A controversial topic the one of workplace safety. Crucial in theory, yet often ignored when applying to reality. For this reason, the dialogue must be kept alive, so we don’t just look at the numbers for their own sake, while the real difficulties workers experience get lost in translation.
A one-of-a-kind year
2020 rolled on as an exception in everyone’s working routine, nonetheless on the safety matters. We had to face an infectious disease we were totally unprepared for, blowing up any business strategy one might have had. The introduction of emergency plans into the existing safety procedures has been indeed what (starting from the first Italian national lockdown on March 9th 2020) scrambled data about accidents at work.
2019 vs 2020
If we compare the situation of 2020 with the one of 2019, differences are immediately clear. Considering the very first months of national lockdown and then the containment measures of the following months, we find a drastic decrease in accident reports; very strong in the first part of the year and pretty much stable, yet consistent, in the second part.
In the first 10 months of 2020, there’s been a total report decrease of 21%, with a considerable peak in May, with a halved number registered compared to the same month in 2019. Nationally, the decrease is to be split between accidents while being at work(-18,2%) and on the route to work (-37,2%). The latter portrait perfectly the absence of people moving, physically going to their workplace and vice-versa.
What changed in the records
While reports decreased mainly in the industrial and services fields (-13%), in agriculture (-19,7%) and commonwealth workforce (-61,3%), the healthcare industry increased reports of accidents, of which one third is to be attributed to Covid-19. During March peaks of 500% were hit, slightly converting to 450% and with a sudden turnaround between June and August (from -6% to -17%) which quickly reversed into a worrying 202% between September and October.
Although work-related illnesses strongly decreased, reports of mortal accidents represented one-third of the total deaths reported to Inail since the beginning of the year. A piece of very significant and alarming news which opens a whole new discussion about what it means to be safe at work.
Zucchetti solutions
Useful help in managing safety procedures comes from Zucchetti with the addition of the Health Check function to the HR Portal. The employee (with the smart app ZCconnect too) can answer to a daily survey to declare their health condition before entering the workplace.
For the complete safety procedure instead, Safety Solution is the software which revolutionises the entire prevention and control process, in accordance with the Law Decree 81/08.
What can Safety Solution do for your business?
- Risk assessment according to activities with the possibility of standardisation – with automatic notification of maturity
- Automatic prevention measures proposal according to the risk assessment result
- Health monitoring – preventive and periodic check-ups and file management to avoid worrying about maturities
- Check the information, formation and training status of every single employee
- File management and file storage
- Contract management with third-parties and contractor’s verification
- Form management in case of accidents
- Protection devices check
