Training and safety

Training is one of the keystones in the company objectives to be reached. The Arvedi Group has always believed that instruments for enhancing human resources are essential for improving the professional skills of its workers and creating the essential conditions for directly involving them in reaching the quality and quantity targets that have been set.

The constantly evolving regulations relative to compulsory training leads to an ever-increasing mass of obligations for companies to meet as regards their employees. Legislative decree no. 81/08, known as the Consolidated Safety at Work Act, is the core of the safety regulations and disciplines both aspects connected to health and those strictly connected to precautions to be taken in the environments where work is carried out. The Consolidated Act became effective 10 years ago, updating and bringing into line the regulations of the Delegated Decree 626 of 1994. More recently, at the Conference between State and Regions, further agreements were reached for detailed and exhaustive regulation of the training cycles for company personnel. Over a three-year period, besides the specific training reserved for new employees, the manufacturing companies of the Arvedi group have organized and held various information events aimed at preparing production, quality control, maintenance and risk-prevention operators. The overall number of hours dedicated each year to training by the various companies of the Group, varies depending on the number of employees, the presence of newly recruited staff, programmes for obtaining various types of Quality Certification, essential for guaranteeing absolute standard levels for the production processes. Last year Acciaieria Arvedi spent 30,430 hours on compliance with Safety standards and Managerial and staff training requirements. Arvedi Tubi Acciaio, the Group’s second-largest company in terms of employee numbers, spent 5,504.5 hours. Training courses are divided into modules lasting on average from 10 to 15 hours, involving practically all workers, in particular those managing operational tasks and those in charge of the Prevention and Protection Service.

As regards the training of new employees, and as provided by law, courses foresee an initial part oriented towards providing information on various aspects of the employment contract, the economic aspects of the agreement, the way operations are organized generally and with specific attention to specific company features, the concepts applied regarding risk awareness and the measures provided to prevent them. The second part provides a period alongside a skilled person, at the work place, as preparation for definitive insertion into production activities.

Training processes are carried out internally, but also outside the company. Periodically specific professional needs are identified, dictated by the various functions, depending on which events are prepared which foresee the intervention of teachers or experts in the subject from outside the company, or sending the employees to accredited centres specialised in high-level training.

Risk prevention

Setting up training courses aimed at risk prevention is an essential and significant part of current regulations.

Periodically all the companies of the Arvedi Group prepare hours of training aimed at learning the following subjects: characteristics and use of personal protection devices, specific operating instructions for the various tasks, training and updating for First Aid staff, safety plans for internal work sites.

Before the introduction of the safety laws for the working environment as provided by Decree 626, which came into force in 1994 and was replaced by legislative Decree 81 of 2008, the Arvedi Group had already assumed the concepts which inspired this law, adopting within its companies the solutions indicated by the guidelines of the Community Directive, implemented in Italy only after the introduction of the laws cited above.

Already within each company of the Arvedi Group new functions were foreseen dedicated to managing risk prevention in the workplace and protection of the environment, which in turn increasingly involved, organized and trained other company functions and their dedicated staff. This was how a real company system was built which now, even more efficiently and effectively, allows the safety targets to be achieved. First Aid staff have been formed, divided into teams present in shifts and duly trained and each company is equipped with a room designated as an infirmary and fitted with suitable first-aid equipment and used for periodical tests (spirometric, audiometric, ECG etc.) of employees on the basis of the requirements defined by the Occupational Medicine staff.

Fire-fighting

Training courses in safety and risk prevention also include the activation within the company organization of specially trained First Response staff in case of fire and an evacuation plan from the work places in case of need.

The fire-fighting teams are composed of personnel present in the various work shifts and, in the event of an outbreak of fire, their task is limited to the use of the equipment present in the Group companies (various types and sizes of fire hydrants and extinguishers) to immediately circumscribe and extinguish any outbreak. In more serious cases which should require the intervention of the Fire Brigade, fire-fighting staff are trained to offer their support.