28 April 2020 | World Day for Occupational Safety and Health
Focus on safety
Every year on April 28th, since 1996, the World Trade Union (WTO) movement in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) pays tribute to the victims of occupational accidents and diseases.
In 2003, the International Labour Office (ILO) launched the initiative of a “World Day for Occupational Safety and Health” as well as the publication of a report named “Safety in Numbers” aimed at raising awareness on statistics and levels of criticality related to the working environment. In 2018, the ILO reveals that 2.2 million workers in the world die every year as a result of an accident or occupational disease, i.e. 5,000 people a day.
International standards as a source of guarantee
Several occupational health and safety specialists of neutral expert committees are constantly examining this topic and refining it. A series of international standards have been developed to guarantee an ethic of creating optimum working conditions with minimal health and safety risks for employees.
At the same time, the objective is to emphasize the “safety culture”, a challenge for all types of organizations and sectors throughout the world.
The importance of an Integrated Management System
In this context, the DATA4 group, a European operator of datacenter campuses, has set up an integrated supported by an ambitious certification policy. The entire management team is involved in a process of continuous improvement of its IMS in order to ensure compliance with certifications and other ISO-type standards, which are neutral and universal benchmarks in terms of customer satisfaction, environmental responsibility and occupational health and safety.
Indeed, both logical and physical security issues relating to the activity arise within the DATA4 data centers campuses: access to the campus, construction site management, maintenance operations, delivery management, or even the anticipation of risks such as “flash arc” or a potential outbreak of fire. Therefore, since 2015, the group has been constantly strengthening its certification plan, attesting to its operational performance of excellence within a rigorous framework that respects the health and safety of all its stakeholders, customers, employees, suppliers and service providers.
To this end, DATA4 has successfully completed a new recertification audit led by Bureau Veritas which renewed the ISO 27001 standard, related to the management of physical and logical security, and ISO 45001, related to the management of health and safety in the workplace, while reiterating the achievement of ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management) and ISO 50001 (energy management).
In 2019, the Group appointed Sofia Benqassem as part of a new position of Head of Quality, Health, Safety, Environment (QHSE) at work in order to be able to consolidate and steer the Group’s STT strategy on a European scale.
According to the 2019 annual employee satisfaction survey conducted among its employees, DATA4’s employee satisfaction rate reaches 83%, while 100% of the staff is proud to belong to the European group whose core business is data hosting on its data centre campuses located in France, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain. No cases of occupational accidents have been reported. The same applies to violence or harassment. Thus, the company is constantly working to maintain a safe working environment by mobilising all its stakeholders through audits and evolving procedures, while at the same time guaranteeing a demanding and efficient operational management of its infrastructures.
A 2020 campaign targeting harassment in the workplace
More than 100 countries are participating in the celebration of the World Day for Occupational Safety and Health by organizing special events and activities.
In addition to the recurrent themes that the ILO addresses each year, on April 28th, the ILO will address the fight against violence and harassment in the world of work as part of the 2020 Campaign.
