Management and employees of Blue Label believe that ensuring a safe work environment is both a legislative imperative and good business practice. In order to ensure comprehensive practical application of Blue Label’s commitment to a healthy, safe and incident-free working environment, the group has established an integrated Health and Safety Policy. The stated health and safety objectives are as follows:

• Identify all health and safety hazards in the workplace through formal hazard surveys and taking appropriate action to mitigate those
• Continuous awareness and training of employees to ensure health and safety competence in the workplace and a general awareness of potential safety and health hazards implicit to their work environment
• Operating business activities in a manner that ensures an acceptable degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of all employees
• Ensuring Blue Label’s compliance with all relevant safety and health legislation.

Awareness of the company’s health and safety requirements is created for all new employees as part of their induction process. Frequent information updates are circulated via e-mail to all existing employees.

Health and safety practices are managed by the group health and safety officer with the assistance of appropriate representatives appointed at each of the subsidiary companies. These health and safety representatives have been trained by qualified external service providers in accordance with the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act No 85 of 1993 (“OHS Act”). Monthly health and safety meetings are held to discuss the outcome of inspections and precautions to be implemented to mitigate identified hazards. In addition to the health and safety representatives the group has also appointed first-aid practitioners and fire marshals. Training of these individuals is also provided by qualified external service providers. During the period under review the group conducted a fire drill and the evacuation procedures were evaluated by the Sandton Fire Department Disaster Management team. The evacuation procedure received a “good” rating with some corrective actions to be taken relating to signage at assembly points to ensure that all employees have a clear indication of where to stand.

Health and safety risks associated with the group’s business include fire, electrical safety, warehouse layout and stacking and injuries associated with the assembly facility. The group had no major health and safety incidents during the period under review.

Blue Label Telecoms has a comprehensive HIV/Aids strategy to minimise the impact of the disease on its employees by way of:

• Instilling a prevention culture within the organisation
• Providing employees with an opportunity to volunteer to have an HIV/Aids test resulting in detection of infections
• Providing medication and treatment to affected employees as the final element to the strategy.

Workplace awareness programmes include awareness activities, condom distribution, voluntary HIV testing, infection control, counselling and treatment. The company has a partnership with the Bryanston Assessment Centre and all employee matters of a psychological nature are referred and treated accordingly. In addition, as Discovery Health is the chosen medical aid service provider, all employees are referred to the existing disease management forums within Discovery Health such as the Oncology, Diabetes and HIV management forums.