Intro

A good occupational health and safety policy reduces health risks in the company, reduces absenteeism due to illness, and promotes reintegration after an illness.

Employers are obliged to ensure that their employees are able to work safely and healthily. The degree of protection they must provide is laid down by the government in the Working Conditions Act, the Working Conditions Decree, and the Working Conditions Regulation. In order to comply accurately with these laws, each company must implement a concrete occupational health and safety policy.

The Prevention Officer

The prevention officer is accountable for tackling all the risks in the office and reducing them. And they can give advice about working conditions. Developing and implementing a Risk Assessment & Evaluation, also known in Dutch as RI&E is also an important task.

The current Prevention Officers are the writers of this document. Do you have any questions, please get in contact with them.

Risk Inventory and Evaluation (RI&E)

We are obligated to draw up an annual Risk Inventory and Evaluation (RI&E), and since 2015 we are also obliged to get them checked by a health and safety expert. For this reason, we have created a position in Glassfrog for someone to take on this responsibility: the Prevention Officer.

2022

In 2022 Goed.co was in both our offices for an Risk, Inventory and Evaluation (RI&E). The plan is up to date and has been approved. In 2023 the Prevention Officers will use the new template to perform the RI&E again. If you want to know more about the results, you can find the report on Google Drive.

2019

In 2019 ArboNed was in our office for a Risk Inventory and Evaluation. October 2019 we received the official rapport (in Dutch) which can be found in Google Drive.

A RI&E is actually two things: a LIST of all health and safety risks involved in our business and a PLAN for their solution. These two things will help us reduce the risks to us and our business. Which means that we will reduce our financial risks too.

• Physical risks /ergonomics Lifting, using force, working in an uncomfortable position, standing for long periods, VDU work, vibrations
• Psychosocial risks Emotionally difficult work, workload, stress, dealing with aggressive behavior at work, irregular working times
• Safety risks / environmental risks Risk of falling, danger of cuts, danger of collision, hazardous substances, radiation, working in hot or cold environments, noise

The RI&E is the foundation for our working conditions policy. We can only implement the right measures if we are aware of where the risks are in our company and what their potential impact could be. The RI&E will help us become thoroughly aware of what we need to do and how we all should do it. The Action Plan will guide you step-by-step.

Counselor, Social Work and Health Service

When you are confronted with any form of inappropriate behavior at work, such as bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, or aggression then you can contact the Counselor / Vertrouwenspersoon. Several colleagues have the role, and you can turn to an external counselor.

We have a contract with an external health service (Arbodienst) called ArboNed. This includes consultation, preventative/open consultation, and social work.

Emergency Response Team (BHV)

Within our organization, several colleagues have been trained as emergency response team members (BHV-ers). They follow a refresher course every year so they can continue sticking on your patch in the right way and safely evacuate the building. Are you new to our organization? Then quickly take a look at Glassfrog to see who is in the emergency response team! You can read the BHV plan right here.

Your health is our concern

We consider health important and would like to help you with this. That’s why we arranged some cool things for everyone:

• An awesome company bike to come to the office daily
• An unlimited sports and wellness subscription
• An hour of lunchtime in which we enjoy a delicious provided lunch, for free
• Fresh fruit and nuts every day
• A workplace that you can arrange the way you like it
• A 💺Chair Massage by a professional therapist every month

Preventive Care

On the ☯️Preventive Care you will find some information about preventive care. Like workplace ergonomics, but also information about dealing with loss. Disclaimer, this is a general text, and reading this does not replace visiting a doctor.

Alcohol, drugs and medication (ADM)

We have a special section about ⚕️Alcohol, drugs, and medication (ADM).

Happiness - work pressure - feedback

We want you to be happy at work. Not only to be healthy and productive but also because it is just the right thing to do. See also this piece about happiness at work. In September 2017 we conducted the first happiness survey and repeated this in July 2018. Since 2020 we are tracking our happiness on a weekly basis through 💗Friday Pulse (Happiness and culture) . Of course, your answers are anonymous, and analyzing the results is only possible at a team level. Every quarter we take an in-depth look at workplace happiness through a more extended survey. This one is, of course, also anonymous.

Receiving regular feedback on your performance is one of the requirements for a happy work environment. We use a Slack-based tool called where you can easily request and give feedback to your colleagues.

We understand that giving and receiving feedback is not always easy, so there is support available from several roles in the People circle.

