Safety and Wellbeing
Objective
Enhance positive wellbeing
Goals
Achieve Zero Harm
Protect health and promote healthy lifestyles
Create a culture that enables positive mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing
“Having an excellent safety culture doesn’t just happen – it’s the result of dedication and commitment from everyone at Tarmac.”
Andy Shuttlewood, Tarmac’s Health, Safety, Environment & Quality Director
At Tarmac, we want to enhance positive well-being across our business. We are committed to building a zero-harm culture that prioritises people’s health, safety and well-being, and targets continuous improvement. Protecting the health, safety and well-being of our employees, contractors, and those around us is of paramount importance for Tarmac.
Highlights
Safety
Across our business operations in 2023, we had a Total Recordable Case Frequency Rate (TRCFR) of 0.13 incidents for every 100,000 hours worked, and a Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) of 0.04 for every 100,000 hours.
In 2023, we achieved a significant safety milestone, finishing the first six months of the year with no Lost Time Injuries (LTI) across our Materials and Building Products business. This was the first time we achieved this milestone and marked the start of our best ever year for safety in the business. However, any incident is one too many and we remain committed to driving continuous health and safety improvements across our business to reduce incident rates and achieve our commitment to zero harm.
Stop and Think
At Tarmac, safety is our top priority, and we need to work together to make sure we all work safe and get home safe. In 2022, we launched our new Safety Plan across our operations, outlining how we protect ourselves and others through high safety standards, training to ensure competence, and our life-saving rules.
To continue the implementation of our safety plan and further strengthen our commitment to zero harm, in August 2023, we launched our Stop & Think campaign, which continues to embed and reinforce our successful Step In campaign and as a next step in our Safety Plan launched in 2022. Taking time to Stop & Think could be the difference between completing a job safely and a potentially life-changing accident. We encourage all employees to incorporate this into all that they do, at all our locations – whether operational sites or offices.
National Skills and Safety Park
Tarmac’s National Skills and Safety Park, which opened in 2020, provides operational onboarding, professional training and assessments, and health and safety learning. This industry-leading facility demonstrates our ongoing commitment to a culture of safety excellence.
The Park is also used for workplace training, including early careers graduate programmes. All programmes are delivered through a series of workshops, e-learning modules, and practical on-the-job training. In 2023, over 3,250 employees completed training at the Park. This is almost a 50% increase compared to 2022, demonstrates Tarmac’s commitment to upskilling our employees and improving safety.
In December 2023, the Tarmac National Skills and Safety Park team were recognised as national leaders in social mobility at an awards evening organised by the Purpose Coalition. The award from the Purpose Coalition capped off a successful year for Tarmac’s learning and development team.
Our internally-delivered apprenticeship programme, the Professional Operator Development Programme (PODP), is a 13-month apprenticeship programme where participants receive over 500 hours of on-the-job learning to help them gain key knowledge, skills and behaviours for their role. In 2023, we successfully enrolled 180 participants on to the Mineral Processing Mobile & Static PODP. The PODP is delivered at The Park, and in September 2023 the programme received an Outstanding rating from Ofsted following its first full inspection.
Health and well-being
We want to create a working environment where our employees can talk about mental health and get support when they need it. From training through our Mates in Mind partnership, we now have 104 Mental Health First Aiders across the business acting as mental well-being champions and providing an essential line of additional support to their colleagues.
2023 also saw Tarmac’s Midlands region hold the first ’Health and Well-Being Day’ at St George's Park near Burton-upon-Trent. Approximately 140 employees from across the Midlands region, ranging from front line operatives to office-based employees and senior leaders, were invited to a day focusing on health and well-being. Topics covered included suicide, mental health, nutrition, exercise, sleep and menopause. Throughout the day attendees could also take part in some physical challenges and optional free well-being medicals. The day was a great success and at least two more are planned for 2024.
As part of our continuing commitment to improving the health and well-being of our people, in 2023 we appointed YuLife as our health and well-being partner. YuLife’s platform provides health and well-being resources that everyone at Tarmac can access. YuLife is now also the home to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), which offers access to clinical counselling, legal and financial information, and life coaching sessions.
Enhancing positive wellbeing
At Tarmac, we strive to create a culture that enables positive well-being. Well-being is the feeling of being happy, healthy, and comfortable, and can mean different things to different people. It is important for us to remember that well-being is not just about mental health, but can also be affected by several other elements, including physical, social and financial well-being. We want to build an environment where everyone feels supported, informed, and energised to perform at their best – and having positive well-being is one of the ways we can achieve this.
We continue to keep our well-being pages and employee communities, available on our intranet and through our rewards website, up to date with new resources, and hold regular employee Listen & Learn webinars covering all areas of well-being.
Mental well-being
At Tarmac, we are always working to raise awareness of mental health and mental health issues, with support available for all Tarmac employees via our Employee Assistance Programme, our mental health first aiders and our employee-led Health & Well-Being community. By 2023, over 100 of our employees had completed mental health first aider training, with more signed up to receive training in 2024.
In December Tarmac partnered with Mates in Mind to launch a festive film with an important message – if you’re not ok, you’re not alone.
Mates in Mind isa leading UK charity raising awareness and understanding of, and removing the stigma surrounding mental health in the construction industry and related sectors. The short film, shared across our social media channels and across the business internally to reinforce messaging about mental well-being, aims to highlight that if someone isn’t quite feeling themselves, they don’t need to face challenges alone.
Physical well-being
We prioritise the health and well-being of our people, continually investing in innovative ways to ensure we can all be rewarded for improvements we make. At the end of June 2023, we went live with our new well-being partner, YuLife. Available through an app and online, YuLife is not only the home of our Employee Assistance Programme, but also encourages physical well-being through daily challenges and activities encouraging our employees to be more active.
Financial well-being
Financial wellness can help to lower stress levels and improve overall well-being both at home and in the workplace. People are our priority, and as we focus on the importance of our employees’ health and well-being, now more than ever, we play a vital part in ensuring that we are providing access to support and guidance regarding financial resilience. We have improved the financial well-being support available to all Tarmac colleagues by partnering with two providers, Salary Finance and Cushon. This support is available to all Tarmac colleagues through Tarmac Reward, our employee benefits platform.
Social well-being
We continue to support workplace social well-being through our employee communities, which are available to access online via our intranet and in-person at dedicated events. Our communities are a place for employees across Tarmac to connect and share common interests. Employees can post, share stories, and join various Listen & Learn webinars and coffee mornings to engage with colleagues.
Looking forward
Safety will always be a priority for our business. We will continue to drive towards our goal of zero-harm and promote positive well-being in all areas. We will continue to deliver mental health first aider training and keep medical screenings on track. We will also promote positive health and well-being through our communities, events and well-being centres and increase the visibility of the resources we have to offer to our employees. With the success of our Midlands well-being day, we also hope to host these across our other regions too.
