We prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce to ensure safe and reliable delivery of medicines.
Together we strive for a working environment and organisational culture, where we as a company proactively support our employees to thrive both physically and mentally, and live their life to the fullest.
We offer a healthy and engaging workplace, supported by a comprehensive Health and Safety programme. To this end, we have implemented our Health and Safety management system across our entire global organisation to ensure such conditions for all employees and contractors.
“By maintaining a strong focus on health, safety, and employee well-being, we enable high efficiency, reliable quality, and stability in production, which is exactly what allows us to serve more people around the world.”
- Mike Doustdar, President & CEO
Our corporate values, the Novo Nordisk Way, with Essential no. 8 “We have a healthy and engaging working environment”, clearly states that health and safety is a key priority. Our Global Health and Safety policy covers physical and psychological safety, occupational health and health promotion, with a strong focus on prevention, continuous improvement and regulatory compliance.
We strive to uphold a safe working environment and promote the health of our people. This means that we:
- Operate by high Health and Safety standards throughout the world
- Promote a healthy lifestyle
- Ensure our employees are involved in how we maintain and improve health and safety
- Hold our employees accountable for their actions regarding workplace safety
- Ensure that the working environment is not compromised for economic or productivity reasons
- Fulfil applicable legal requirements
- Follow relevant international conventions.
The Health and Safety policy is governed and implemented through our global Health and Safety management system, which is described in a global procedure for all leaders and health and safety professionals. The management system defines that health and safety of our employees is a managerial responsibility. The procedure contains specific Health and Safety requirements regarding e.g., risk assessments and emergency procedures and preparedness. The global procedure outlines requirements for a range of Health and Safety aspects e.g. chemical and biological hazards, noise, ergonomics, machine safety and psycho-social wellbeing. The global procedure is supported by local instructions, requirements and dedicated training of managers and Health and Safety staff as well as annual basic Health and Safety training of all employees globally. All production facilities are ISO 45001 certified with acquired sites being certified within a three year period and subject to regular internal and external audits. Leaders and employees are accountable, and safety is never compromised for cost or productivity. Health and safety principles are also embedded in expansion projects and construction sites, ensuring safe conditions throughout the value chain.
Every year, an organisational bottom-up management review is conducted with the Novo Nordisk Executive Management team as the governing body.
The Health and Safety management system ensures that we involve our own workforce, including Health and Safety representatives, in target setting, performance tracking and when identifying lessons learned. Insights from the annual employee engagement survey, Evolve, and reporting of safety incidents inform our target setting.
Integration of Health and Safety standards into acquired sites is ongoing, with full integration expected by 2027. One new site underwent internal health and safety audit, with remaining new sites scheduled for 2026–2027.
Our Health and Safety strategy revolves around making continuous improvements. Through a global partnering approach, all business areas commit to specific targets and initiatives for identified Health and Safety challenges, based on the annual management review process and Health and Safety performance.
The strategy is implemented in a partnering approach, with all business areas and aims to involve, inspire, and enable managers and employees to make sure that our people leave work every day as mentally healthy and physically fit as when they arrived. We want everyone in Novo Nordisk to act on the safety, physical and mental health and well-being of themselves and their colleagues.
To measure progress against our local and global Health and Safety initiatives, we have set targets applicable across our global operations (excluding NNE) to reduce and prevent accidents from occurring.
The Health and Safety strategy drives improvements on our three focus areas and targets for safety, mental health and well-being, and physical well-being/ergonomics, illustrated in the list below:
Novo Nordisk target: ≥80% of potentially life-threatening or life-changing incidents undergo systematic problem-solving
In 2025, the LTIR remained stable at 1.2 lost time injuries per million hours worked (ppm), even though the number of recordable work-related lost time injuries increased by 5%. The reason for the LTIR remaining stable is that the number of work-related lost time injuries was counteracted by average FTE also increasing in 2025 compared to 2024. The increase in number of work-related injuries reflects the continued production expansion and workforce growth prior to the transformation in September. Immediate corrective actions were launched following each injury.
We have determined that our stable rate of LTIR is satisfactory following a benchmark against peers. As a result, we discontinued the year-on-year 10% improvement target for Lost Time Injury Rate (LTIR) in 2025. We will, however, continue to monitor LTIR.
Instead, we sharpened our focus on preventing high-risk incidents, specifically those with Potential Serious Injuries and Fatalities (PSIF) and Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIF). We are prioritising the identification, investigation and systematic prevention of PSIF/SIF. Formal performance monitoring against the new target will be initiated in 2026. To raise awareness and strengthen capabilities, we conducted intensive, targeted awareness training for key personnel and shared incident examples on a monthly basis.
