Sustainability
Labour
People are the foundation of our business.
We care for our employees and recognise that having good staff relations and a motivated workforce are crucial to our success. They are our partners in delivering and maintaining products and services of the highest quality standards to our customers.
We support life-long learning and development of our people via yearly training and development programmes. We also place importance on the safety and well-being of employees, and we are committed to providing and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.
Respect of labour and human rights
Dufu is committed to uphold the human rights of workers, and to treat them with dignity and respect as understood by the international community with Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and Occupational Health and Safety Management System ISO 45001 as the recognised standards. We aim to:
Attain
the highest standard of employment practice in compliance with the enacted laws.
Uphold
the culture and principles of equal opportunities in employment.
Create
a working environment where every member of our team is treated fairly and without fear of reprisal, intimidation or harassment.
We are committed to respecting the labour and human rights of all our staff through the following principles.
FREELY CHOSEN EMPLOYMENT
We do not use forced, bonded (including debt bondage), indentured or involuntary prison labour. Neither, do we exploit persons working for us by means of slavery or trafficking by means of threat, coercion or fraud. At Dufu, our terms of employment are voluntary and workers are free to leave anytime or terminate their employment upon reasonable notice under the terms of their labour contracts. We only hire foreign workers with legal work permits and they have free access to their passports at all times with accommodation provided.
YOUNG WORKERS
Child labour is not to be used in any stage of business processes as we strictly adhere to the various restrictions on the employment of child labour imposed by both the local and international regulations.
WORKING HOURS
Workweeks are not to exceed the maximum set by local law. We encourage reasonable work hours, including overtime, except in emergency or unusual situations. However, overtime is voluntary and employees are paid in accordance with statutory order.
WAGES AND BENEFITS
Compensation and benefits paid to employees shall comply with all applicable wage laws, including those relating to minimum wages, overtime hours and legally mandated benefits. We do not impose wage deduction as a disciplinary measure.
HUMANE TREATMENT
Across our organisation, we have embedded a culture of no harsh and inhumane treatment including any sexual harassment, sexual abuse, corporal punishment, mental or physical coercion or verbal abuse of workers; nor is there to be the threat of any such treatment. We have put in place clearly defined disciplinary policies and procedures in support of these requirements with multiple communication channels broadcast to all level of employees to ensure effective implementation throughout the Group.
NON-DISCRIMINATION
Dufu embraces a workforce free of harassment and unlawful discrimination such as race, colour, age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, pregnancy, religion, political affiliation, union membership or marital status in hiring and employment practices such as promotions, rewards, and access to training. Hiring and remuneration is determined with reference to job related factors such as performance, qualifications and experience. In addition, employees are not subjected to medical tests that could be used in a discriminatory way. We accommodate workers religious practices disregarding their race and religion as we understand and respect each individual’s faith by taking extra steps to provide space, time, and flexibility to allow employees to meet their religious obligations.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
We respect the rights of workers to associate freely, seek representation, and join workers’ councils in accordance with local laws. We adopt open communication and direct engagement between workers and Management as we believe they are the most effective ways to resolve workplace and compensation issues. Our doors are always open for employees to communicate and share grievances with Management regarding working conditions and Management practices without fear of reprisal, intimidation or harassment.
A safe and healthy work environment
We invest in the health, safety, and wellness of our employees and our system and processes are modelled on the internationally recognized ISO 45001 standard. Through this process, we have improved our methods for identifying hazards, assessing risk, and applying risk controls consistently across our operations.
A safe and healthy work environment also includes creating a workplace that our employees can call their second home.
Dufu is an inclusive workplace that makes diverse employees feel valued, welcomed, integrated and included as part of our family.
Enhancing local hiring practices
In order to increase our local workforce, we started to enhance our hiring practices in the beginning of 2019 as to improve our ability to attract, recruit, develop, engage and retain local talent. At the beginning of 2019, we have 38% local workforce from 789 employees in Malaysia. We have improved this ratio since then. As at 31 December 2019, the composition of local workforce has increased to 47%. With 930 employees now, this translate into a net addition of 141 workforce with 98% incremental recruitment coming from local workers.
Percentage of local workforce
98
incremental recruitment of local workers
It’s a challenge on the hunt for local labour.
Knowing well that in Penang, the market faces scarcity of labour force, we put lots of efforts to attract and retain local talents to work in Dufu. This involves evolving our hiring processes.
We improved the job interview cycle and shortened its waiting time. We encourage interactivity during interview session. We adopt lean recruitment practices which made the application process smoother and resulted in a more positive experience for the job applicant.
We also intensified inroad local sourcing through career fairs and open interviews held in the northern region throughout 2019. We conducted “New Hire” and “Leaver” survey and analysed behaviours of new employees and employees who either didn’t turn up or quit after a short employment with us.
20 career fairs in 2019
We were engaged in close to 20 career fairs in 2019 targeting potential employees in the northern region.
”Employees are our greatest asset and strong workforce is the key sustainability manner in supporting business growth. Dependent on foreign direct workers is a common sight in the industry we are operating. The grassroot of having a strong workforce starts with nurturing local labour force. In alignment with Malaysia's government initiatives to promote employment for local labour, we started to review our hiring process and established plan to attract more local talent to work in Dufu. Today, I am glad the effort has helped us to improve and attained higher local labour force in our workforce composition.
Yeoh Beng HooiGroup CEO
When you improve, we grow too.
We are strongly driven by values and our people, who are at the centre of everything we do.
This is the reason fostering personal and professional growth is of utmost importance to us. This also includes collaborating with higher institutions of learning to help create career-ready graduates. Together, we can create positive returns for the economy and society.
