Occupational Safety and Health Promotion

Occupational Safety

Numerous preventive measures and guidelines are in place to ensure that staff from both HHLA and external companies, customers, suppliers and visitors do not come to bodily harm, which is a key concern for HHLA. The company strives to continually improve occupational safety in the workplace and considers this an important task for its managers. When examining early health promotion measures indicators that staff would benefit from, psychological stress is also taken into account.

HHLA uses modern technologies to achieve constant improvements. For example, HHLA uses a software-based occupational safety management system to monitor all targets and measures.

With the aim of further reducing the risk of accidents and raising awareness of occupational safety among both employees and managers, occupational safety campaigns and workshops are regularly held at HHLA company sites. These cover issues such as fire prevention, hazardous substances and ergonomics. In order to create meaningful accident statistics, accidents at all HHLA companies in Hamburg are taken into account and recorded using a standardised reporting system. These also include accidents not directly linked to container handling (e.g. in workshops). The reasons for changes or fluctuations are carefully analysed in order to quickly initiate structured preventive measures.

In 2017, there were 97 notifiable accidents (excluding accidents when commuting) at the companies in Hamburg in which HHLA owns a stake of over 50 %. This represents a decline of 3.0 % (previous year: 100).

Health Promotion

As part of its health promotion efforts, HHLA strives to develop an occupational health management system which reflects everyday needs and to systematically integrate these measures into company processes.

The successful collaboration initiated with universities and other partners from the business world as part of the “GESIOP” project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is being continued. It focuses on measures and recommendations for the healthy workplace of the future. Working together with other businesses and research institutes facilitates a constructive dialogue and creates synergies for all partners of this joint project. Within the framework of the “GESIOP” project, HHLA is using a risk assessment for psychological stress to develop measures for improving mental health in the workplace. It conducts staff surveys and in-depth workplace analyses on this topic which go beyond the legal requirements. Once the pilot project has been completed, procedures and measures will be put in place throughout the company and established as standards.

HHLA offers social counselling for employees and managers at its Hamburg location to provide professional support during stressful periods in their professional and personal lives. The aim of this is to offer a fast, tailored solution to health problems, personal crises, conflicts and stress in the workplace. By offering comprehensive on-site advisory services and forging links with local professionals, counselling centres and treatment facilities, the company ensures that staff can access a broad-based support system. For example, HHLA has been collaborating with the MENTO project run by the training organisation DGB Bildungswerk and the debt advisory service operated by Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg for a number of years. Since 2017, HHLA has also been working with a contractual partner to significantly shorten psychotherapy waiting times for its employees, thus reducing further damage caused by excessively long therapy periods. This rapid support itself and the knowledge that such an option exists represent a positive preventive factor in HHLA’s health promotion activities.

The three-year average of the annual trend in sick pay minus expenditure for preventive measures in relation to headcount is one of the targets agreed with the Executive Board and taken into account when determining Executive Board remuneration. Achieving the agreed target range triggers the payment of a corresponding bonus.