What responsibility means to us...

Creating a safe and pleasant work environment for our employees is a high priority.  For us, this incorporates not just the physical aspects of our employees work environment, but also the promotion of healthy lifestyles and behaviors and the prevention of injury and accidents.  We have very high standards in this area, and a strong track record of achievement, because we believe that exceptional occupational health and safety performance is a key component in employee performance and engagement, making Shire a world-class organization.  In addition to high expectations within our own organization, we evaluate the health and safety performance of our partners and suppliers as well, and their performance is taken into consideration when choosing new partners and suppliers.

In 2011, we improved the physical space of a number of our main sites.  In Basingstoke in the U.K., we embarked on a significant re-design of our facilities including new open plan office and meeting space, better use of indoor and outdoor space, improved lighting and air quality, and a new restaurant and catering facility with a wide variety of fresh and healthy food and drink options.

Our Lexington, MA site in the U.S. underwent a partial renovation.  In addition to having world-class environmental sustainability qualities, the new campus boasts an array of state-of-the-art office and manufacturing facilities.

We strive to help our employees and their families stay healthy and safe. To do this we have a team of occupational health nurses that run onsite clinics at our major facilities and implement an extensive wellness program.

The program includes organizing health fairs that are held annually at our biggest sites and every two or three years at smaller facilities. In 2011 we held health fairs at our HGT Massachusetts and Chesterbrook, PA, sites as well as in the UK, Ireland and Canada.  The fairs offer employees free health screenings such as for cholesterol, blood pressure, bone density, lung function, prostate cancer, visual acuity and body fat. Individual results are provided to each employee. Data trends are analyzed internally by Shire’s nurses to monitor wellness and develop our wellness and health programs. To help raise awareness and provide information concerning a variety of health, safety and wellness issues, a wide range of vendors are invited to participate in our fairs to share information on nutrition, healthy lifestyle, stress management, sleep management and many other issues.

In addition to the health fairs, our occupational health nurses hold walk-in clinics, provide routine screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and offer flu vaccinations.  The nurses provide health counseling and follow-up referrals as appropriate.  Each month, a specific health topic is featured such as diabetes, nutrition, weight management, heart health, cancers, travel health, stress management, and more.

We have also built fitness centers at our major facilities which we provide at no cost to our employees. These centers provide a variety of cardio and strength-training equipment and classes. Shire’s Health Safety & Environment department teams up with the fitness centers to host fitness activities, nutrition and weight loss programs and competitions.

For our smaller sites we promote wellness and health issues through our health care providers and our intranet site, and use of global email and newsletters. Further, we provide incentives for staff to undertake health risk assessments and to adopt a healthy lifestyle such as joining a gym, participating in sports teams, etc.  Through our health benefits providers we have a robust stress management and a global mental health program (our Employee Assistance Program).

• The American Heart Association (AHA) recognized our Pennsylvania and Massachusetts locations with its Fit-Friendly Company Gold Award for 2011. The award honors employers who make employee health and wellness a priority.
• In 2011, we set a goal of improving our incident and close-call reporting and investigation across the world. We have significantly improved our incident reporting across our facilities through training, awareness and posting of hazard reporting posters and reporting boards. Our success is reflected in the numbers: the total number of non-recordable health & safety incidents reported, including near-misses, increased from 2009 to 2010 by 95% and from 2010 to 2011 by a further 23%. Our incident rates (recordable incidents) for the last 5 years are shown in the table and graph below.
• Although our total recordable and lost time injury rates did show an uptick in 2011 compared to 2010 (which was our lowest year for incidents on record), our rates remain well below industry averages and we are working tirelessly to continue to reduce incident rates. The severe winter in the US in the first few months of 2011 contributed to an increase in the number of incidents, particularly regarding slips, trips and falls and motor vehicle accidents. These are on-going focus areas for safety improvement. Our warehouses continued to have an outstanding safety record without any OSHA recordable incidents in 2011.
• Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of occupational fatalities, and we seek to eliminate avoidable road incidents involving Shire employees, whether they are driving vehicles owned or hired by Shire, or using their own vehicles on Shire Business (defined below). Our concern extends beyond our own employees to other road users whose safety depends on the way each of us behaves behind the wheel.  To begin to address this, in 2011 we launched new driver safety Policy & Guidelines.

• Implement initiatives to reduce the frequency and severity of workplace injuries focusing on our major risks: slips, trips and falls, driver safety, ergonomics and over-exertion..
• Implement initiatives to enhance the health and wellness of Shire employees.