FGV Annual Report 2018

51 REMAINED FOCUSED ON VALUE CREATION 01 02 05 03 07 06 04 08 09 ANNUAL INTEGRATED REPORT 2018 MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS HR PLANNING Manpower Optimisation We embarked on a continuous manpower optimisation exercise with the introduction of Separation Schemes in the fourth quarter of 2018. During the year, we offered Separation Schemes to selected employees with poor health conditions as certified by registered medical practitioners, and employees demonstrating low performance due to their age and an identified lack of motivation. Of 711 employees identified, 667 employees accepted the scheme with a total cost of RM72 million. We expect to gain annual savings of RM25 million from the exercise, which will continue on a staggered basis until the end of the first quarter of 2019. Worker Requirement We employed total workers of 31,853 in 2018, the majority of which comprised foreign guest workers recruited mainly from Bangladesh, India and Indonesia. Following aggressive recruitment measures, we were able to fulfil 100% of our worker requirement for Peninsular Malaysia in the first quarter of the year. However, by the end of the year this reduced to 88% as a number of foreign guest workers absconded or returned to their home countries. As we have utilised nearly 100% of the 12,000 plantation worker quota received in end-2017, our effort continues to fulfil our worker requirement by applying for additional quota from the government. 298 31,853 3.19 Number of Injuries Total Workers Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate 2017: 356 2016: 272 2017: 28,397 2016: 23,096 2017: 3.12 2016: 2.25 For further details on worker shortages and how we manage our foreign guest workers, please refer to Natural Capital and Social & Relationship Capital in this MD&A. HUMAN CAPITAL EMPLOYEES AND WORKERS ’ SAFETY AND WELL-BEING As a labour-intensive business, we place emphasis on the health and safety of our employees and workers, by providing a safe environment for them to work in. We are proud to highlight improved incidents statistics in 2018, with the number of injuries declining to 298 during the year from 356 in 2017, although we incurred a slightly higher Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate of 3.19 in 2018 against 3.12 in 2017. We benchmark and strive to emulate industry best practices and international standards and maintained our certifications for all our mills during the year. We have 91 certifications for OHSAS 180001: 2007, 79 certifications for ISO 14001:2004/2015 and six certifications on MS 1722:2011. Our efforts to ensure an adequate Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) environment were recognised with multiple awards from the Malaysian Society for OSH, with a unit within FGV Palm Industries Sdn. Bhd. (FGVPI, formerly known as Felda Palm Industries Sdn. Bhd.) receiving the Grand Award. FGV Holdings Bhd. and FGV Plantations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. (FGVPM, formerly known as Felda Global Ventures Plantations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.) Ladang Bera Selatan 7 received the Gold Class 1 Award while MSM Prai received the Gold Class 2 Award. Year-round engagements to build a safety culture meant that during the year, 5,101 of our employees participated in various OSH campaigns, competitions and programmes. We also continued our participation in the Systematic of Occupational Health Enhancement Level Programme (SoHELP) in support of efforts by the Department of Safety and Health to enhance management of chemicals, noise and ergonomics at the workplace.