Bringing safe behaviour traning to brand champions in China

Behaviour-based safety is already yielding results among our production and logistics teams around the world. Now we are rolling out similar training tailored to our brand ambassadors, the sales and marketing employees who interact daily with our customers and consumers.

We started in China, home to 16 of our brands, 26 of our breweries and more than 100 offices across the country. Carlsberg China’s President took the lead, urging colleagues to look out for themselves and each other.

By the end of 2021, more than 3,300 people – almost all our commercial staff across China – had completed training to understand how to spot and report hazardous working conditions and unsafe behaviour.

The training focused on the risks our people are most likely to face in their day-to-day work, reinforcing the importance of adopting safe behaviours every day by showing how something as simple as using handrails on stairs can prevent slips, trips and falls.

With many of our brand ambassadors in China using scooters or motorcycles to visit customers, road safety was an important part of the practical training. It showed how to put our Life Saving Rules into practice when riding two-wheelers, including by wearing helmets and highvisibility vests every time. Employees also tried out virtual reality goggles that simulated the hazards of drink-driving.

As most of our sales and marketing staff work alone when they are on the road, they cannot observe their colleagues in the same way as those in our breweries. Instead, we train them to observe unsafe behaviours among other road users to improve their safety awareness.

In 2021, commercial employees in China recorded an average of 8.1 safety observations and submitted more than 100 entries to our video competition to find the best safety observation.

The campaign is already delivering results. The lost-time accident rate among commercial teams in China has fallen by 90% over the last two years. Going forward, we will extend behaviour-based safety to commercial teams in more markets as we continue to build a ZERO Accidents Culture.

“Unsafe behaviour is the root cause of most incidents at Carlsberg, including for commercial employees representing our brands. We rolled out our safety observation campaign to enable all employees and line managers to look after each other, encourage safe behaviour and reduce the occurrence of accidents. My message to employees is simple: ‘If you see something, do something, don’t just walk away!”

CK Lee, Managing Director, Carlsberg China