Workplace
The success of our business is underpinned by the people who work for Dairy Crest and our joint venture Yoplait Dairy Crest, across our manufacturing and administration sites as well as our household depots. We focus on creating an environment where our people are safe, valued and motivated to improve performance continuously.
We increasingly rely on our workforce to develop their skills, knowledge and experience to maximise returns on our investment in new technology and to drive our environmental and marketplace performance. We are working with our employees and Trade Unions to develop structures, which more effectively recognise the changing skill requirements and reward performance. Retention of our skilled workforce is key to the continuous improvement we achieve and labour turnover is a key performance indicator of the health and success of our business.
We are now two years into our manufacturing improvement and operational excellence programmes. Our operational excellence programme is run in conjunction with the University of Birmingham, and participants in the programme work towards an MSc in food production management. Our manufacturing improvement practitioners programme has now been completed by over 60 managers around the group. This programme focuses on the principles of lean manufacture and continuous improvement in the context of a safe working environment.
Maintaining a consistently safe and healthy workplace for our people continues to be a key corporate objective. Health and safety (H&S) training represents a major tool in the achievement of this and during the year we have run training courses in safety management, manual handling and accident investigation at most of our major sites.
The safety of company drivers has also been targeted and a driver awareness programme introduced for all company car drivers when they change vehicles.
Our accident incident rate continues to reduce year on year, with a 3.5% improvement compared to 2004/5. This is in the context of several major capital projects in the year associated with the integration of the Midlands Co-op Dairy and Foston site.
During the year we have established a group H&S steering committee made up of key group and divisional directors. The aim of this is to increase active involvement of senior executives in promoting safety and drive improvement in H&S performance. It is also a proactive step by the company to improve communication on H&S throughout the company, and to share information and best practice between company sites. The committee meets eight times a year and reports to the Board quarterly.
