We value the safety of our employees and have a passion for an injury-free workplace. We establish projects and processes to control and eliminate hazards, we hold all employees accountable to drive toward a goal of zero workplace injuries, and we empower employees to make positive changes in their workplace to improve health and safety. Click here to see our Global Environment Health and Safety Policy.

Our Global Environment, Health and Safety department works in partnership with operations leadership to assess workplace hazards, establish annual improvement plans and track performance. Click here to see how we're doing. Management has clearly defined responsibilities and objectives for safety and health. Business units have committees or safety champions to coordinate activities.  

We recognize and reward outstanding safety performance. We train our employees to do their assigned jobs safely and make it clear that sticking to our safety rules is a condition of employment.

In recent years, we have tailored our safety programs to address the most frequent work place injuries. Sprains and strains account for more than half of all employee injuries. They are usually caused by manual material handling, repetitive work tasks or awkward postures and positions. In 2009 we launched a companywide, behavior-based safety campaign, "Every BODY Can Do It." The campaign encourages employees to take personal responsibility for safety and make simple changes in everyday work behaviors to reduce risks. We expanded the campaign in 2010, distributing toolkits to all our businesses to help them minimize occurrences of slips, trips and falls through better risk assessment, prevention and control. We also produced videos on how to avoid work-related falls, sprains and strains in our services organization, and completed the training of over 40 local ergonomic Tiger Teams.

Hayward, California: Everyone Owns Safety at Pitney Bowes
Behavior-based safety programs work best when applied throughout an organization and coupled with incentives, so everyone owns the issue and has a stake in the outcome. At Pitney Bowes Government Services' Express and Priority Mail Supplies Center in Hayward, California, all employees from the site manager on down are charged with noting and correcting unsafe conditions wherever they find them, and those who identify and correct the most gain special recognition.

Such attentiveness is making a difference across the company. Our total U.S. Workers’ Compensation claims fell from 997 in 2009 to 857 in 2010, and claims per 100 employees dropped from 3.96 to 3.51, an 11 percent reduction. For additional indicators, see the metrics at the end of this section of the Report.

Triple Win for Ergonomic Design
For mail sorters at Pitney Bowes Presort Services, new conveyors and lower storage shelves have made a significant difference in both productivity and comfort on the job. In addition, the new equipment is quieter, easier to maintain and much more energy-efficient, saving money for the company as well. The new design standard is just one of many adjustments the organization has implemented following a comprehensive ergonomic assessment in 2008.