Fostering Safety, Hygiene and Environmental-friendliness
Operation of the occupational safety and health management system
YOKE’s ISO 45001:2018 occupational health and safety management system covers Factory 1 and Factory 2, including activities for production and non-production sites. For equipment, the certification covers equipment used for routine and non-routine operation activities, including access of non-YOKE personnel entering our premises and contracted personnel (i.e. security guard, gardener and janitors). As mass production at Factory 3 has not officially begun during our application processing, it has not been included within the scope of our certification. Nevertheless, the occupational health and safety management mechanism for the three factories was all operating according to our existing management systems. We plan to evaluate whether or not to incorporate Factory 3 when we prepare to be re-certified again in 2022.
At present, the scope of ISO 45001 does not cover all three factories. As of the end of 2020, the scope of the ISO 45001 audit covered a total of 389 employees (accounting for 98.73% of all employees), along with 5 additional outsourced contract personnel (making up 1.27% of all employees), bringing the total audit coverage rate to 96.81%. During the actual audit for ISO 45001, Factory 3 was actually included in the planning, with relevant planning, management and internal audit took into consideration. As of the end of 2021, the number of full-time employees included in the internal audit came to 407 (accounting for 98.77% of all employees), along with 5 additional outsourced contract personnel (making up 1.23% of all employees), bringing the total audit coverage rate to 100%.
Pursuant to the Regulations Governing Occupational Safety and Health, YOKE has established its Occupational Safety and Health Committee, which serves a two-year term and meets once per quarter. The General Manager serves as the chairman of the Committee, which comprises 18 members in total (among them 6 are labor representatives, making up 34% of all members). The composition of the Committee is compliant with the legal requirement that no less than 1/3 of all committee members shall be labor representatives. The Committee is responsible for communicating, participating and consulting on requirements and issues relating to pertinent occupational safety and health regulations, tracking YOKE’s annual OHS management objectives and reviewing training outcomes.
At the end of each year, the Committee conducts OHS hazard identification and risk assessment by engaging all departments to adhere to corresponding internal processes to determine the steps of operation, frequency of operation, chances for potential hazard and opportunities before taking existing protection and management measures into account in order to perform risk assessment and classification. The risk assessment is classified as unacceptable hazards and high risks and opportunities, and action planning is continued and included in the management plan for continuous tracking and management. In 2021, in addition to the management plans generated from the risk assessment, a total of 80 management plans generated from other management measures were included in the tracking management, all of which have been completed by the end of 2021. At the end of 2021, YOKE launched the 2022 occupational safety and health risk assessment and have initially produced 20 prototype management plans. We will then carry out a complete planning and implementation of the management plan and regularly track the progress of improvement until completed. In the operation of our management system, we have continued to arrange for various training courses on OHS to fortify relevant personnel’s professional competence and familiarity with our OSH management system.
For non-routine hazards, such as adding or changing products/services/processes, resulting in changes in the working environment, work organization, working conditions, equipment or labor, one must complete the "Environmental Safety and Health Change Management Evaluation Application" to re-examine hazard identification and risk assessment for the operation in question. In 2021, 38 applications were submitted and 13 were closed. The outstanding applications will continue to be tracked until they are completed, and the process will continue in 2022. After the risk assessment, the item may no longer be listed as an unacceptable hazard. Instead, the best improvement plan for the mitigation of risk is to improve the implementation sequence of elimination, replacement, engineering, improvement and so forth in conjunction with personnel qualification, proper warnings, the use of protective equipment, supervision of measurement, emergency response and relevant administrative measures to achieve continuous improvement and reduce risks.
During orientation training for new employees, YOKE has made relevant advocacy on the right to refuse work in the event of emergencies with regards to labor safety. More specifically, should employees be exposed to imminent danger in their work environment, they are entitled to stop their work and retreat to a safe location provided they do not endanger the safety of other workers while doing so.And no disciplinary action will be given for recusal from work.
In accordance with ISO 45001 standards, YOKE has established its management procedure governing the investigation of accidents, which encompasses the identification of cause that led to the accident, hazard identification, measures for rectification and so forth and leading to continual care and follow-up as the basis for work resumption. Employees will not face disciplinary action for reporting specific working conditions that may cause harm or disease. Instead, the Company encourages all departments to propose environmental and safety improvement projects each month to improve the safety of the working environment. In addition, YOKE has also established a reward mechanism for employees who identify and report potential causes for risk events. On the 10th of each month, the Company will commend the reporting employee with a bonus reward.
Safety management and improvements
The Company has divided the entire company premise into 21 regions, with each region assigned personnel responsible for inspecting the safety of the region. In addition, occupational safety personnel and supervisor will accompany the responsible personnel in the inspection of the region and convene review meetings on a monthly basis to discuss the observations made during the inspection and follow up on the improvements. We have also established scoring criteria for the designated personnel for the occupational safety region in order to achieve quantifiable management. If any defects found by the occupational safety personnel during the inspection can be improved immediately, it will be done within the shortest time. For those who need the assistance of other units, the assisting units will also complete the work in the shortest time possible. Some of the improvement cases that take longer will also be tracked through the mode of management program to make the operation of the environmental safety and health management system more smooth.
