Toyota Material Handling Europe’s approach to managing “Healthy Workplaces for All Ages” recognised by EU commissioner Marianne Thyssen

Since Toyota Material Handling Europe employs over 4,500 service technicians, they represent over 50% of the company’s workforce. In addition to this, 15% of the total workforce is over 50 years old. While straining movements can be eliminated throughout the factory and premises, having mobile technicians working at customer sites in uncomfortable positions can easily lead to overstrain.

In order to prevent these types of injuries, Toyota Material Handling in Spain developed a physiotherapy programme for all their technicians, which was also implemented by other Toyota Material Handling entities and shares with  EU-OSHA campaign partners through EU-OSHA’s Good Practice Benchmarking events.

“Creating healthy workplaces is not only the right thing to do in line with our Toyota Values, it is also a rational decision that results in better business outcomes: lower costs, better quality and higher customer satisfaction, as supported by the achievements by our colleagues in Spain,” explains Tom Schalenbourg, Director Sustainable Development at Toyota Material Handling Europe.

Jordi Martinez, Risk Prevention Advisor and Safety Committee Member at Toyota Material Handling España is pleased with the end result: “On top of increasing employee well-being, the plan also proved to be financially beneficial. Overall, the absenteeism costs avoided equal four times the money invested in 337 sessions. In turn, insurance premiums were also reduced significantly. We are re-investing all these savings in health and safety measures for employees in Spain to create a virtuous cycle, which is very helpful to keep all our colleagues engaged in improving health and safety.”