GETTING THROUGH THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The health and safety of employees is one of ArcelorMittal’s core values and one we have reported on many times over the years. Being a worldwide organisation, by the time the Coronavirus started to threaten the UK, ArcelorMittal Sheffield were already implementing protection measures based on the experience of other ArcelorMittal Group companies.

“For weeks, we have been assessing the impact COVID-19 could have on the health of our employees and the associated risks to our business” started CEO Tony Hinchliffe. “One of the first tasks we completed was a full risk assessment of our teams, taking into account age and pre-existing medical conditions to identify which of our employees would theoretically be most at risk if they contracted the virus to put plans in place to protect them”.

Home working was put in place straight away for those identified as being able to do so and for other staff left on site, strict procedures were introduced. These included new routines for individual hygiene, shared working area hygiene, shared communal area hygiene, general site hygiene, daily body temperature checks, segregation of shifts, 2m safe working distance enforcement, and communal area maximum number limits.

“We also restricted all non- essential visits to our site and instructed our sales team to cease routine visits to customers” Tony explained. “A visitor to site is classed as anybody that is not a direct ArcelorMittal employee so this includes contractors, delivery drivers, suppliers etc. Anybody that comes to site is subject to the same temperature checks and hygiene routines as our own employees”.

As the pandemic has progressed, ArcelorMittal has taken extra steps to reduce the number of people on site and are now operating with only approx 50% of the normal staff levels on site.

“Let there be no doubt that the health and safety of our team is, and will remain, our number one priority. But in addition to protecting our health and safety, we also have a huge responsibility to manage our business through this crisis to ensure we have a sustainable business once this virus passes and the world can return to normal” commented Tony.

“This is a big challenge but we are in a strong position to be able to weather the COVID-19 storm. The extra storage capacity we installed last year enables us to keep good healthy stocks of finished productthat is there ready to go when our customers need it. The situation is so fluid at the moment that every day is different. Over the last week we have actually seen a significantuplift in business as the weather is finally being kinder to the fencing community”.

Being part of the ArcelorMittal Group with upstream raw material supplies, ArcelorMittal Sheffield have a business model that gives them access to raw materials at short notice, allowing them to react quickly to market changes and demands.

“The IT infrastructure we have in place is allowing all but a few of our office based staff to work from home whilst still offering

our customers the service they need from us in these challenging times. It’s not an ideal or preferred situation, but we are flexible and committed to making it work”.

Tony concluded, “we are doing what we can to protect our team by ensuring those that can work from home are doing so, and by ensuring strict procedures and controls in the work place for those who cannot. Our health and safety culture is built on a “take care” philosophy whereby we pledge to take care of each other. This is still in the case in these unusual times and we will always be what guides us”.

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