Safety is a choice

Our goal is to promote occupational health and minimize the number of occupational accidents. Occupational health and safety are an integral part of our daily management and operations. The company encourages its people to think that every accident can be avoided by the choices they make.

We have identified three safety sectors:

• Technology. Technical separation of people from energy sources, such as electricity or steam.
• Process. Processes guiding us to do the right thing.
• Thinking. Safety in one’s own thinking and actions.

In order to avoid hazardous situations, we emphasize preventing occupational accidents. We have identified diverse safety cultures, meaning that the ownership of safety varies according to operating countries. That is why we have invested in communicating our safety thinking globally. We have trained our own managers to train their own teams in safe working. We have found this approach to be more efficient than having employees trained by separate trainers.

On our way to accident free workplace, we set the intermediate target to have an LTIF of less than 2.9 by the end of 2021. Unfortunately, this goal was not met, and the group wide accident rate (LTIF) increased by 11% to 4.1 (3.7 in 2020). At the same time, the Nokian Heavy Tyres celebrated two years without accidents leading to absences in January 2022. Work to improve safety continues by minimizing the possibilities for human errors.

Despite not having met our goal in 2021, our LTIF has improved during the last 5 years. Compared to 2017, the LTIF has decreased by over 45%.

We encourage our employees to make safety observations and carry out safety actions with the goal of 3 safety actions per employee on average: this resulted in over 24,000 safety actions in 2021. This amounts to 4.8 actions per employee.

Nokian Tyres’ commitment and ongoing efforts related to data protection continued throughout the year. In particular, Nokian Tyres Data Protection Policy was updated, and the Data Protection eLearning content renewed. The renewed eLearning course will be made available for all Nokian Tyres employees during 2022.

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