Authentic and good

Jens Marten says these words with conviction while searching for the secret to the success of the Inorganic Pigments (IPG) business unit. Authentic is the sporty HSE manager who puts his heart and soul into constantly improving safety at IPG. For him it´s important to take care of his colleagues. And: he is successful, or rather the entire team is, because: "A good result in safety is always teamwork," he emphasizes. 

The approximately 1,300 employees of BU IPG are proud – they worked 1,402 days without a single lost-time accident. Worldwide. In this achievement, IPG relies on a mixture of continuity – Marten, for example, has been the contact person for safety issues at IPG for almost ten years – and innovation.

He and his team are always working on new ideas to keep the topic constantly high on the agenda. As a result, the IPG team has anchored the value of safety so firmly that colleagues automatically live it.

"It's not about achieving just one key figure. We all always have in mind to avoid an accident in our daily work. In addition, the management team must credibly and visibly stand behind the idea of safety. They need to communicate that a zero-accident-strategy is permanently possible."

Worldwide commitment to zero accidents

This is precisely the credo of Xact. Xact is the name of LANXESS´s safety initiative. Zero accidents worldwide, that is the long-term vision. LANXESS has already achieved the milestone goal of bringing the million-man-hour quota (MAQ) below 1.0 by the end of 2025 since 2020. Currently, the Group-wide ratio is even just 0.7 (as of October 19, 2022).

"This means that LANXESS now belongs to the Champions League in the area of safety," as Matthias Zachert proudly emphasizes.

This includes ensuring that the facilities are safe - and that colleagues carry out the processes conscientiously. The Xact team believes that safety is a personal and conscious choice. "We therefore want to get all employees thinking about safe behavior. To do this, we need to reach people; in the head, in the heart and in the gut."

So Xact has developed the "Safety Culture Development Process" for all operating units. The centerpiece is a full-day workshop facilitated by the Xact team. Representatives from all hierarchical levels exchange views on the safety culture in their own facility. By mid-2022, 50 of the 150 workshops targeted worldwide had already taken place. Zelesny: "An interim assessment shows that employees are happy to give feedback and get involved." 

Knowledge gap successfully closed

The Lubricant Additives (LAB) business unit has also taken up the subject of training. The team has launched an initiative in West Hill, Canada, to "strengthen the organization at the site." In the process, the team completely revised outdated documents, introduced new tools, trained experienced colleagues as coaches, improved the onboarding process for new employees and communicated the Xact safety culture at the site. For this project, the team received the CEO Safety Award 2021.

HSE Manager Chuck Hrelec emphasizes: "Winning this award was an important milestone for us. However, we were just as pleased to have completed 2021 BU-wide with completely no lost-time accidents. Key to this is our belief that everyone plays a role in keeping themselves and their colleagues safe."

Whereas for Hrelec, it's not just that his colleagues at LANXESS work safely that counts. It is important to him that the topic of safety becomes second nature to them. That's why he finds, "I always like to hear stories from our employees about how they performed a task safely at home because they learned something in training."

Talking to each other, learning from each other

Learning from each other is also what Flavors & Fragrances (BU F&F) is all about. The business unit, which is part of our company since the acquisition of Emerald Kalama Chemical, does monthly HSE meetings. "At F&F, we believe in continuous exchange between the sites, and I really like that," praises HSE Manager Heiko Langhorst. Normally, these meetings are virtual.

At the beginning of October, one was held for the first time as a face-to-face event in Cologne. The F&F HSE managers from the sites in Germany, India, England, the United States and the Netherlands initially met for two days in the LANXESS Tower. The agenda included

• F&F's HSE performance,
• the new Intelex reporting system,
• the CEO Safety Award
• and many other things relevant to safety work.

On the third and thus last day, the seven-member team drove to the chlorination plant in Uerdingen to take a look around among the boilers vessels and pipes. One thing was immediately apparent: Everything in the plant is impeccably tidy. Every container is labeled and every screw hangs at its place. Langhorst emphasizes: "Safety and order are an unbeatable combination!

That's why we always pay close attention to this during our weekly HSE inspections. Our colleagues know that by now, so they keep everything in top shape." However - and Langhorst agrees with Zelesny on this point: "This has to come from the employees themselves; it has to make click in their heads. Safety work works best when you want to do it and don't have to."