Safety is a choice

Nokian Tyres actively promotes occupational health, and the goal is to minimize the number of occupational accidents. The company encourages its people to think that every accident can be avoided by the choices they make. In our engagement survey Drive!, safety stood out as a strength, and people perceive safety as one of our priorities.

On the way to an accident-free workplace, Nokian Tyres long-term goal is to reduce lost time injuries 20% annually. In 2022 the group-wide accident rate (LTIF) decreased by 22% to 3.2 (4.1 in 2021). Our LTIF has improved significantly during the past six years, as compared to 2016, the LTIF has decreased by 77%.

In September 2022, the passenger car tire production unit in Nokia celebrated one year without accidents leading to absences, and in November 2022 Levypyörä also celebrated one year.

We encourage our employees to make safety observations and carry out safety actions with the goal of 5 safety actions per employee on average: this resulted around 20,600 safety actions in 2022. This amounts to 3.8 actions per employee.

Occupational health and safety are an integral part of our daily management and operations. During 2022 we continued our safety development by following our slogan ”Safety is a choice”. This means that everyone is responsible for safety and all choices matter regarding safety development: adhering to occupational safety guidelines, observing defects and shortcomings, and reporting and removing hazards.

In order to bring leadership in safety closer to everyday operations, we have utilized our own managers as safety trainers. This has supported our global safety messaging as it forces the teams to integrate safety as a part of their daily practices. Developing a safe working culture continues in 2023 with the focus on removing possibilities for human errors.

Nokian Tyres collects safety data through a global reporting system accessible to all employees. Collected data includes safety observations, occupational hazards and accidents in the workplace. The reporting system covers Nokian Tyres’ own employees, agency workers, and subcontractors. Starting from 2022, agency workers were also included in the LTIF goal.

Training on occupational health and safety is based on the local laws and specific job training requirements described in the safety training matrix. Supervisors are responsible for following training completion and the training requirements needed for daily tasks. The implementation of training is followed in the people management system.

Internal safety inspections are performed by supervisors and employees. These all are reported in the global safety reporting tool.

Safety actions include safety incident reports (such as safety observations, near-miss reports, safety walks and toolbox meetings), safety inspections, risk evaluation, and the implementation of the improvements based on these. Every non-conformity in safety is investigated and if needed, corrective actions are taken according to the hierarchy of controls.

The lost-time accident frequency and the number of safety actions per employee form the safety KPIs. The current LTIF situation is visible to all employees on the company’s intranet.

Each employee of the Group has the right and the duty to refuse or stop unsafe or unhealthy work. It is a right that the company strongly supports and we guarantee that there will be no negative consequences for the worker. In cases where a work phase is stopped by an employee, supervisors will assess the situation, define possible corrective actions and look for an alternative way to perform the task.

Leading global safety with Safety Management Standards

On our road to further improve safety in Nokian Tyres, we have created and implemented Safety Management Standards and self-evaluation tools to identify the benchmarking and improvement needs. Nokian Tyres’ Safety Management Standards describe the company mindset for safety work and set the bar for common practices. The 16 global standards are implemented to be a part of local practices, procedures and everyday decision making. The standards are also a tool for continuous improvement for departments and operations.

Departments self-assess their safety work. Based on the self-assessments departments identify their maturity level and the needs for improvement. Departments can focus on the safety aspects that they have identified to be the most relevant for them. By these Safety management standards and the evaluation practice we emphasize the Departments’ ownership on safety improvements.

The 16 standards listed below all have a clear purpose, toolset and the Nokian Tyres’ approach to the topic described.

1. Leadership, Commitment and Responsibilities
2. Planning, Goals and Targets
3. Employee engagement
4. Safety Risk and Opportunity Management
5. Legal Safety Requirements and Other Commitments
6. Safety Training, Competency and Awareness
7. Behavior and Observation
8. Employee Safety Communication
9. Monitoring and Measurement
10. Accident/Incident Reporting and Investigation
11. Workplace Inspections and audits
12. Emergency Preparedness and Response
13. Contractor Selection and Management
14. Management of change
15. Preventative and Corrective Actions
16. Other Operational procedures

Since 2016, all contractor accidents are reported via the global reporting tool. The Contractor working hours are estimated to be 20% in 2018, 30% in 2019, 25% in 2020 and 2021. The reason for the increase is the large number of construction projects in 2018-2019: factory expansions in Finland, new warehouse in Russia and new factory in Dayton. After the construction projects had been finalized, the number of contractors decreased in 2020.

Occupational health

Nokian Tyres’ occupational health care is based on local legislation and our Environmental, Safety, and Quality Policy. In all our factory locations, occupational health is supported and managed by our local HR team. In the US, we also employ a full-time dedicated EHS Manager as well as external partners who actively engage in identification and mitigation of hazards and risks.

Safety and health are an integrated part of department and team meeting practices. Globally safety and health related KPI’s and actions are followed by the Global Safety team and HR.  

Environmental representatives and other local working groups focus on improving the everyday sustainability work. Each Nokian Tyres’ employee is responsible for working and acting ethically.

All factory locations organize regular monitoring of working conditions, which may generate risks to the health of workers. Especially employees who have several stress factors in their work (dust, noise, odor, handling hazardous chemicals) are being monitored very carefully.

In all factory locations, occupational health services are bought from a licensed service provider and they cover 100% of our own employees. Emergency first aid is provided for everyone, including subcontractors. In Finland and the US, some of the services are provided on site, but most of them are offered by an external health care service provider. All factory locations have fitness facilities, which are open for all employees. There has been some restrictions to the use of the facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

All employees are offered the option to enroll in voluntary non-occupational medical or healthcare programs from their date of hire. These programs include for instance annual vaccination against influenza, first aid training and programs to stop smoking, weight loss/weight management, and in the US, maternity management.

Nokian Tyres only collects the minimum of information required to deliver health services. Access to the data is limited and utilized only for the designated purpose. Compliance with privacy regulations is always our primary approach.

* Work-related ill health cases / 1 000 000 hours worked