Health is wealth. It is only when we are in good health – both physically and mentally – that we can give our best at our jobs. Here at Nipro, we care for all our colleagues – not only when we see you in person, but also when we are apart.
It has been more than a year that we have been facing the COVID-19 pandemic and its unprecedented challenges to the way we live and work.
We have learned how to be agile, how to be resilient and how to adapt our way of working. But more than that, many of us have had to readjust to new school schedules and find ways to care for family members who depend on us. Where possible, we have moved to work remotely, utilizing current day technologies to stay in touch with colleagues and to collaborate.
We have learned to anticipate, to prepare and to respond accordingly, investing in resilient safety and health systems, especially when we have to be present at the workplace.
For example, at our manufacturing facilities in the US that have 24-hour operations and where it is not an option for us to work from home, there are strict protocols in place to minimize any risk of contamination from the virus. The number of external visitors to our buildings and facilities is kept to a minimum, and travel and customer visits are reduced. Upon arrival at our facilities, every person has to undergo a visual and temperature check. Even when all of us return to the office 100%, this is a practice that we intend to keep. And of course, wearing a mask at the workplace, especially when there is a possibility that we might come into contact with another person, is a given.
When total remote working was the norm – for example at the Nipro Europe HQ – our home became our workspace. What we noticed was that while people were safe in their space physically, they began to suffer psychologically from the lack of face-to-face direct contact with colleagues.
In an effort to increase the overall well-being of our colleagues, we recently shared ideas for team bonding activities, both online and distanced, where colleagues get to reconnect after months of working apart.
In case of critical attendance where our presence at the office is necessary, there is a new online planning tool at the Nipro Europe office in Belgium that has taken into account the maximum number of people allowed in a given space on any given day. Advanced planning of our presence in the office is mandatory, as are the wearing of masks when moving around within the office building.
Nipro also supports all colleagues who wish to get the COVID-19 vaccine by ensuring that they have time off from work, with no income loss, when they need to get the vaccine.
These are some of the ways in which we are investing in sustainable health and safety systems at our workplaces. This is an unprecedented crisis but we are quickly learning what will work. We have a leadership response team, with representatives from every department, that meets regularly to review what is working well and what needs to be corrected. Above all, we also review the nature and the timing as well as the quality of the communications with our colleagues. In this way, we ensure that the safety and the health of our colleagues are well looked after at Nipro.
