work site-based initiatives, we regularly publish and distribute to all employees information and advice on improving safety at home and in the workplace. Examples of our materials include a CARE at Home booklet and our Moving to Zero video. Sites around the world also share best-in-class programs aimed to reduce employee injuries. This global initiative encourages all employees to think and act safely, and helps lead Abbott toward an injury-free culture.

Vehicle Safety

Vehicle safety is another key priority for Abbott. At the end of 2009, we set a vehicle accidents target for 2015 of 6.4 accidents per million miles driven – a 45 percent reduction from our 2005 baseline year. In 2011, our global vehicle accident rate decreased by 18 percent from the 2010 rate, to 7.5 accidents per million miles driven.

In early 2011, we launched a new, comprehensive global education campaign to help our employees better understand the risks associated with distracted driving. Formally known as Helping Employees Reduce Risk Across the Organization (HERO), the campaign focuses on our commercial field sales force. HERO is designed to encourage field-based employees to use safe driving habits and to raise awareness about the risks posed by in-vehicle distractions such as mobile telephone use. Since the campaign’s launch, several of our business divisions have already taken steps to prohibit calling and texting while driving, even in locations where mobile phone use is still permitted by law. We are planning to expand this program to additional sites in 2012.

To further advance vehicle safety, we focus on specific countries with the highest risk profile and a history of higher accident rates. For example, in 2011, we significantly increased training for employees in our recently acquired businesses in India who travel on motorcycles. By year end, 69 percent of our new Indian field force employees had been fully trained in behind-the-wheel training and on the importance of motorcycle safety and the specific steps they can take to prevent accidents. Additionally, widespread helmet distribution and enforcement – combined with our educational initiatives – contributed to a 59 percent reduction in lost-time cases and a 70 percent reduction in significant incidents during the second half of the year.

Commercial Employee Health and Safety

Our health and safety culture extends throughout our company. We seek to provide a safe working environment and encourage sound safety practices – not just in manufacturing plants and vehicles, but in every type of work site and facility. As a means of creatively engaging commercial employees in programs designed to enhance personal safety and well-being, we deploy a series of interactive multimedia training programs covering a variety of topics, such as ergonomics, personal security and incident reporting. These Web-based programs are designed to provide timely and efficient messaging to field and office employees and help maintain a steady level of EHS awareness across the commercial organizations.

To ensure ongoing compliance with internal Abbott Global EHS Management and Technical Standards, Abbott EHS professionals also provide formal on-site EHS gap assessments across several international affiliates. During these assessments, commercial leaders are provided with a wide range of compliance tools and implementation resources designed to ensure sustainable compliance and program improvement.

Further demonstrating the importance of health and safety in our commercial teams, we promote an annual Commercial EHS Program of the Year campaign to showcase best practices and provide internal recognition for organizations that demonstrate strong leadership. To qualify, each commercial organization must participate in a rigorous review process, consisting of a formal self-assessment, review by Global EHS Commercial staff and detailed review of documentation on the organization’s fleet safety programs and standards, ergonomics, environmental activities and health and wellness programs.

For the past three years of the competition, our Brazilian affiliate has won the internal award for large work sites in recognition of multiple local EHS programs. Last year, Brazil shared Program of the Year honors with our Spain affiliate – where the rate of accidents per million miles driven has declined by approximately 60 percent from 2003 through 2010. Today, our Spain affiliate has an accident rate well below that of its peers.

Occupational Health

Complementing our focus on accident prevention and safety education, our occupational health team plays an important role in promoting the health and productivity of all Abbott employees. Occupational health staff serve as integral members of the Executive Crisis Management team on all issues related to employee health. Among other responsibilities, the team monitors the spread of infectious diseases such as avian influenza and develops proactive preventive health strategies for Abbott work sites. The team also plays a critical role in assessing potential health impacts of natural disasters such as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami – and developing appropriate preparedness plans for employees and customers at both the global and local levels.

Historically, the field of occupational health focused largely on preventing workplace injuries, along with conducting preventive medical surveillance to ensure the safety of workers whose jobs entailed exposure to health risks such as loud noise or potentially hazardous chemicals. These basic occupational health activities are still performed at Abbott, but increasingly the definition of occupational health has expanded to include a wide range of innovative programs that emphasize preventative care and take a holistic perspective on workforce health.

In all, more than 68,000 employees around the world benefited from a wide variety of health promotion activities in 2011. Some of the more popular types of health promotions included:

• Influenza vaccinations – 5,432 employee participants
• Blood drive – 3,775 participants
• First aid training – 1,369 participants
• Automated external defibrillator (AED) training – 1,511 participants
• CPR training – 1,158 participants

Data demonstrates that these training initiatives not only ensure appropriate training, but also save lives. Since 2002, our AED and CPR programs are believed to have saved at least eight lives at Abbott facilities worldwide.

To ensure that our employees receive the best possible occupational health care, our Global Occupational Health Services organization also offers a scholarship program to fund advanced training for occupational health physicians and nurses at our facilities. In 2011, we awarded scholarships to a nurse in Ireland, a nurse in Singapore and a physician in Pakistan.

Global Health Scorecard

In early 2011, we launched a new global health scorecard to monitor each work site’s performance on key occupational health measures and identify areas for improvement. The scorecard is an important internal tool to help measure progress against our goal of optimizing employee health offerings at all our manufacturing and R&D sites worldwide by 2015.

The Scorecard ranks sites according to how many targets they have reached from a menu of 15 global health offerings. In order to receive the highest ranking for 2011, sites needed to achieve compliance with our top four technical standards requirements. In order to maintain or reach the top level in 2012 and subsequent years, sites will need to improve their performance in additional health indicators such as achieving a nonsmoking campus, making healthy food options available in the cafeteria on a daily basis, offering seasonal influenza vaccinations on-site, holding a health fair, and providing employees access to physical activity at a fitness center and/or walking trail.

Note: All data in the Global Citizenship section reflects activities prior to the separation of Abbott and AbbVie on January 1, 2013.