Veolia’s 2019 HR Initiative Awards: seven award winning projects

During the 2019 HR Initiatives Trophy ceremony on 19 June at the Group's Campus in Ile-de-France, Veolia rewarded seven HR initiatives. The aim of this award is to highlight the inventiveness of the teams and encourage the duplication of the best projects across the Group. In four categories - Occupational Health and Safety; Developing Skills and Talents; Social Responsibility, Diversity and Cohesion; Operational Performance and Development - the jury selected the winners from among 310 initiatives in 51 countries. The success of the project reveals the wealth of Veolia's talents and activities and puts human beings at the heart of the company and its purpose.

HR initiatives are meaningful for the teams and feeds their motivation.
Our purpose is the expression of our social, societal, economic and environmental usefulness. And among our HR initiatives, the category "Social Responsibility, Diversity and Cohesion" illustrates it with examples that relate to social and professional integration, actions to help the most vulnerable people or employee initiatives to protect the environment. This type of action is meaningful for the teams and feeds their motivation. Increasingly duplicated, for the company they are a guarantee of performance, and for employees, a personal reward to see their projects copied and adapted.
Veolia's Senior Executive Vice President Human Resources
Jean-Marie Lambert

This year, the teams offered a significant number of HR initiatives with a digital component.

 

Seven award-winning 2019 HR initiatives:

  • "Occupational Health and Safety" award: "Digitization of safety reception" at the Sarp subsidiary - France

A 3D educational safety video presents newcomers with the risks related to various activities (working in confined spaces, at height, electricity), followed by an evaluation based on which assignments on the sites are given. It complements the SESAME platform (how to be and knowing how to apply our operating methods) dedicated to increasing skills where 9 videos present the activities of the subsidiary and raise employees' awareness about health and safety issues.

  • Special jury award "Occupational Health and Safety": "Life Saving Rules and High Risk Management Standards: DOs and DONTs" - Australia-New Zealand

The 12 "Always Safe" security rules that apply to all the Group's activities are simplified into "dos and don'ts". To prevent accidents, these 12 safety rules have been designed on the basis of the 10 management standards for high-risk activities (confined spaces, working at height, hazardous materials, high-pressure water jet, electricity, etc.). These rules are given to operators and newcomers. Deployed in Australia-New Zealand, this initiative has been duplicated in China, Belgium, France, the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. 

  • “Skills and Talents Development” award: "The 100-Talent Program"- China 

The "100 Talents" program gives all volunteer employees the opportunity to suggest specific research projects on topics related to their activity. The goal is to instil a culture of talent, advance the company in the technological field, develop skills and attract young graduates. The 100 projects are selected by a jury of in-house experts and local public authorities, and are funded by the Group's R&D for their deployment. Among 115 candidates, 26 projects focus on the themes of energy conservation, water quality and network planning.

  • Special jury award "Skills and Talents Development": "Women in Leadership -" The Power of You! " - United States

This leadership skills program is dedicated to women and focuses on three pillars: corporate visibility, business acumen, and personal effectiveness. Veolia supports its goal of reaching 30% of women executives by 2020 by creating a pool of talent. Launched in 2014, the program is now deployed in some 20 countries. In North America, of the 240 women who followed it, 50 were promoted. The UK reached 29% of women executives in 2017, and among newly recruited executives 47% are women.

  • "Operational Performance and Development" award: "Reliability-Centered Maintenance" - United States 

This Veolia site infrastructure maintenance training course in North America is aimed at plant and construction engineers, technical managers, maintenance, operations, safety and environment managers. The goal is to increase the reliability of the facilities, and increase the security, the environmental integrity and the life of the assets. This method optimizes costs by allocating resources to useful operations only, and optimizes asset management. In the United States, 59 people completed this 25-day training course at the Kendall in Massachusetts, and Providence in Rhode Island cogeneration facilities. In 2018 this program was rolled out in France, Belgium, Australia and the Netherlands.

  • "Social Responsibility, Diversity and Cohesion" award: "environmental observers" - Colombia

This project offers a possibility of a career change to Veolia employees who are not able to return to their job due to health problems: the creation of the new job of "environmental observers" keeps them in work. Their role is to improve waste collection points and avoid the use of "wild dumps" in order to clean up green spaces for the benefit of the population. The identification and evaluation of people's health determines the potential of the observers, who are then trained to work in contact with residents. Result: 7 operators have become "environmental observers". 87% of residents are satisfied with the maintenance of the collection points and the positive impact on their neighbourhood. 93% appreciate the role of observers. 

  • Special jury award "Social Responsibility, Diversity and Cohesion": "Inclusion of those under international protection" by Campus Veolia - France 

The aim of this individual support project is to integrate refugees and those under international protection in France by offering them apprenticeship contracts to obtain a public works pipeline construction diploma. This project is conducted in partnership with the prefecture, the job centre and the association AFT Atrium. Three young people under 25 from Afghanistan and Sudan did an internship to discover the job and the diploma at the Veolia Campus. After training in French and mathematics, they signed their apprenticeship contracts in order to obtain their diploma in 2020 with the subsequent possibility of a permanent contract within the Group.