Our Performance - People


Training

  • Three core academies were introduced in 2009: Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Quality/ Regulatory/EHS Academies. In its first year, the academy graduated a total of 179 employees from operations in Carlsbad, Foster City, and Pleasanton, California. In 2010, the program is being expanded to the rest of the global regions.
  • In its pilot year, the program graduated 74 individuals. By the Fall 2009 survey, we saw improvements on career-related items and modest gains/holds on items related to stress and pace. We will continue to drive company-wide efforts in these areas in the coming year.
  • In 2009, we hired 19 associate sales representatives in 45 days. By the end of their training, the associates had contacted over 10,000 customers, logged 1,237 opportunities, and generated more than $816,000 in incremental revenue. They have now been deployed into the field.


Safety

Overall injuries in 2009 decreased 27 percent, more serious injuries that result in lost or restricted work time were reduced by 37 percent, and Workers Compensation costs were lowered by $150,000.


Installing Safety Equipment

In 2009, our facility in Inchinnan, Scotland invested nearly $1 million to fund equipment changes that contributed to an injury reduction of 68 percent.

  • Engineers upgraded downflow booths in the facility’s dispensary to new state-of-the-art clean rooms, which improved the air flow quality for workers.
  • The facility also installed a Kardex system to store raw materials in a series of rotating shelves, freeing up space on the floor and allowing raw materials to be sourced expeditiously. The system has the added benefit of presenting raw materials at the optimum ergonomic height for the dispensary staff.
  • A new Atex-compliant Fitzmill mills batches greater than 1.5–5 tons in size using an N2 purge system to ensure an explosion-free atmosphere during the milling process. This equipment allows for the milling of materials with low ignition energies that otherwise could not be milled without the risk of explosion.
  • A new hoist facilitates handling of large weights of materials. The hoist has made this much safer for the operatives involved.


Safety Awards

At Kingsland Grange in Warrington, United Kingdom, the safety team reached their target of zero recordable injuries, a 54 percent improvement from the previous year. This was achieved primarily by rolling out the “Deal With It” program, which empowers every employee to be accountable and deal with near misses as they happen. In 2009, not only were there no OSHA-recordable injuries, but we had a side benefit of improved morale and engagement, which helped us earn the 5 Star Award from the British Safety Council.

In 2009, our global OSHA-recordable Workplace Injury and Illness Rates rate dropped by 38 percent and our DART (Days Away and Restricted Time) rate by 14 percent. This translated to the avoidance of 44 injuries and, therefore, more employees working safely. We will continue to drive hazard abatement, and our safety culture change to achieve our 2012 goal of 25 percent reduction.


Third-party recognition has been achieved by a number of locations:

  • Eugene, OR Voluntary Protection Program Merit Status
  • Frederick, MD Voluntary Protection Program Star Status
  • New Zealand ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices Tertiary Level
  • Warrington, UK 5 Star Award from the British Safety Council
  • Singapore WSH Council bizSAFE Star
  • Burlington, Canada Industrial Accident and Prevention Association Level 1 Health and Safety Achievement Award
  • Inchinnan, Scotland Bronze Award from Healthy Working Lives


Wellness

We challenged employees to adopt healthy behaviors through a walking challenge, piloted in the U.S. in 2009. Each participant received a Life Technologies pedometer to track and log steps. The six-week program was completed by 540 employees; as a company, we walked over 256 million steps. Post-program surveys revealed that 76 percent of participants increased their frequency of exercise and 73 percent improved their overall level of fitness.


Supplier Diversity

Our goal is to spend 50 percent of our supplier spend with diversity suppliers. In the first nine months of 2009, Life Technologies fell just short of that very aggressive goal; achieving 46 percent spend with diverse suppliers.