A second company, City Couriers, has joined hands with the Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) and Corridor Empowerment Project (CEP) Fleet Owner Workplace Programme.
The aim of the programme is to assist fleet owners in taking a holistic approach to employee health and wellness, based on a proven model.City Couriers is a logistics solutions provider with a nationwide and cross border footprint that operates more than 250 vehicles. The Fleet Owner Workplace Programme is an extension of the MBSA workplace wellness strategy that has entrenched the health of the company’s employees for over a decade, adding to the company’s ability to achieve profitable growth and contribute to the socio-economic success of the country.
Dr. Clifford Panter, manager for Health, Safety, Compensation and Benefits at MBSA states, “Our drive for excellence translates into benchmark achievements in the field of occupational health and safety. However, pockets of excellence can never be sustainable, so for more than two decades now we have made it a mission to share the lessons we have learned around employee health management with businesses and communities around us. This is based on our first-hand experience of the benefits of a healthy workforce to the sustainability of our business.”
The concept for the Fleet Owner Workplace Programme came about as a result of MBSA’s involvement in the Trucking Wellness project, an initiative of the National Bargaining Council of the Road Freight and Logistics Industry (NBCRFLI) which provides an education and basic health care service to truck drivers along the major freight routes in southern Africa. This includes dissemination of information, testing and treatment of HIV and AIDS and other lifestyle illnesses.