Pfizer's commitment to ensuring every individual lives the healthiest life possible goes beyond health care. Our actively caring approach focuses on keeping our colleagues and collaborators healthy and safe so that they remain engaged and productive.
Our DriverCARE initiative exemplifies how we have applied the actively caring philosophy to improve driver safety for our U.S. field force (almost 4,700 colleagues). In late 2017, recognizing that the collision rate remained about average for a sales fleet and lagged our pharmaceutical peers even though we had a formal fleet safety program in place for a number of years, we established an enhanced engagement plan. Propelled through active sponsorship by senior sales leaders, we set out to reduce driving-related injuries by investing in vehicle safety technology, improving communications and enhancing relationships. We established a Driver Safety Council comprised of leaders from our sales organizations to set the direction for the program and formed a network of over 50 DriverCARE Ambassadors and Champions to serve as a communication conduit between drivers and the Council, share performance metrics and provide information and advice to raise awareness of distracted driving hazards, causes and remedies.
“Our DriverCARE colleagues are truly invested in achieving our goal,” says Valerie Orsi, Internal Medicine District Business Manager, Pfizer. “A recent example of their work was an Avoiding Distracted Driving Campaign. Among other things, this educated drivers on what even a momentary distraction can do, breaking unsafe habits that can cause a distraction and reinforcing the need to prepare for safety.”
The success of the program is evidenced by a greater than 40% reduction in both the frequency and severity of collision-related recordable injuries in the U.S. market in its first full year of implementation. More importantly, we have found enthusiastic road safety advocates in the field force who are passionate about contributing to a risk reduction cause they believe is important. Nick Lagunowich, Regional President, Internal Medicine, North America, Pfizer, echoed these thoughts, summing up the program’s place in Pfizer’s purpose and Bold Moves: “Unleashing the power of our people depends on our colleagues arriving home safe every night. Whatever the email or text message, it can wait.”
With the DriverCARE initiative, we are committed to supporting the goal of having the safest, most productive field force in the U.S., by eliminating distracted and impaired driving. Our year-to-date data show we have lowered the rate of collisions, and also lowered the rate of collisions deemed preventable. The work of our DriverCARE Ambassadors has helped influence and change the mindset and behaviors of our drivers. Through the DriverCARE program, we will continue to motivate, inspire and encourage drivers to continually put safety first when driving.
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