Vilmorin & Cie - Annual report 2017-2018

ANNUAL REPORT Vilmorin & Cie 130 2017-2018 Social, environmental and societal INFORMATION 4 They involve a meeting with members from the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors, exchanges with employees who have benefitted from mobility opportunities, and visits to sites with meetings with farmer-members of the Limagrain Cooperative. The objective is to facilitate the integration of new managers in the Group, both in terms of how they understand its activities and its strategy, and familiarity with the resources available in each Business Unit (human resources development policy, communication tools, etc.). During the integration program, the Group’s CSR commitments with regard to fighting corruption, and its Code of Conduct , are also explained. Over the course of this past fiscal year, 56 employees followed this program. Participants came from all the Group's Business Units, and from countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. 4.4.1.5. An ambitious safety policy The safety at work policy Vilmorin & Cie is convinced that there can be no sustainable successful performance without safety. On top of the prevention policy deployed for a number of years, Vilmorin & Cie therefore launched a safety at work policy during fiscal year 2014-2015. Based on strong involvement from the management, its objective is to act both on organizational and behavioral shortcomings, the main causes of accidents, in order to prevent them efficiently. Beyond the fact everyone is responsible for their own safety and that of their colleagues, strong involvement from the management chain is also expected. A Safety Committee oversees the running of this policy, relayed by the action of a safety coordinator. The Business Units are also responsible for running this policy internally, involving closely all heads of departments and safety experts, passing on information through internal communication, stimulating managerial involvement and motivating all levels of line management, training all the employees, assessing risks and defining the norms and standards that reduce them, following the indicators used to steer the safety policy, analyzing accidents whatever their severity, and to draw all conclusions from each failure in this matter. The indicators below show the evolution of the results of Vilmorin & Cie’s safety approach: 15-16  (1) 16-17  (1) 17-18 TF1 9.97 6.07 6.66 TF2 18.71 13 12.22 TG 0.11 0.08 0.13 (1) The indicators for the years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 may have been modified since their last publication, in particular due to the reclassification of certain work accidents. TF1 represents the frequency rate of accidents with lost time, i.e. the number of accidents with lost time reported per million hours worked. TF2 represents the frequency rate of accidents with and without stoppage time, or the total number of reported accidents per million hours worked. TG represents the accident severity rate, or the number of days of work stoppage reported following a work accident per thousand hours worked. In 2015, Vilmorin & Cie set itself the ambitious objective of halving the frequency rate of accidents with lost time within three years. This frequency rate, which stood at 10 at the beginning of 2015, is 6.66 in 2017-2018. The deployment of managerial safety visits continues. These visits are aimed above all at preventing exposure to occupational risks; they also strengthen the managerial model that Vilmorin & Cie promotes, which is characterized by interest and consideration for all those who work for and with Vilmorin & Cie, whether they are employees, temporary workers, trainees, subcontractors or visitors. In addition, this year Vilmorin & Cie initiated the development of a corpus of safety rules aimed at guaranteeing a common level of requirements for all Business Units. Developed in collaboration with all the safety coordinators in the Business Units in order to prevent and control our major risks, it defines the general safety requirements to be respected for the personnel working for and with Vilmorin & Cie. It is intended to be transformed by Vilmorin & Cie's Business Units into operational rules to meet general requirements by integrating the specificities of their activities. Occupational diseases In order to fight against the risks of occupational diseases, in a certain number of countries Vilmorin & Cie requires that when its employees are recruited, they should have a medical examination. In France, employees who are exposed to particular risks such as noise, shift work, handling heavy loads, exposure to dangerous chemical products, etc. have a compulsory annual medical. Other employees also have a medical every two years. The aim of this medical examination is to insure that employees are apt for their job health-wise. In fiscal year 2017-2018, 3 employees were recognized as suffering from an occupational disease in France. The Group is working to improve on this subject following the recent publication of regulations on tracking arduous working conditions in positions presenting risks. Key figures 482 employees followed an induction program in their Business Unit 56 employees followed a Group induction program 4.4. Building new patterns of relationship and creating value