On our production sites:
On our worksites, especially when main contractor:
We aim to propose alternatives based on our sustainable technologies, help our clients reduce the environmental footprint or their infrastructure projects and help them quantify and compare the optimization of resources or reduction of carbon footprint.
The “Zero Accident” objective applies to all personnel working on our sites, whether they are Freyssinet employees, temporary staff or subcontractors. Our safety and risk management standards are applied in all entities, even when they are more demanding than local regulations.
In order to involve employees, a number of tools and routines are used throughout the life of projects:
Each new employee receives safety training. Thematic awareness-raising actions are organised, such as Safety Week, which mobilises the teams every year since 2014.
As the people primarily responsible for safety, managers must be exemplary, committed and proactive. A “Managing through Safety” training course designed for them has been deployed to 200 BU managers.
Safety takes on different forms depending on responsibilities.
For example, our operational managers are trained to manage unforeseen events and to take safety into account in the inevitable trade-offs between quality, deadlines, costs and risks.
Site supervisors are taught to integrate safety aspects as far upstream as possible in the construction process.
Emphasis is placed on the implementation of safety for site managers.
Feedback and handling of deviations. Processes are in place to ensure that inappropriate operating procedures and potentially serious events (HiPO) are known to managers and are dealt with appropriately.
Feedback. The sharing of practices is encouraged. HiPO events are systematically debriefed between the staff involved and their management.
The trust of employees is of paramount importance. With this in mind, the managers of each of our entities strive to foster a spirit of cooperation, the quality of dialogue, the recognition of the right to make mistakes and the promotion of safe behavior and good practice – before constraint or sanction.
Because the dynamics of work groups are as important as individual behavior, ambitious programs have been set up by some subsidiaries, notably Thailand, France and South Korea. These programs focus on managerial attitudes and behavior with regard to safety and are being rolled out over several years through training and collaborative workshops.
We rely on the Group’s partnership with the ICSI (Institute for an Industrial Safety Culture) to benefit from the most recent research in this field, and to feed the thinking of our managers, leaders and safety trainers through videos, online training, webinars and case studies.
The trust of employees is of paramount importance. With this in mind, the managers of each of our entities strive to foster a spirit of cooperation, the quality of dialogue, the recognition of the right to make mistakes and the promotion of safe behavior and good practice – before constraint or sanction.”
In more than 60 countries, we employ a large number of people: our teams, the people recruited for our projects, but also the employees of our partners and subcontractors.
In accordance with the Group Manifesto and Guide to Human Rights, we are committed to respecting human rights and improving standards of employment and working conditions wherever we operate.
In collaboration with the Group, Freyssinet’s Human Resources Department has initiated a rigorous process and conducted since 2018 various assessments in consultation with our subsidiaries in Colombia, Morocco, Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Poland and Chile.
We carry out in-depth assessments in the following areas:
This assessment is followed by the implementation of a progress plan on realistic short and medium-term objectives, which is monitored by the subsidiary’s manager and the direct management line.
Some progress was immediate, such as the improvement of accommodation conditions for our employees.
We believe that respect for human rights is first and foremost a matter of culture, which each employee must take on board. We therefore take a proactive approach, based on preventive actions:
In accordance with the Group’s Code of Ethics and Conduct and Anti-corruption Code of Conduct, all Freyssinet employees undertake to ensure complete transparency in their practices and to behave in a legally and ethically correct manner.
This undertaking is an essential element of contracts and relations with clients. It applies to each of our employees, whatever their function and country.
A digital and anonymous whistleblowing system allows everyone to report facts that they feel do not comply with our ethical rules.
The Group Anti-corruption Code of Conduct sets out a framework and intangible rules of conduct. In each of our Business Units, the subsidiary manager is the person who guarantees our practices. He or she is supported by three actors:
Through our mission as a civil engineering specialist, and more specifically our bridge construction and repair activity, we want to create means of communication between people, new access routes that open up territories, roads that accelerate development. And first and foremost, for those who need it the most.
