PETALING JAYA: Faced with labour shortages and growing market emphasis on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, can Malaysian businesses maintain a stable workforce by navigating labour rights pitfalls?
The Star’s ESG & Labour Rights Symposium will tackle these questions on May 18 from 9am to 5pm at Menara Star here.
Guest speakers: (From left) Mah, Lim, Too and Wan Kasim.
The symposium, organised along with knowledge partner Earthworm Foundation, aims to help businesses understand labour rights and strengthen their policies related to this crucial topic.
The foundation is a global non-profit entity that helps companies and communities understand and transform their product stories in order to foster change through on-the-ground supply chain engagement for various commodities.
Divided into five sessions, the event will kick off with an overview of external regulations against forced labour, focusing on international and national labour rights regulations and violations. Among the topics are whether Malaysian companies are doing enough to mitigate forced labour risks and what buyers’ expectations are.
This will be followed by the sharing of insights on identifying and mitigating labour risks, especially those specific to the Malaysian context with a focus on key risks in company operations as previously highlighted by foreign non-governmental organisations and media.
The event will also cover various due diligence tools and resources which can help companies identify gaps and strengthen their human resource and recruitment policies and processes.
Company case studies on identifying and addressing labour risks within operations will provide participants with insight into experiences, challenges and lessons learnt from actual scenarios.
Featuring renowned experts from the “social” aspect of ESG, this event is targeted towards senior management team members, general managers, sustainability managers, human resource and recruitment managers, operations managers and public sector officers, as well as staff from compliance, trading, marketing and internal risk management departments.
The speakers include Datuk Mah Weng Kwai, who was called to the Malaysian Bar as an advocate and solicitor of the High Court of Malaya in 1972, and who is now a Suhakam commissioner.
Others are Lynda Lim and Terence Too, both human rights experts at the foundation with over 40 years of combined experience.
Also on board is FGV Holdings Bhd head of sustainability engagement Wan Kasim Wan Kadir, who has a cumulative experience of 15 years in the fields of human rights and sustainability.
Participants will be able to equip themselves with the importance of labour rights and have more clarity on their roles in developing strategies to improve their company’s practices.
Admission is RM1,300 per pax (inclusive of 6% SST) and is an HRD Corp claimable event.
To register or find out more about the symposium, visit https://bit.ly/ESGLabour