Workplace safety

Ensuring the safety of our employees by controlling the risk of occupational accidents is a key priority, whether they are full-time Group employees, temporary workers or subcontractors working in our establishments.

This objective especially applies to each of our research and development and chemical, pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing establishments and the 33,000 medical sales representatives exposed to the risk of motor vehicle accidents.

Our occupational safety aims to reduce the probability of workplace accidents to their lowest possible level through a system for prevention and protection and by ensuring permanent monitoring and ongoing training.

Methodology

Lost time injury frequency rate: number of accidents requiring more than one day of medical leave over a twelve-month period, for every million hours worked.

Concerning the lost time injury frequency rate with medical leave, different approaches may in certain cases lead to uncertainty about the consolidated frequency rate:

• Calculation of the number of hours worked is based on methods in place during 2004 for both groups. There are differences in the methods used, primarily concerning the sales force. This results in uncertainty of the order of 5 to 10% in the accident frequency rate.
• Differences that result from local regulations may influence this indicator, although every effort has been made to obtain an internationally applicable definition in all countries where the Group is located.
• For non-mobile personnel, accidents occurring during the home-workplace commute are not included in the indicator.
• For traveling medical sales representatives, in accordance with the reporting rules defined by the Group, accidents occurring while commuting from home to workplace are considered workplace accidents and must be taken into account in the frequency rate. It should be noted, however, that at certain sites, commuting accidents that were not routinely consolidated as lost time injury frequency rate will be treated as such as of January 2005.
• As a result of some organizational changes in the sales force for countries outside Western Europe and North America, in 2004, inconsistencies occurred in the reporting of lost time injury frequency rate which may lead to uncertainty about the indicator. In 2005 the Group will seek to improve the reliability of reporting for these countries.

The lost time injury frequency rate for all Group employees is stable at 2.8 for the period 2003-2004. The frequency rate for contractor working in Group sites has, however, increased by 27% between 2003 and 2004. For the relevant functions, a specific initiative to prevent workplace accidents among contractors was launched in 2005.

For Research and Development, the lost time injury frequency rate with medical leave has dropped by 30% compared to 2003 and 9 sites (i.e., 43%) reported zero accidents over the past year.

The lost time injury frequency rate for Industrial Affairs remained stable in 2004 with 60 sites (i.e., 54%) having no accidents with medical leave. For Distribution, there has been strong improvement in safety results (–50% in 2004) following a managerial program of prevention actions and techniques launched since 2002.

As for our Vaccines business, the frequency rate has been steadily decreasing since 2002, when a global performance improvement program was introduced, based on training, awareness-building, safety representatives and correspondents, inspections and audits and risk analysis.

Medical sales representatives account for one third of the workforce employed by the sanofi-aventis Group. They are exposed to a major occupational hazard: motor vehicle accidents.

In 2004, the frequency rate of accidents for the Group’s marketing function (not only medical sales representatives but also administrative personnel in central offices) rose from 3.1 at the end of December 2003 to 3.3 at the end of December 2004. In 2004, a medical sales representative in Turkey was the victim of a fatal accident within the scope of his professional activity.

The year 2004 was devoted to strengthening action plans designed to reduce the exposure to traffic accident risks:

• Formalizing the Group’s policy by publishing a brochure entitled “Policy for the prevention of road accident risks” and a booklet, “Good driving, good behavior–Guide for automobile operators.” These publications were distributed to all the Group’s subsidiaries worldwide.
• Building awareness among senior management with a reminder of the importance of their leadership role, training programs teaching good driving practices, and the launch of an international program based on 10 key actions: “On the Road to Safety.”
• Programs encouraging greater caution when walking (to prevent slips, falls, …).
• Communications efforts targeting middle management, providing tools to share this information with their teams.
• Training of more than 2,000 people in Europe in defensive driving, now standard practice for newly hired medical sales representatives. In addition to these training initiatives, communications activities are organized each quarter.

Actions to provide support and assistance for the implementation and development of road safety were pursued throughout the Group’s main subsidiaries.

A study of accidents in the European zone from October 2003 to September 2004 was conducted to gain a better understanding of the nature and circumstances of accidents involving medical sales representatives. The findings of this study will be applied to the upcoming 2005 action plans in order to better adapt them to the risks encountered by medical sales representatives.