Safety and healty come first

On the initiative of the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, Kozmetika Afrodita applied for a “Good practice in the area of safety and health at work” award in mid-2006 in order to demonstrate its example of good practice and to encourage other companies to follow suit.

The award scheme is part of the campaign of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work entitled the “Safe Start”, which will culminate in the European Week of Safety and Health at Work (23 through 27 October 2006).

The campaign’s objective is to encourage the efforts of young workers, their representatives, employers and mentors to reduce the vulnerability of young people in the workplace (in Europe, injuries at work are 50% more frequent among employees between the ages of 18 and 24 compared to other age groups). The campaign has received support from all member states, candidate states and EFTA countries, the Austrian and Finnish presidency of the EU, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European social partners.

We emphasised the pleasant work environment as an example of good practice at Kozmetika Afrodita, as it provides a guarantee for successful work and employee performance from first employment until retirement. Each day before work, employees receive breakfast; later they have a warm lunch and are entitled to a ten-minute break to enjoy a drink. School children and students working summer jobs enjoy full benefits as well.  Our contribution to better safety and health at work for young people consists of this type of positive reinforcement and attention to their wellbeing, education with respect to a healthy work and lifestyle, and a positive attitude toward the work itself.

To that end, the company also conducted a small-scale internal survey among those who found their first employment at Kozmetika Afrodita. The analysis of employee satisfaction among them has shown that:

• the company pays a great deal of attention to its workers’ wellbeing;
• employees feel safe at work; and
• on average, employees are very loyal to the company.

By taking part in the European Week of Safety and Health at Work 2006, the company has the opportunity to provide young people with an opportunity to start their work lives safely and healthily, and to continue to increasingly encourage employee awareness of risks and prevention. We certainly wish to recommend other companies who wish to provide young (and other) employees with a high-quality and safe workplace to follow our efforts to improve working conditions and the related performance and employee satisfaction.