"Protection and Security at Work". It sounds like something that, as an employer, you are obliged to do and as an employee you "must tick". In reality, it is a complex problem and one that has managed to bring a nice business to a team that has performed in this field, working with strong international brands that really want to take care of their employees... not just on paper. Find out what trends are in the field, how the people from Eurofin Consult have built a beautiful business, but also what challenges they face, in the interview below.
Everything started from scratch, with a few thousand euros from my own savings and a rented space. At the time, in 2005, most occupational health and safety consultants had their desk… in their bag. The two young men, former college classmates at the time, quickly distinguished themselves from the competition because they had a headquarters, personal cars and all the necessary equipment for an office space. In the first year of existence, the two associates put their savings to the test in courses and conference participation in western and northern Europe. For example, for a course organized in Helsinki at that time they paid almost 2,000 euros.
Who are the founders?
Daniel Milicescu and Răzvan Chiru are the founders of the project, former fellow students and graduates of the Faculty of Psychology (2002). After finishing the faculty they had several entrepreneurial projects developed separately and of short duration.
Later, they intuited that the field of OSH (Occupational Safety and Health - nr), one close to the completed studies, represents a business opportunity and that through the acquired skills they will make a difference in the market. The basic idea was born at a table with friends, also entrepreneurs, who were discussing their daily experiences in the relationship with the state authorities. At one point, one of them began to tell about an ITM check, which ended with a fine due to the fact that he only had the training sheets in the field of labor protection. At that time, the value of completing the forms was 2 million lei/month (200 lei) x 7 entrepreneurs (present at that table) = 1,400 lei/month. This was the simple math done by Daniel, which was one of the arguments to establish a company in this field, along with the knowledge already acquired in college, labor protection being a field related to organizational psychology.
Romania's entry into the EU, a challenge for industry and entrepreneurs
In 2007, with the integration of Romania into the EU, they needed the certifications required by the new legislation. In addition, they completed their postgraduate courses at the Technical University of Iasi, the only educational institution at the time that organized such courses. The first employee came after a year of sustained efforts, therefore, especially in the area of personnel training and obtaining all the necessary approvals for carrying out the activity. From there, things started to grow progressively.
In total, so far they have invested 300,000 euros, of which 150,000 come from European funds and the rest from their own funds. In 2017 they had a turnover of 340,000 euros and for this year they estimate an increase of 20%. The estimate is based on the plans to develop services such as e-learning and on the higher volume of requests from companies compared to last year.
Eurofin Consult's services are extremely varied and cover, from legal compliance in the field of occupational health and safety (OSH) and emergency situations (SU), face-to-face or e-learning training, checking the quality of the micro-climate – ( noise, light intensity, noxes, etc.), checking of detection, alarm and fire extinguishing systems, of electrical installations, known to everyone as the PRAM check, up to site OSH coordination, environmental consultancy or wellness – physical therapy and ergonomics.
E-learning training and the wellness service are two of the services that are increasingly requested by companies, considering the fact that Romania is slowly borrowing from the best practices in this field from countries that have implemented long-term consistent policies related to employee welfare.
How many customers are from Romania?
90% among the clients in the Eurofin Consult portfolio are active throughout Romania. The presence is mainly focused on the poles of economic development, respectively, the municipality of Bucharest, Brașov, Constanța, Timișoara, Cluj and Iași.
Most of the companies that use Eurofin's services mainly come from real estate, IT and services, the entrepreneurs say for wall-street.ro. In total, they have trained more than 45,000 people and worked with more than 500 clients nationally and internationally. It covers the most varied industries, from IT&C, retail, oil&gas, to real estate, automotive.
If at the beginning we could talk about a higher interest of multinationals towards the safety culture, in recent years Romanian entrepreneurs have also shown an increased interest, to the same extent. It is certain that both already recognize the importance of collaborating with an OSH specialist and the requirements related to the quality of the trainings and their relevance for the business are increasingly high.
What exactly are these companies most interested in?
Most of the requested service requests are related to legal compliance and ITM inspection assistance and accident investigations. These include the preparation of the documentation required by the legislation, the periodic OSH training, the representation of clients in the relationship with the state institutions or the preparation of the research file in the case of work accidents.
In addition to the traditional approach to labor protection, which means that mandatory package of documents, with filling in forms, online trainings and the wellness service are enjoying increasing attention from companies. Everything, in the context in which the concept of well-being at work in Romania, as a new approach to work, is taking shape.
This new approach, as a first step, includes personalized and highly effective assessments such as assessment of stress level, assessment of work style, assessment of leadership style or level of aggressiveness in traffic (valid for drivers), etc. These evaluations are carried out with psychological instruments calibrated on the Romanian population.
All these evaluations have the role of identifying the needs of the employees so that the well-being program has an ROI (return of investment - no). So, without an initial assessment, any well-being program, which may include, for example, financial education in the sense of self-management of employee income in a long-term sustainable manner, career counseling or psychological counseling, will be doomed failure and will do nothing to help the business thrive.
"I remember that last year, when we started implementing the physiotherapy service within a company, we were greeted with reservations. In the first sessions, the participation rate was extremely low. This year in August, when the program was interrupted due to holidays, employees were asking when it would resume. People have generally gone through enough good programs just to tick off attendance, and a training related to OSH, occupational safety or well-being sounds dry and "paperwork". The attitude of employees changes when they witness a quality program that fully meets their needs. Over time, the employee's level of well-being will be directly reflected in his day-to-day involvement and productivity," says Daniel Milicescu.
How is the occupational safety & security market evolving?
From their point of view, the occupational health and safety (OSH) market in Romania has started to move out of the primitive area of paper production and signing forms. "That's why our role in this field is more important than ever. We are on a mission to show that workplace safety is a national issue that should concern us all, equally and with equal responsibility. Also, consultants in the field must learn "business" to translate the ROI of OSH activities into figures, an extremely important aspect, alongside the well-known social component of the activity, which involves training, for example, what care against the health and safety of employees", says Daniel.
In general, entrepreneurs who turn to Eurofin Consult are those who borrow from good practices borrowed from successful business models developed beyond the country's borders, where everyone understands that occupational diseases or accidents at work have a significant impact on business but also on Romania's economy as a whole.
In fact, the most recent study developed by Eurofin demonstrated in numbers that the impact on Romania's economy due to work accidents is at least 11.5 million euros annually.
