Healthy and safe: social responsibility for our employees

Our top priority is to ensure that our employees come home as healthy as they are when they go to work. We do a lot to achieve this and have been continuously developing workplace health promotion and safety for many years. Two key points play a decisive role here: we are continuously working on reducing the frequency of accidents and increasing the health rate. Many small and large, well-coordinated measures are necessary for this – from Group-wide safety standards to periodic safety quarterly meetings, education and awareness-raising to the optimal care of patients.

health & safety is firmly anchored in our organisation. “Corporate health & safety is headed by the Chief health & safety Officer, reports directly to the Management Board of voestalpine AG, and promotes Group-wide cooperation on health and safety. Together with a health & safety committee made up of employees from the four divisions and the Works Council, Corporate health & safety is working intensively to reduce the frequency of accidents. This has been reduced by 55% since 2016. The LTIFR defines accident frequency as the number of reportable work accidents with more than three days lost per million hours worked. The LTIFR has already been significantly reduced in recent years – thanks to measures and education! The implementation – working together on a divisional basis – supports the fact that we live an active health & safety culture in which colleagues look after themselves and others in their day-to-day work.

The LTIFR defines accident frequency as the number of reportable work accidents with more than three days lost per million hours worked. The LTIFR has already been significantly reduced in recent years – thanks to measures and education! The implementation – working together on a divisional basis – supports the fact that we live an active health & safety culture in which colleagues look after themselves and others in their day-to-day work.

The Steel Division was once again awarded the seal of approval from the Austrian Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ÖNBGF) for the period 2025 to 2027. A central component of the workplace health promotion initiatives is the promotion of respectful and appreciative interaction between employees and mental health. The Steel Division offers employees access to confidential psychological counseling as well as training and workshops on topics such as stress management and mindfulness.

Many companies in the Metal Engineering Division in Austria have also been awarded this seal of approval. This confirms the professionalism of our health promotion programs and other initiatives that are conducive to the well-being and safety of our employees, such as the Steel Division’s “WIR”  program to promote respectful and appreciative interaction with one another.

In order to achieve all of this and ensure it for the future, we need something concrete. To stay in the world of medicine: The cardiovascular system is the interplay between workplace health promotion and occupational safety.

We operate our own occupational health centres at the two larger locations in Austria. The Linz occupational health centre treats acute illnesses or injuries, carries out preventive medical check-ups, offers physiotherapy, vaccination campaigns and psychological counselling, for example, and provides the occupational medical care required by law. Our employees benefit from bowel and skin cancer screening, TBE and flu vaccinations and, as a certified travel and tropical medicine centre, also those that protect against illnesses in distant countries, e.g. on business trips or holidays. Physiotherapy treatments and massages promote physical fitness and the “Strong back” programme – an online course run twice a week by a qualified physiotherapist – reached a total of 2,503 colleagues in Linz who enjoyed exercise in 66 sessions in 2024.

The range of services offered by the Metal Engineering Division’s occupational health centre in Donawitz extends from active support for the entire occupational health system to health promotion in the workplace and compliance with the Employee Protection Act. In other words, supporting employees in matters relating to maintaining and promoting health in the workplace, planning workplaces, work equipment, work processes and working materials as well as providing assistance with occupational physiological, occupational psychological and ergonomic issues. The so-called §49 examinations, which are required by law before starting work and at regular intervals, are a central topic of the work. The organisation of first aid, reintegration measures into the work process and the identification and assessment of hazards are also important.

The facility in Donawitz has been an outpatient centre for occupational diagnostics for around two years. The 750 square metres of medical facilities available there make it possible to obtain findings quickly, e.g. X-ray, ECG, laboratory diagnostics, ultrasound and much more. Free vaccinations in Austria, such as the influenza vaccination, are also offered as part of the health promotion programme at the Donawitz site. Other Styrian companies also make use of the wide range of services offered by occupational medicine in Donawitz for their employees. At smaller sites, we work together with selected external partners. Or at the Hamm site (Germany), where a physiotherapist, who also acts as a company paramedic in emergencies, has not only been treating the physical complaints of his colleagues since 2020, but is also available as a health expert for all health issues. He also works closely with a medical assistant, who is on site once a week, and the company doctor.

Due to the many points of contact, e.g. in the ergonomic design of the workplace, occupational medicine is in close dialogue with occupational safety. Our health programmes and campaigns and those of our occupational safety department are well coordinated and go hand in hand. Speaking of hands: Incidentally, hand injuries are currently the focus of our educational work across the Group in 2025. When working on systems and in production, there are usually work routines that are always repeated. This also increases “operational blindness” and therefore the risk of injury. The “Handle safely” campaign was originally an idea of the Metal Engineering colleagues: The successful occupational safety campaign “Sicher hab’ ich mehr vom Leben!” in Donawitz entered its second round with a focus on “Handle safely!”. As hands and fingers are also the most frequently injured body parts (40%) in other places, we declared “Handle safely” to be a best practice and placed the “Corporate Health & Safety” calendar 2025 under the “Handle safely” banner. In doing so, we are focussing more attention on the prevention of hand injuries. Internationally we follow the “red lines”, in Linz the five “iron rules”:

• red light means stop!
• do not bypass safety equipment!
• do not stand under a heavy load!
• use fall protection!
• work in containers only with authorisation!

These are just two examples of the awareness-raising work in occupational safety at our sites.

Occupational safety and health have also been given new effective locations in Linz. The sichergesund centre was established in 2023. It not only holds safety training courses for our employees, but also provides training in safety-related behaviour at various stations. Hazards can be experienced “live”, so to speak, in a safe learning environment. The training stations range from ergonomics in the workplace, occupational medicine and psychology, electrical and physical hazards to the correct handling of hazardous substances and correct load and rope securing. And at a virtual reality station, employees train the correct behaviour when working on crane runways. How to use personal protective equipment is also explained there and, above all, tried out. After all, the most sustainable way to learn is to do it yourself. The sichergesund centre is a permanent location that is designed to leave a lasting impression on the training participants.

In 2024, the works outpatient clinic in Linz underwent a comprehensive modernisation that will continue to ensure the best possible care for patients in occupational medicine. Among other things, this was necessary in order to continue to fulfil the legal requirements of the state of Upper Austria. The modernised occupational outpatient clinic now offers the ideal conditions for offering and practising medicine at the highest level and “state of the art”, as well as a space in which patients feel well looked after and cared for. The works outpatient clinic now also visually reflects what it is: a modern facility in which the health of our employees takes centre stage.