Preventive Medical Examination

A Preventive Medical Examination (in Dutch called PMO) is a collection of methods that company doctors use to monitor and promote the health of everyone in our organization. Read more on this on the 🩺Health check information page.

A PMO consists of health research, and activities to protect and improve the health of colleagues if there is a reason to do so.

By carrying out a PMO, the risk factors are investigated, as a result of which Spindle works towards the healthiest possible employment situation. You are not legally obliged to participate in PMO.

The information from a PMO can complement that from the RI&E. Bottlenecks that were not found with the RI&E may come to light again with a PMO, for example in the area of psychological and social burden in the workplace.

In January 2018 we had Simple Check perform a voluntarily Preventive Medical Examination. The synopsis of the 2018 group report and follow-up interventions can be found here.

Workplace- and Monitor Work policy

Source: Dutch arbeidsomstandighedenbesluit and Ministerie Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid.

Every employee who works an average of 2 hours or more per day with a monitor is subject to the ‘beeldschermbesluit’ law. For us this applies to almost everyone.

There is a good reason the government has set out a number of limits and provisions for working with monitors. In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the number of monitor workers with complaints of the wrist, arms, neck, and shoulders.

Given the nature of our work, there is an increased chance that we can get complaints arising from working with screens. This is therefore a good reason to devote serious attention to 'monitor work policy'.

Solid🪑Workplace Ergonomics help.

Monitor equipment

The first requirement is that the office chair, the desk, and the display screen equipment must at least comply with the legal provisions. In principle, this is the case within our org, however, attention should be paid to temporary workplaces. If there is any doubt about this, the prevention officer can be consulted.

Workplace ergonomics

🪑Workplace Ergonomics provides information on how to set up your workspace.

If standard instructions as mentioned above prove to be insufficient or if a serious pattern of symptoms develops, the prevention officer or the person with the absenteeism support role will call in an external expert (e.g. the current massage therapist, or an ergo or physiotherapist) for a specific workplace examination. Such a workplace examination may also be carried out on the instructions of the company doctor or occupational health and safety expert. A copy of the report of a workplace survey shall be sent to the employee concerned and to the prevention officer.

Visual problems

If you experience visual complaints during the monitor work, it is wise to have your eyes checked. During this eye examination, a distinction is made between: "normal" and "monitor" spectacles. In the case of 'monitor glasses', these can be purchased (up to a maximum of 200 euros) at the company’s expense. The company will pay this fee if your own insurance is insufficient. In other words: you first declare yourself under your own insurance policy, and any difference will be paid by the company up to a maximum of 200 euros.

How to?

Create a declaration in Nmbrs and add 2 attachments: the invoice for the glasses and a print screen of the payment from your own health insurer. You can often find this in the personal online environment of your insurer.

Other (monitor) aids

Do you have (starting) symptoms and do you think you need extra tools? You can submit a substantiated request to the prevention officer for certain screen aids. This can be thought of: footrest, anatomical mouse,  special keyboard etc.

The prevention officer assesses the need for purchase and may, if necessary, call on external expertise for this purpose. If the need is confirmed, the device can be ordered via the regular route, for example, ergo2go.nl, health2work.nl

Cable management (order and tidiness)

All cables should be attached to the desk. This means no cables or power outlets should be on the floor at all. Tie-wraps are provided to semi-permanent attach them to the desk. Think about the length of the cable when attaching it to a height-adjustable desk. Keep your desk clean.

Work hours

The purpose of Article 5.10 of the Display Screening Decree is to prevent us from spending the entire working day behind the screen. After two hours of monitor work, there must be a minimum of 10 minutes of interruption. Preferably, this interruption should be filled in with other types of work, such as a meeting, walking to the printer, or get yourself a coffee etc.

Although there is no legal provision about it, recent research has shown that so-called micro-breaks (short but frequent breaks) are very important to prevent complaints resulting from screen work. You can use micro-break software for this (Google).

Workplace - working from home

With our distributed way of working - see ⏱️Asynchronous work - , we spend a lot of time working from home or other locations than our home and the office. This can be super handy and is definitely encouraged. But, there is a but:

We cannot check whether your 'home office' is suitable for long-term work. It is important to us that you think of the risks. Little checklist: is there enough silence/rest at home (f.e. children), is the (sun)light on your screen not disturbing, do you have good workplace ergonomics at home? A good posture prevents complaints on f.e. your wrist, shoulder and back. We refer again to 🪑Workplace Ergonomics