Employee Safety, Health & Well-being

F&NHB strictly adheres to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) guidelines, Thailand’s Labour Protection Act, and Malaysia Employment Act 1955. The guidelines and legal requirements of these policies have been extended in our internal Environmental Safety and Health policy as a signal to our employees about F&N’s commitment to creating a safety culture for all.

At F&N, Safety is integrated across our operations through the implementation of Environmental, Safety, and Health Systems (ESH) and monitoring processes. Our adhesion to international standards, such as ISO 45001 at our major site demonstrates that our safety practices extend beyond compliance with national regulations. All employees, workers, and activities are covered by our ESH systems, and all workers receive adequate training and safety equipment wherever appropriate.

The Board has the overall responsibility for sustainability and incorporates ESG issues in the formulation of F&N Group’s strategy. Hence, they have ultimate oversight of all sustainability issues, including Employee Health, Safety, and Well-being.

At operations level, every plant has its own Safety Committee, while Safety and Health Committees have been set up at the corporate office and regional sales offices. We also have our Health Risk Assessment Committee comprising skilled personnel trained to comprehensively evaluate areas where employees and workers may be exposed to health risks.

Employees are encouraged to report any potential risks or hazards. They can do this by informing their safety representative or supervisor, or report through a formal channel to our safety committees with the option to remain anonymous. On ground, we have Company Emergency Response Teams (CERT) who are trained to mobilise quickly should any incidents occur.

Our safety trainings and awareness remained effective with over 1,600 employees participating in over 8,500 hours of safety trainings in Malaysia and Thailand. Topics covered in FY2023 included:

• Safety, Health & Environmental Awareness
• Warehouse Safety Management
• Occupational Disease & Syndrome
• Fire Prevention & Safety
• Safety at Work & First Aid
• Radiation Safety & Health

We don’t focus only on safety, but also on measures that foster the health & well-being of our employees:

• Flexi working hours – office staff can choose to clock in anytime between 7.30am and 9.00am so long as they put in nine hours a day.
• Working from home –  we have 2 days work from home arrangements for most employees (except for those frontline employees from Production, Sales, and Logistics) in Malaysia
• Breast-lactation facilities – we have breast-lactation facilities at our offices
• Option for new mums to take an additional 30 days of maternity leave above the statutory 60 days in Malaysia and 90 days in Thailand – should they need to do so.
• Two days’ paternity leave for new dads, although paternity leave is not mandated by law.
• Workplace stress management – various talks and seminars are organised to help employees in managing workplace stress
• Sports & health initiatives – flexi benefit scheme offered to employees including dental, health screening, Traditional Complementary Medicine, optical, insurance premium, medical outpatient, fitness centre subscription, and healthy lifestyle. Gym facilities are also available at some of the offices and factories.

We have also extended the Group Hospitalisation & Surgical Insurance to cover employees’ spouse and/or children, with 50% subsidy.

We achieved 0 LTIFR in FY2023. We remain focused on achieving a zero-accident workplace.

There was one fatality in FY2020 when a company van transporting employees to the Rojana plant, Thailand, was involved in an unfortunate accident. We have stepped up our measures to check and review our transport vendors regularly to strengthen the road safety practice of our transport vendors.