Freyssinet recently made a commitment to the Bridges to Prosperity association, an American non-governmental organisation that aims to connect isolated communities through the construction of pedestrian bridges.
We participated in the construction of a suspension footbridge in Rwanda, in cooperation with the Danish engineering firm COWI in 2018, then another one in Uganda with the Swiss company T-Ingénierie in 2019. For each edition, five volunteers were selected from each of the two companies. They flew to the country for a fortnight to participate in the construction of a bridge, contribute their skills and work with the villagers. Projects were funded entirely through online fundraising.
In southern Rwanda, local people have to cross the Akanyaru River using tree trunks to reach the market in Huye, where they sell their crops. While the crossing is dangerous enough in normal times, the river becomes impassable during the rainy and flood season, which can last up to 3 months. The inhabitants then had to make a diversion of almost 6 kilometres, two hours longer than their usual journey.
In a fortnight, the Freyssinet and COWI teams built a 80 metre long suspension bridge. The daily lives of 3,000 people have been transformed, with safer and faster access to schools, medical facilities, markets and non-agricultural jobs. The villagers have acquired new skills by participating in the construction of the bridge and can ensure that the bridge is maintained over time.
In the community of Kurumbono, 650 people live mainly from the land. They have to cross a river to reach the market and the school. The floods that make the river often impassable jeopardise the inhabitants’ income and prevent children from attending school regularly. More than 50 people have been injured while trying to cross the river.
In a fortnight, the Freyssinet and T-Ingénierie teams built a suspension bridge that opens up the community, secures the villagers’ sources of income and allows children to access education.
I am particularly proud of our cooperations with Bridges to Prospectity: they are concrete actions, which reflect our desire to improve the lives of less fortunate communities and to contribute, through our expertise, to their development
Freyssinet organisational model has always been based on decentralisation, local presence and the autonomy of our Business Units, including in the management of their human resources.
We give priority to recruiting and promoting national talents, who are experts in their home markets. With a view to sustainable employment, we are committed to promoting them to positions of responsibility and encouraging their geographical mobility.
Throughout the world, our teams are multi-cultural, at all levels of the organisation. Diversity is one of our greatest asset. It creates a framework that is not only beneficial to the development of each individual, whatever their origin, but also to the exchange of ideas, creativity and adaptability, which are essential sources of innovation and growth.
In 2020, 16% of Freyssinet’s managers were women, up on 2019.
This figure, which can certainly be improved, varies according to the geographies in which we operate. For example, the proportion of women managers rises to 28% for the Central and Eastern Europe pole.
We have a proactive policy on gender equality at all levels of the organisation. For example, we are developing specific coaching for our women managers to promote women’s leadership: managing mentalities, breaking glass ceilings and facilitating their progression. To do this, we can rely on our five women business unit managers as mentors.
French professional equality index between women and men:
The entity “Freyssinet International Company” has obtained a score of 88/100 in 2023.
This overall score is the result of 4 indicators made mandatory under the French law “For the freedom to choose one’s professional future”:
Wishing to be actively and permanently part of a process of diversity and professional equality, the Direction of Freyssinet International Company after consulting its staff representatives, has set up an action Plan in favor of professional equality between men and women.
This Plan includes in particular the progress measures for indicators 1 and 4 to be implemented in accordance with article D1142-6-1 of the French Labor Code:
In 2021, Freyssinet, with the help of Trajeo’h, accompanied for the first time a disabled employee in an international mobility. We are proud of this initiative that shows that disability should not be a barrier to geographical mobility and professional development.
As part of the Group’s actions in favour of social integration and equal opportunities, we participate in France in the Give Me Five scheme, which offers internships each year to young people from priority education areas.
In 2020, we welcomed several young people on our French worksites, as well as adults in professional reintegration, in worksite operator positions.
