An article by Christof Groß, Head of Safety Management at Deutsche Telekom.
April 28 is World Day for Safety and Health at Work. This is a good occasion to check what we at Deutsche Telekom (DT) do for our employees in terms of occupational safety.
Because at DT, not all employees sit at a desk. They climb radio masts, are out and about with customers or provide advice in our Telekom shops. Ergonomic workplaces in open-plan offices are therefore just one aspect that needs to be considered when aligning occupational safety. It was not only the pandemic that presented us with challenges. The increasing digital and agile work is having a massive impact on occupational safety.
Occupational safety in times of the Corona pandemic
In recent years, we have been preoccupied with the corona pandemic and the associated corona occupational health and safety regulation. This was stringently implemented together with the regulations at the state level. This has enabled us to maintain and safeguard our operations in a stable manner. To ensure this and secure the acceptance of our employees, our Group situation center, working groups in the Group entities and a cross-Group pandemic team worked closely together. It resulted, among other things, in a Germany-wide campaign for corona vaccination. This ensured that more than 52,000 vaccinations were carried out in our own vaccination lines.
Corona has also had a fundamental impact on occupational health and safety, particularly among first responders and fire protection assistants. Because of contact restrictions, training could not take place. Legal requirements prevented virtual trainings. And fewer employees were willing to take on the role of a helper. One reason for this was also the increasing mobile working.
First responder and fire protection volunteers
After Corona faded more and more into the background, we initiated a project with great success. The goal: to recruit and train operational first responders and fire protection assistants. The results are impressive. Since 2022, around 4,000 employees have attended first aid training. With a new approach, around 2,800 employees have been trained as fire protection assitants since September 2022.
Taking on a helper role confirms the active cooperation and commitment of our colleagues to occupational safety within Deutsche Telekom. Interactive formats are offered to the community of helpers to support their commitment. These include, for example, short presentations held online.
Factor digitization in occupational safety
All of Deutsche Telekom's activities relating to occupational safety are managed under the umbrella of the certified Health & Safety Management System in accordance with DIN ISO 45001. This management system was relaunched to be fit for the future. It has already proven itself in internal and external audits.
But effective occupational safety must also evolve. Especially in regard to mobile work at distributed locations. It is important to provide managers and employees with easy access to occupational safety offerings. One good way to do this is through digitization. My team has further digitized core processes and thus simplified occupational safety for employees in the Group.
Examples
- The preparation of risk assessments has been digitized and rolled out throughout the Group in Germany.
- A "first aid app" specially developed at Telekom and provided in the Group. This enables first responders to be called quickly and easily in emergency situations anywhere on the site.
- Accidents and even near-accidents can be reported digitally via a portal.
But this is just the beginning. Further digital services are being planned. Currently, virtual instructions on occupational safety are being created. With these forms of digitization, we want to take into account the flexibility and mobility of our employees and thus make living occupational safety in everyday life as natural and simple as we know it from other areas of Telekom.
More interested in the topics on occupational safety or our equally important topic of health at Deutsche Telekom? Dr. Krempien reports on "Best place to work - what we offer our employees for a healthy and safe working life" in a "Management unplugged". In the annual Corporate Responsibility Report, the Group also provides information on current projects and products, including innovations from the field of health management. The development of our health rate and accident rate is also presented transparently in the HR Factbook.
