5.2. Employee Health and Safety

The needs of our employees, who play a vital role in the success of our business, are met with the equipment, devices and instructions needed to ensure a safe workplace.

Explaining the impact

Material aspect	Economic impact	Social impact	Environmental impact
Employee Health and Safety	The safety of colleagues is very important to us. Therefore, we always pay attention to their needs in terms of equipment, devices and instructions to ensure a safe and legally compliant workplace.	We take care to ensure a safe working environment for our employees, with minimal risk of accidents, injuries or occupational diseases which are important for their work and quality of life. The physical and mental safety of our employees is very important for them to feel safe at work. We strive to raise awareness of the importance of staying healthy and provide employees with training, education and medical services tailored to their needs.	Negative influences can occur through mismanagement ofequipment, vehicles or in waste selection processes.

Managing the impact

The safety of colleagues is very important to us. That’s why we are careful to ensure a safe working environment for our employees, with minimal risk of accidents, injuries or occupational diseases, and we always pay attention to their needs in terms of equipment, devices and instructions to ensure a safe workplace.

Internally we have developed and implemented anoccupational health and safety management system in accordance with ISO 45001. It encompasses all operational processes in which Autonom employees are directly involved. All employees are covered by this management system in terms of complementary procedures for risk identification, assessments, communications, training, internal audit, control and monitoring, legal compliance and compliance with other requirements, management review and HSE management plans.

Based on this standard we have developed a structure of internal procedures in which we have assimilated and included the legal aspects of occupational health and safety requirements. On the other hand, this set of internal procedures helps us identify applicable legal requirements, comply with them, establish a consistent internal process for risk identification, assessment and communication. The system based on the international standard is useful internally for the traceability of HSE information as well as for the continuous improvement of operational processes to keep HSE risks under control. The more so as this management system is audited internally at least once by a second party and once by a third party, audits that certify the fulfilment of the applicable requirements of the standard and operational compliance with them.

At Autonom, we comply with specific national legislation and minimum health and safety (MHS) requirements.

Employees are trained regularly, according to annual training topics, every 6 months for TESA staff and every 3 months for company car drivers.
We have organised an Occupational Health and Safety Committee, Internal Prevention and Protection Service and Risk Assessor.
The internal Prevention and Protection Service aims to internally assess the risks on health and safety at work for all functions and workstations in the organization and to ensure the best conditions in carrying out the work process, protecting life, physical and mental integrity, preserving the health of workers or other persons participating in the work process. We managed to make the transition to digitalized training from 2022. The risk assessment process leads to a Prevention and Protection Plan based on which we internally develop specific prevention initiatives. In addition to specific trainings addressed to mitigate risks we run specific awareness trainings to reduce or eliminate risks at operational level.
We have an occupational medicine contract with our partner clinic MedLife. Under this contract all regular medical check-ups of employees are carried out, and on request employees can request specialist medical assessments from specialist doctors, according to the medical analysis and specialize medical checks included in the contracts.

During the meetings of the Occupational Health and Safety Committee (OHSC), legal aspects and requirements regarding labour protection rules, problems encountered by employees are discussed, but at the same time actions to prevent employees from getting sick according to the recommendations of the occupational medicine doctor appointed by the partner clinic. Once a year the occupational doctor presents the medical assessment report for Autonom during the CSSM meetings, addressing critical points if they exist. Employees can address and raise important HSE issues in these CSSM meetings by addressing them directly to employee representatives. Preventive actions established in the CSSM are addressed internally through internal processes by departmental leaders to prevent risks at operational level. CSSM meetings are held quarterly with active participation of members.

Effectiveness of actions taken

In 2022, like previous years, there were no occupational accidents, occupational illnesses or fatalities attributable to workplace risks or hazards.