People and health

Health Management

Our occupational health management is based on raising all employees’ awareness of their own health and motivating them to act on their own initiative and adopt healthy behaviors in their professional and private lives. In the context of our occupational health management, in the reporting year, we offered our employees at all German sites a medical check-up in order to prevent cardiovascular diseases. More than 1,300 people took up this offer. As it proved so successful we will be offering a medical check-up again in 2019.

In addition, our employees in Germany received €200 credit for booking a wide range of health-related options on the digital platform “Machtfit” in 2018. LANXESS pays 80% of the costs for each course booking until the budget is used up. Around 43% of our German LANXESS employees have already registered, and as of the reporting date, 8,982 health units had been booked, with massage, yoga and fitness options proving most popular. Where preventive measures are no longer taken in the context of health management, we ensure with our company integrationmanagement scheme (BEM) that employees with long-term illnesses in particular can resume work after their recovery. BEM has proven a great success at all German sites for several years now. In 2018, 40% of invited employees again took up the offer of a personal consultation with the site-specific BEM teams.

We also offer our employees wide-ranging measures to promote health and wellbeing at our international sites, e.g. medical check-ups, training on stress management and fitness or dietary options. With the global implementation of XCare, we have also
started to give our health concept Xhealth a stronger global focus.

Healthy Working Environment

For LANXESS a safe and healthy working environment is a key requirement. The effective management of corporate health and safety in all workplace areas requires efficient specification and implementation of protective measures and assurance that they are applied and effective.

The health and occupational safety management system of LANXESS focuses on the general and specific avoidance of incidents, avoidance of occupational illness and the compliance with legal requirements.

A global directive, approved by the Board of Management describes the minimum health and occupational safety requirements for processes to meet the above-mentioned goals for all LANXESS employees at all LANXESS operations. Such requirements have also to be implemented for visitors, contractors and other persons entering LANXESS plants and buildings. Management is generally responsible and held accountable for health and occupational safety management in their operations and sites. Health and occupational safety management that functions efficiently is based on the identification of potential risks via hazard assessments, sufficient training and instruction in accordance with the results of the hazard assessments and regular checks and enforcement to ensure implementation of the measures and their effectiveness.

Hazard assessments are the foundation of risk management to achieve good corporate health and safety standards.

Examples of such assessed hazards are:

Ergonomic risks including safeguards against falling, working in vessels, handling of equipment/ tools and heavy loads, control layouts.
Mechanical dangers such as moving machine parts.
Electrical hazards.
Hazards through substances, including biological hazards.
Hazards through fire or explosion.
Hazards through special physical effects:
- Noise
- Ultrasound
- Vibrations
- Electromagnetic fields
- Ionizing radiation
- Hot or cold media

Potential hazards associated with work organization:
- Workplace-related plant instructions
- Use of protective equipment
- Co-ordination of work
- Deployment of contractors
- Hazardous work operations
- First aid systems, emergency response plans, escape and rescue

Health Initiatives

Healthy and well-motivated employees are the prerequisite for successful business operations globally. So we actively promote and support our employees’ well-being and health provisions by country specific measures in the areas of “stess”, “activity and fitness” and “nutrition”. For stress prevention counseling services are offered in numerous countries, furthermore seminars and trainings, like “conflict management” and meditation techniques. “Activity and fitness” are supported in different approaches around the world, namely by sponsoring employee teams in community fitness events, like in Germany, Belgium and the US or contributions to fitness facility memberships, for instance in Singapore, South Africa and the US. As nutrition directly effects well-being and performance we take care for the on-the-job nutrition and eating habits of our employees. LANXESS provides canteens at many of its sites. By offering and labelling balanced meals and snacks, we aim to inform about healthy nutrition.

The coverage with respect to the countries and the total number of employees in percent is displayed per initiative.