We recognize safety as one of our salient human rights issues and put the safety of people, from our employees to contractors and customers, first. We aim to protect anyone who engages with Almarai by applying stringent international health and safety standards, empowering colleagues through awareness and training, and encouraging wider awareness through campaigns and events.
Our health and safety management systems are built around The Almarai Health and Safety Policy. The four pillars that define our approach and safe management are: ‘Safe Person, Safe Place, Safe Practice and Safe Productivity Strategy.’ Our strategy governs our approach and is owned by all members of the Almarai community. Our strategy includes plans enhancing our safety standards, as well as regular training for employees in applicable areas. The strategy is reviewed and updated regularly by our group health, safety, and security forum that is responsible for the performance, standards, and guidelines we have in place. Its members play an integral part in implementing our strategy across the business and remain key stakeholders for maintaining our high standards.
While standardizing safety processes, we are also developing an occupational health and wellbeing program for our employees. This program will include training on various safety topics relevant to specific personnel and will provide a variety of training resources digitally. Employees will be able to take part in awareness campaigns, interventions, and events to improve health, safety, and wellbeing.
To track and analyze health, safety, and security incidents and risks, we have implemented an incident reporting system, which is accessible to all employees. Our incident reporting system enables us to prevent incidents more effectively from occurring.
Our occupational mobile health unit forms an integral part of reaching our strategic sustainability goal, to institute an occupational health and wellbeing program accessible to all employees by 2025. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we reinforced our health and safety measures and focused on physical, emotional, and economic wellbeing of our employees. We prioritized safe operations for our teams to enable our business to continue operating during this challenging time. We also loaned our expertise and facilities to support healthcare systems, increased our community investment to support struggling communities and collaborated closely with key stakeholders. The pandemic highlighted the need for strong and efficient health and safety systems. We rigorously enhanced our rules and procedures on an ongoing basis to maintain the highest standards throughout this difficult period.
In 2021, we continued with the roll-out of our occupational health and wellbeing program to proactively support our people’s wellbeing through health screenings. We maintained the deployment of our mobile health unit on-site at our main manufacturing site to screen employees, contractors, and visitors. In addition, we launched an internal campaign to vaccinate employees against Coronavirus at their production and manufacturing sites. The campaign cooperated with the Ministry of Health and its directorates in areas where the company’s facilities are located, such as Hail, Al-Kharj, and Almarai’s Head Office. This came as part of Almarai’s efforts to increase safety factors within the work environment. As a result, Almarai won Wa’ai award for the best health initiative for e8787mployees. The award was organized by the Ministry of Health in partnership with the Health Insurance Council, and Almarai also committed on the social media platforms to promote a healthy culture.
Following previous accreditations of our Farming and our Sales, Distribution and Logistics divisions, we have been working to achieve the ISO45001 certification across our other business units in 2021. Our strategic sustainability target is to achieve the certification across 100% of our sites by 2025 to ensure that best practice is embedded in every area of our operations.
Technology can play an important role in helping us to manage and mitigate risks, promote best practice, and make training more accessible. In 2021, we continued to implement various digitalization projects including a near miss reporting web form that makes near miss and hazard reporting more accessible to our employees. These have been brought in to complement the suite of other digital systems such as an online incident reporting system run on the cloud that can be accessed by all employees using a smartphone and digital awareness channels and events.
150,284 hours of employee health and safety training.
Awarded ‘Best Employee Health Initiative’ at the Saudi Arabian Awards Health
Achieved ISO45001 certification across manufacturing sites.
Supported all staff with vaccinations and sponsored the vaccine roll out in local communities
Almarai employs more than 35,000 people worldwide, with majority residing in company accommodations either on-site or nearby. Responding to the pandemic in a timely and safely fashion was paramount to maintain our business and reduce the risk of infection. In 2021, we continued with various measures to limit the spread of infection and protect our staff. Personal protective equipment and tests continued to be available to all staff, and heightened sanitization was continued throughout our operations. Staff continued to have the option to work remotely or through hybrid working where possible and physical distancing requirements continued in line with government advice. Almarai was the first company globally to be awarded the ‘Pandemic Prepared Certification’ in 2020 through AIB International, which validated our efforts, and we have continued to demonstrate that we are doing the right thing by recertifying our operations and making Almarai a leading business in putting its employee’s safety first. The multifaceted assessment rigorously examined our management systems including crisis protocols, supply chain, operations, and health crisis mitigation.
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of health and safety amongst a wider population and particularly showed the need for communities to be vaccinated to protect the vulnerable and allow businesses to continue. In cooperation with the Ministry of Health, Almarai sponsored a number of vaccination centers across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Almarai demonstrated its national role and a sense of social responsibility to immunize citizens and residents from Coronavirus. Almarai also encouraged those unvaccinated to get vaccinated to protect themselves and the community. Besides the vaccination centers, the company also ran, through its Social Media pages, an awareness campaign to remind the public of the importance of being vaccinated. Through these efforts, the health and safety of not only our employees could be improved but also our wider communities.
| Goal/Target | Progress |
|---|---|
| Achieve ISO 45001 compliance for all our divisions by 2025 |  |
| Institute an occupational health and wellbeing program accessible to all employees by 2025 | |
150,284 hours of employee health and safety training.
Awarded ‘Best Employee Health Initiative’ at the Saudi Arabian Awards Health
Achieved ISO45001 certification across manufacturing sites.
Supported all staff with vaccinations and sponsored the vaccine roll out in local communities
