Royal IHC Merwede 2018-2020 GOLD


Royal IHC developed an integral strategy and practice on health management and quality that meets the GOLD standard of IHMQ. And is managed and implemented as the shared responsibility of management, employees, works council and staff.

Royal IHC is a golden organization. Operating in a high-risk sector, Royal IHC has the mindset on safety and health first. The vision and ambition are translated into daily
practice, with support to management, supervisors and employees.
In various statements management representatives very clearly show a credible commitment to acknowledging the role of integrated health management and quality
as part of both corporate policies and strategies and business routines. This was also mirrored and confirmed by further explanations made by various professionals
from SHEQ, HR, plant management as well as members of the workers council and individual employees. These commitments indicate a high level of employee
engagement and involvement.
The organisation practices a solid people management system based on regular employee survey routines in combination with PMO procedures. The business units can
plan their individual approach to process the results and organizing the continuous improvement process.
The production management system encourages and supports the implementation of the concept of self-learning teams in the framework of lean-management.
The audit team noticed a number of improvements in relation to the results of the previous assessment. In particular, the company management invested in the
improvement of the working environment. The shared responsibility for health issues (SHEQ and HR/training & development) seems to encourage and facilitate a
further improvement in respect to the level of integration of health issues in corporate policies and practices.

Tamara Raaijmakers, Alexander Stölze, Paul Baart, Gregor Breucker
Clear health and safety policies and procedures are established and form the basis for enlarging the focus of the organisation to include explicit and defined health
issues and priorities.
Given the strong and dominating production focus of the organisational culture it is evident that health issues can only be incorporated in a mid-term development
process. The respective necessary processes are in place (employee survey and PMO system) and also allow for identifying health issues such as obesity and
overweight, physical exercise and stress management.
To maintain a golden standard on integrated health management, we underline that Royal IHC must stay keen on bringing the risks to employees and hired staff on
health and safety to a minimum.
The proud and craftsmanship felt in the organization, can be part of showing the world that the technology innovations made by Royal IHC are made in a safe and
healthy way.