People, health and safety

Continuous improvement projects generated significant results and safety targets were exceeded when employees joined forces to improve industrial performance and occupational safety.

Continuously improving human resources, performance and processes

Huhtamaki actively strives to build a high-performance culture in which employees are engaged and achievement driven. As a response to the global economic downturn in 2009, job redesign, in-house recruitment and job rotation were encouraged in order to ensure motivating career paths without compromising cost efficiency.

The Lean Six Sigma continuous improvement program was extended to cover all business segments, and more than 500 employees have been trained over 3,500 training days by year-end 2009. Significant cost savings have been achieved through numerous improvement projects.

Talented and high-performing employees continue to be key drivers of Huhtamaki’s success. In 2010 further emphasis will be placed on the link between remuneration and performance while ensuring well-functioning succession planning.

Commitment to health and safety

Continuous focus on employee safety improvement has brought clear results since 2005. In 2007, Huhtamaki set a target to halve the Lost Time Incident Frequency (LTIF) and Lost Time Incident Severity (LTIS) rates before year-end 2011. The safety performance shows that the amount of occupational incidents has been halved by the end of 2009. The incident frequency rate is also very close to reaching the year-end 2011 target.

Strong safety performance is the result of commitment and focused employee efforts throughout the organization. Several new manufacturing units reached an outstanding health and safety track record, such as two years free of incidents recorded by the Henderson site in New Zealand. But even more importantly, this is yet another indication that the ultimate target – a workplace free of incidents – can be achieved.