Read more about how we work with mental health and well-being
EVP area target: 5% annual improvement of employees reporting work-related pain.
To improve physical well-being, we set targets to reduce the number of employees reporting work-related pain by 5% year on year. Progress is measured by a question asking for symptoms of work-related physical pain, in the annual employee engagement survey, Evolve.
Reported symptoms of work-related physical pain decreased 4.2% (6.8% in 2024 compared to 7.1% in 2023), hence the target of 5% annual improvement has not been met. Monitoring occurs on an ongoing basis and is reported annually. A global delivery model offering support by specialist is offered for areas with high levels of employees with work-related pain. The offer involves risk assessment in relation to physical working environment with focus on ergonomics, to support business units to identify and systematically address root causes. Further, interventions in Denmark and competency building of local Health and Safety resources in work-related pain at global production sites have been conducted.
Since 2015, we have had requirements for manual lifting of loads, at a maximum load of lifting at 15kg. Similarly global guidance for preventing repetitive and monotonous work is implemented.
The employee health promotion programme is adapted by local ambassadors, its content is co-created by employees across the organisation and the programme is built upon six pillars to help health promotion and prevention amongst Novo Nordisk employees globally:
1. Physical activity
We believe that regular physical activity can help our employees improve physical fitness and counterbalance the negative effects of an inactive lifestyle.
Moreover, physical activity provides social interaction and the opportunity to be involved in the community. We support and enable employees in being physically active during working hours.
Goal : all employees have opportunities to exercise.
2. Individual mental health and well-being
We believe that positive mental health enable people’s ability to realize their full potential, cope with the normal stressors of life and work productively and fruitfully.
Therefore, we support and enable employees to live a balanced life and maintain or develop positive mental health by offering information and opportunities to apply various individual and social coping techniques.
Goal : all employees can access knowledge and tools to act on their mental well-being.
3. Nicotine cessation
We believe that nicotine cessation can considerably improve your health and prevent chronic diseases.
Moreover, it may increase your life expectancy. We support and enable employees who want to quit nicotine.
Goal : all employees have support options to quit nicotine.
4. Healthy eating
We believe that healthy eating, regular meals during the day, and proper hydration are all important in maintaining stable energy levels throughout the day and in supporting our employees’ daily activity levels and goals.
We support and enable employees in eating healthy.
Goal : all employees have information and access to healthy food, so the healthy choice is the easy choice.
5. Health checks
We believe that health checks motivate our employees to gain insight into their own health and to act upon it.
We support and enable employees in attending health checks during working hours at least every second year.
Goal : all employees have access to free health checks and guidance on how to act on their health.
6. Weight management
We believe that reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is important for overall health and can help you prevent life-style and chronic diseases.
Moreover, we believe that a healthy environment makes it easier (and more sustainable) to manage your weight.
Goal : employees have access to weight management support options.
The percentage of employees in Novo Nordisk's own workforce who are covered by our health and safety management system based on legal requirements and/or recognised standards or guidelines is defined as the number of employees covered by health and safety management systems (headcount) divided by all employees (headcount).
Total number of work-related incidents causing absence for one full day or more, in addition to the day of incident. Absence is considered as calendar days.
Work-related injuries resulting in the death of an employee or other workers working on a Novo Nordisk site. All employees (headcount), permanent, temporary and non-guaranteed hours, have been included in this metric.
Rate of recordable work-related injuries for our own workforce, measured in work-related injuries per million hours worked, also referred to as the lost-time accident frequency (LTAF). Contractors, visitors, employees on unpaid leave, interns and Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis students are not included. The number of hours worked is based on 2,000 working hours annually per full-time equivalent and the monthly records of number of employees converted into full-time equivalents to calculate FTE average for the year. Fatalities as a result of work-related lost time injuries Work-related injuries resulting in the death of an employee or other workers working on a Novo Nordisk site. All employees (headcount), permanent, temporary and non-guaranteed hours, have been included in this metric.
Reported via the annual employee survey Evolve. In 2025, the scope of the survey was extended to a few Catalent entities acquired in late 2024. In the survey, stress is defined as a situation where the employee feels tense, restless, nervous or troubled, or unable to sleep at night due to thoughts about their problems. Regarding symptoms of physical pain, the survey asks if an employee's work generally causes them physical pain. The two relative targets of improving mental and physical wellbeing are measured as the percentage of employees responding 'Quite much' or 'Very much' for mental wellbeing or 'Unfavourable' to the statement related to physical pain.