”I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to choose the winner of the Veidekke Group’s HSE prize for 2006,” said President & CEO Terje R. Venold, when he presented the prize to the winner, Kolo Veidekke’s Central region at Berns Salonger in Stockholm.
“In 2006, there were many good candidates who had made impressive HSE efforts and the jury had a difficult task in picking this year’s winner,” Mr. Venold said.
Substantial progress in financial results, injury and absence rate
During the past three years, Kolo Veidekke’s Central Region, has achieved good results and low sickness absence and injury rate figures. They have also been successful in strengthening customer relations and their financial development is very positive.
At the end of the third quarter of 2003, the Kolo Veidekke region had an injury rate of 16 (number of lost-time accidents per million hours worked) and a sickness absence rate of approximately 8 per cent. Financially, the region’s performance was also pretty weak. This situation has now taken a far more positive turn: Since the third quarter of 2004, the injury rate has been 0, and since the end of 2004, sickness absence has been about 3.4 per cent. The number of reports of undesirable incidents has increased from 16 in 2002 to 336 in 2006.
The close connection between HSE efforts and financial performance is substantiated by the fact this year’s winner showed a negative result in 2003 of approximately NOK 2 million, which in 2006 had been turned into a profit of approximately NOK 16.7 million.
Kolo Veidekke’s Lillian Uthus was very pleased to give an account of region’s progress.
The other nominees for the Veidekke Group’s HSE prize were:
- Veidekke Denmark, Hoffman A/S, Water and foundation works operation
- Veidekke Sweden, heavy construction operations east, Project Vällingby
- Veidekke Norway, construction operations, District North
Guest of honour at the conference, Mr. Hans Tilby, chairman of Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet (the Swedish Building Workers’ Union) was clearly impressed:
“I’m very impressed. This is much more than empty words. The whole-hearted commitment of Terje Venold and Per-Ingemar Persson in these important issues, is certainly one of the reasons behind Veidekke’s success and progress,” he says.
