Ready for everything
A small fire in a chemicals lab, backache from sitting in a lorry for so long or becoming addicted to your mobile phone or online games to forget the stress at work. A person’s job can involve a whole range of challenges, many of which are not taken as seriously as they perhaps should. REMONDIS’ safety division recently launched its new “Safer together” campaign to make the REMONDIS Group’s apprentices more aware of these pitfalls and to show them how they can be avoided.
Campaign began in October
A team of advisers and experts have travelled to five different locations (Lünen, Berlin, Brandenburg an der Havel, Leipzig and Lübeck) since the safety campaign began back in October. They will have visited a total of 15 towns in Germany by the end of the campaign. All of the company’s apprentices were given the opportunity to register to attend one the events being held in their region. As a result, 1,000 young professionals such as office workers, lorry drivers and plant employees have been able to learn more about workplace health and safety. The lectures, seminars and simulation games have been divided up into three main subjects. The workshops are being held in cooperation with the medical insurance company, BIG Direkt Krankenkasse.
Several workshops
The participants taking part in the first workshop, which was entitled “digital addiction”, took a closer look at the tricky subject of excessive mobile phone use and online gaming. Besides learning more about the typical risk factors, they also carried out tests on themselves to see how high their own risk of addiction was. The second workshop focused on showing those taking part how to organise themselves, as job-related stress can be reduced by working in a structured manner. The experts also underlined at this point just how important it is for colleagues to treat each other correctly, to divide up tasks sensibly and to communicate with one another as these all help to alleviate workplace stress. The third workshop turned the spotlight on the subject of “ergonomics”, which was particularly useful for both the office workers and the lorry drivers.
As well as showing the apprentices what exercises they can do and the best way to sit at a desk or behind a wheel, the expert in charge also taught them all about ergonomics. Having learned how tension actually comes about and just what a positive impact regular exercise has on a person’s body, the participants are now more aware than ever of how important exercise is to stay healthy. They also got some physical exercise when they went go-carting wearing ‘impairment glasses’ or ‘beer goggles’. The course had been set up by the fire brigade to demonstrate the danger of drinking and driving.
Image credits: © REMONDIS
