Occupational health & safety

Protecting the health, safety and wellness (HSW) of our employees is a natural extension of our commitment to making HP among the best places to work in the world. We have a responsibility to provide a safe working environment for our people, and we recognize that employees are most productive when they are healthy.

Because we believe work-related injuries and illnesses are preventable, we take a proactive, systemic approach to reduce the risk of occurrence. Our wellness programs raise awareness of health issues such as ergonomics and infectious diseases and encourage employees to adopt healthy lifestyles. Our safety programs are designed to minimize hazards and are tailored to specific work environments.

We implement our HSW programs as part of a comprehensive environmental, health and safety (EHS) management system that meets or exceeds applicable regulatory requirements globally. The system is aligned with the internationally recognized Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series standard OHSAS 18001 as well as the ANSI Z10 (American National Standard), OSHA VPP (U.S. Dept of Labor) and ILO-OSH 2001 standards. Four HP sites in Ireland, Scotland, Singapore and the United States are registered to OHSAS 18001.

	Health and wellness

HP raises awareness of health and wellness issues through web-based educational materials, travel health advice and various health-promotion activities. We provide on-site fitness centers at many large locations. Employees without access to an HP fitness center receive discounts of up to 60 percent at their local gym, small subsidies for fitness center membership, or “flexi-credits” that can be used for a variety of benefits that may include health assessments, depending on the country.

We offer U.S. employees health assessments with follow-up by a personal health advisor, and we reward participation with a $300 credit toward health insurance premiums. About 82 percent of U.S. employees took advantage of this in 2007. Our long-term goal is to use the aggregated results of these assessments for targeted health education programs. 

HP provides Employee Assistance Programs in 18 countries across the Americas, Asia and Europe. These programs offer counseling and referrals to employees and their dependents who are experiencing personal or family problems.

	Health, safety and wellness training and communications

More than 128,000 employees (74 percent of the workforce) took the annual online health, safety and wellness (HSW) refresher class in 2007.

We conduct quarterly global employee surveys to measure HSW program effectiveness. In 2007, 87 percent of employees surveyed indicated that health and wellness services were meeting or exceeding their expectations, with 23 percent of these employees indicating this was of high importance or impacts their ability to do their job. In addition, 95 percent of employees rated workplace and job safety as meeting or exceeding expectations, with 68 percent indicating this was of high importance.

We assessed our emergency response plans and drills for our largest 210 sites and rolled out a two-year preparedness initiative targeted at our top 50 global sites. This initiative includes additional training and exercises for site incident management and leadership teams.

	Infectious diseases

HP recognizes that infectious diseases present a serious risk to our employees in some countries. We provide medical benefits so that our employees can have adequate protection against infectious diseases.

We also raise awareness among our employees so that they can take necessary precautions. For example, in 2007 we created an intranet health advisory on MRSA infections (a bacterial infection sometimes referred to as a “superbug”). This advisory emphasizes the importance of hand hygiene in preventing infection.

We have also created an employee intranet advisory about hepatitis B, which addresses modes of transmission, preventive measures and vaccination recommendations. We now include a hepatitis B policy statement in our nondiscrimination policy. Health checks are never conducted as a condition of employment.

For employees traveling to high-risk countries, we give advice regarding necessary immunizations.
 

Pandemic flu preparedness

Since 2005, HP has taken the threat of a flu pandemic seriously. We’ve conducted simulations to assess how an outbreak of flu or other infectious diseases could affect HP, and we’ve developed contingency plans to protect HP employees and minimize business disruption. Our employee communication programs stress the importance of hygiene in preventing virus transmission, and our Company Preparedness and Resiliency, and Avian Flu internal websites are designed to raise employee awareness. In 2007 we launched online training on flu preparedness in eight languages.

As new developments arise and we obtain new information, we regularly assess our contingency plans.

	Health, safety and wellness training and communications

We include general health, safety and wellness (HSW) information in new employee orientation and annual online refresher training, and we provide training tailored to employees' jobs and in local languages. More than 127,000 employees took the annual online training class in 2006.

We conduct quarterly global employee surveys to measure HSW program effectiveness. In 2006, the approval rating was 89% for health and wellness questions and 95% for workplace and job safety questions.

	Health and safety metrics

HP tracks work-related injuries and several other health and safety metrics (see the table). We record and investigate injuries to identify and eliminate root causes, aided by an automated system that reflects the International Labour Organization (ILO) Code of Practice on Recording and Notification of Occupational Accidents and Diseases.

We simplified the reporting process worldwide in 2006, making it easier for non-U.S. team members to report health and safety data. We also held educational sessions to improve data reporting and accuracy. We believe this worldwide focus on reporting injuries resulted in the slight rise in reported incidents from last year.

Lost workday case rate1, 2004-2006
	2004	2005	2006
Americas	0.16	0.19	0.16
Europe/Middle East/Africa	0.07	0.08	0.20
Asia Pacific and Japan	0.01	0.02	0.03
Global rate	0.10	0.11	0.13

Leading causes of lost workdays, 2006
	Slips, trips and falls 30% Automobile accidents 15% Struck by/against 14% Ergonomic - materials handling 14% Ergonomic - office environment 9% Other 18%

Although almost half of the recordable cases were related to office ergonomic issues, only 9% of the lost workday cases were in this category. We attribute this largely to the effectiveness of our ergonomics self-assessment, training and risk reduction program.

We deeply regret two work-related fatalities in 2006 – one due to a commercial airline crash and the other an HP employee in South America who was killed while en route to the airport for international business travel.

There were no violations with penalties from governmental regulatory agencies worldwide.

	Ergonomics

Our online office ergonomics self-assessment, training and risk reduction program, available in 10 languages, helps employees identify and lower job-related ergonomic risks.

By the end of 2006, 63% of HP employees had completed the program, exceeding our target of 60% and an increase of 25,000 users over 2005.

We follow up self-assessments with personalized communications, targeted at employees with the highest self-identified risks. In 2006, 93% of participants reported the likelihood that "they will work more comfortably" after participating in the program. Each region develops plans to target high-risk issues.

Our goal for 2007 is to maintain HP employee participation in our office ergonomics self-assessment and training process at a level of at least 60% of the employee population.

¹ Lost workday case rate is the number of work-related injuries that result in time away from work per 100 employees working a full year.