Health, Safety & Well-being
We continuously work to improve our safety performance.
Jean-Paul Clozel, CEO
As our employees are at the heart of everything we do, it is essential that we safeguard their well-being and remain attentive to any health and safety hazards, over and above regulatory compliance.
Optimizing employee health, safety and well-being is important to our work. We believe that it not only benefits our employees but also helps to reduce absence-related costs, increases productivity and drives business success. We focus on preventing both work-related and non-work-related accidents and injuries, as well as enabling employees to improve their health and well-being at work and at home.
Supporting health and well-being
An important part of cultivating a healthy workplace is investing in our employees’ awareness of their own health through strategies such as health screening and emotional health offerings. In addition, we have numerous employee Health & Well-being programs and support services in place, including on-site massages, medical checkups for employees working in laboratories, risk analyses for pregnant women, support during pregnancy and breastfeeding time, annual flu shots, relaxation pods, discount on gym memberships, and ergonomic consulting for the workplace.
As the well-being of our employees is a top priority for us, we have put in place various programs to support mental health and well-being globally. We also run disease awareness campaigns for our employees globally via our intranet, and at headquarters this also includes on-site events. We regularly organize internal campaigns to raise awareness of common diseases that could affect our employees, such as breast cancer, testicular cancer and mental health issues.
Resilience is a key resource to support each employee through the crucial phase of building our company, enabling them to carry out their projects while becoming more innovative and pragmatic, working well in teams, and engaging in continuous learning. The Resilience Coaching Program allows employees and managers at headquarters to work individually with an external executive coach. A resilience resource page is also available on our intranet to facilitate access to books, videos, TED talks, MOOCs and articles for all employees worldwide.
Employee Assistance Programs are available to all permanent, temporary and hourly paid employees at our headquarters in Allschwil. These consist of eight hours of free, confidential social counseling provided in partnership with an external employee assistance agency, as well as a wide range of resources. Coaching sessions are available for employees who are currently encountering personal or work-related issues.
Similar programs are offered to our employees in the US: Mental and Physical Health & Well-Being (via our benefit providers), an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Financial Wellness (involving financial/retirement education).
In 2021, we launched “Mental Health Matters”, a campaign to support our employees with training, tools and further resources for better mental health. This campaign supplements existing counseling and coaching services, which are offered, for example, to all permanent, temporary and hourly-paid employees at Idorsia’s headquarters in Switzerland, with support services in other countries varying.
Idorsia puts safety first
All new Idorsia employees attend a health and safety introduction which include elements such as basic safety information, policies, duties, fire evacuation, and first aid. In addition, new employees working in laboratories undergo both theoretical and practical training which includes topics such as proper, usage of Personal Protective Equipment, fit testing of masks, storage of chemicals, safety rules for working in laboratories, procedures in case of a lab accident, and other key topics.
Internal audits in occupational health and safety are performed in all research laboratories. For each field of occupational safety (e.g., chemical, biological and radiation safety), we provide comprehensive trainings and instructions, especially for new employees. In addition, eye washing, fire extinguisher, and spill kit trainings are performed for employees working in the laboratories.
Annual protective suit training and fire-extinguishing training is also provided for laboratory and research employees and annual workshop safety training for site management departments. Regular training sessions are conducted in the areas of biosafety, radiation protection and laser protection as well as CPR and AED courses which are provided to employees at headquarters by Idorsia’s first aid team.