We work continuously to avoid work-related illnesses and injuries, and track the development through a corporate reporting tool. Guidelines for assessing risks in the work environment are used by the business areas to help map and evaluate Hydro's work environment.
Registered sick leave in Hydro was 3.1 percent in 2011, down from 3.3 percent in 2010. The rules for sick-leave registration differ from country to country. Hydro's sick leave in Norway is significantly higher than in the rest of the company, on average, but relatively low compared to the average rate in Norwegian industry. Sick leave in Norway was 4.4 percent in 2011, the same as in the previous year. Men's sick leave was 4.1 percent, slightly below the 2010 level of 4.2 percent, while women's sick leave increased from 5.5 percent in 2010 to 5.7 percent in 2011. Starting in 2012, we will be introducing a new sick-leave indicator that will be comparable across country borders.
Our TRI rate (total recordable injuries per million hours worked) was 3.8 in 2011, which was an increase of 2 percent compared to the previous year. Our target was a 28 percent decrease. We had three fatal accidents in our consolidated operations, and an accident with two fatalities in one of our minority-owned activities. Even though our safety results are among the best in industry, we are far from satisfied. In 2012 we are aiming at a 25 percent reduction in the TRI rate to 2.85 with no fatal accidents.
We have initiated several measures to improve performance. These include a common, company-wide high-risk incident investigation and communication tool, which will be implemented in 2012, and we have defined man/machine interface, traffic and contractors as priorities for 2011 and 2012, and we are updating our safety risk-assessment handbook.
