Translations Best practice in Spanish version Best practice in French version Best practice in English version

BOUYGUES BATIMENT NORD-EST eliminates harsh working conditions to preserve the health of its site crews

2. Human Rights

Diversity, equal opportunity, and fighting discrimination

Context

Bouygues Batiment Nord-Est, a Bouygues Construction Group regional subsidiary, employs a workforce of 750 across France's Northern region and Belgium. Ensuring the health and safety of crews assigned to jobsites is seen as preserving the company's most valuable resource: its personnel. For this reason, Bouygues Batiment Nord-Est, and Bouygues Construction in general, have placed this priority above all else.

Objectives

  • Impress upon field crews the importance of ergonomics in their worksite practices
  • Strengthen on-site safety procedures.

APPROACH

As part of the Sustainable Development Week's schedule of activities, Bouygues Batiment Nord-Est sought to emphasize to all staff members, but particularly construction teams, the actions and tools implemented by the company to improve ergonomics.

Towards this end, a so-called "ergo-tour" was held at 8 different worksites according to a format designed around 4 workshops covering the following topics:

  •  Warm-up exercises, to better understand an individual's utility and explain how best to take daily care of his body for this line of work;
  •  Medical restrictions and disabilities intended to enhance awareness and trigger a discussion on these issues;
  •  Promotion of ergonomic devices to test at the worksite a number of innovative tools aimed at overcoming physical constraints;
  •  Presentation of constraints associated with each specific trade and improvements introduced by the company to induce behavioral changes in the execution of daily tasks.

Through these various workshops, the 250 crew members enrolled in this approach became familiar with the actions taken by the company to upgrade working conditions. The number of existing medical restrictions, testimonials of construction workers coping with such restrictions, and the daily loads being handled by a typical formworker are just some of what tour participants were exposed to for the first time that sparked their interest.

The positive outcome of this event led to rolling out the action plan within each subsidiary of the Bouygues Entreprise France Europe group of companies.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  • Drop in the number of medical restrictions: 52 crew members affected in 2013 vs. 70 in 2012, for a decrease of 25%
  • Prevention of the onset of professional diseases
  • 100% of medical restrictions known and fully diagnosed
  • Focus on members' health status and vulnerability, introduction of attitudinal changes
  • Higher productivity
  • More balanced relations with suppliers over the long run; greater trust built with clients.

Benefits

  • Improved health, safety and working conditions for company personnel
  • A feeling of well-being and calm permeating the worksite atmosphere
  • Informed and dedicated crew members spearheading the action strategy. 
Workforce
1000 salariés (2015)
Turnover
345M€ (2015)
Country
France

BOUYGUES BATIMENT NORD-EST

1 avenue de lhorizon
59651 VILLENEUVE DASCQ

www.bouygues-batiment-nord-est.fr/

Contact

Thibault GANDON Directeur des Ressources Humaines This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mise à jour le 30/09/2016

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.