In order to avoid misunderstanding due to language differences, we have been organizing morning meetings for foreign employees on Tuesdays. Apart from communicating YOKE’s relevant policies and announcements, the meetings focused primarily on the advocacy of work safety. After all relevant information has been summarized and given to the translator for translation, the translation would be given to the manager responsible for the week’s morning meeting and the representative of foreign employees for dissemination.
In 2021, the Company commenced the performance evaluation of safety and health management with a passing score of 60 points, and we will add and deduct points correspondingly, linking the safety and health proposal, the evaluation of the person in charge of the safety area, and the management requirement of deficiencies related to the inspection by occupational safety personnel, etc., with each unit's independent safety and health education and training and promotion, and encourage the reporting of false alarm incidents, and the unit that reports them will be able to add points by proposing improvement policies . The average score for 2021 is 68 points, so it is clear that in addition to maintaining safety and health, each unit is also committed to improving safety and health and implementing various additional points. This management performance evaluation can not only maintain the basic items of safety and hygiene in each unit, but also promote the safety and hygiene activities in each unit. Therefore, in 2022, in addition to the continuous evaluation, we will also include the management of contractors as an additional point in the evaluation, so that the person in charge of each safety area can assist the contractors in the safety management of the construction work; and link the management performance of safety and hygiene with the performance of each supervisor.
In order to provide a safer working environment for our employees, in 2022, we will further plan to have the staff of the Occupational Safety Office go to each manufacturing plant to observe the work in collaboration with the on-site work supervisors, in order to discover the hidden risks in the work and propose ways to improve them, and track the improvement measures in workplace safety and health management program, so that the operation of the occupational safety and health management system can be more closely linked to achieve better results.
The safety and health of the company's employees in the factory environment needs to be paid attention to and improved, and this should likewise not be neglected by the Company’s contractors. Therefore, in 2022, we plan to evaluate the safety and health management of the contractors. In addition to the deduction items found in the past, there are also a number of points added to encourage improvements, such as the safety and health education and training implemented by the contractors, group insurance covering the contractors' employees, and the reporting and improvement of the safety and health hazards of the contractors themselves. Each contractor is given 80 points and the points are settled quarterly. This is used as the source of the annual evaluation of the contractors in order to be more objective and fair.
Safety Training
The Company formulates its occupational safety and health training plan on a yearly basis. Apart from the fundamental training for new employees, we had also held 13 sessions of occupational safety training in 2021, with a total of 421 participants throughout the year.
In collaboration with the Procurement Department, we asked all major suppliers to sign our “Manufacturer’s Occupational Safety Commitment” to be submitted to the Company. They have been asked to sign and submit the commitment before we placed our order. Contractors are required to apply and be approved prior to construction, and are required to inform the contractor of the hazards of the contracted work prior to construction; all applications for construction were in electronic form from 2021 onward, and in addition to safety management, the concept of paperless environmental protection will be incorporated.
In order to stay prepared for various emergencies, we developed a contingency flow chart that includes disaster situations such as fire, earthquake, typhoon, power outage, accident of operation, food poisoning, statutory infectious diseases/epidemic diseases orrelated injuries. Emergency drills are conducted every year to strengthen the response capability of all personnel. In 2021, all personnel participated in evacuation drills and self-defense fire drills in a fire situation, and in 2022, contingency drills will be planned for each unit according to their attributes.
| Type of training | Orientation training | On-the-job training | Contractor training |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. of sessions | 135 | 11 | 2 |
| No. of participants | 308 | 392 | 29 |
Performance of safety management
YOKE makes it a point to keep track and follow up on incidents of disabling injuries so that we can track employees who have suffered disabling injuries and even minor injuries to provide proper care. In 2021, YOKE had 1 incident of disabling injury, with the average number of days lost totaling 1 day. Compared to the average of 2.6 days lost in 2020, the severity of our employees’ injuries has decreased noticeably since 2019. In addition, we have had no cases of occupational diseases in the past and had zero fatalities caused by occupational diseases or disasters. In addition, there were no occupational disasters such as death, disability, or occupational diseases in 2021 for outsourced personnel. In addition, pursuant to SASB’s requirements for disclosure, we have also disclosed our total recordable incident rate (TRIR) and near-miss frequency rate (NMFR) as quantified statistics. We have also conducted thorough reviews on the cases of near-misses that have been reported thus far in order to encourage our employees to identify specific environment/measures in our workplace that might be potentially harmful so that we can facilitate better management to create a safe workplace.
Note: For details, please refer to page 89 of the report
Health promotion
YOKE employs dedicated nursing staff in an effort to facilitate health promotion for all employees. In addition, they also manage employees’ health checks and tracking of anomalies. Employees’ health profiles are only accessible to caregivers and individual employee.
We organize employee health examinations each year and in 2021, 362 employees were included for the examination. With the exception of 5 employees that didn’t take part due to various reasons such as postpartum homestay, pregnancy or personal reasons (postponed), all remaining 357 employees had their health examination. The results placed 250 employees at level 2 and 82 employees at level 3. The health examination takes into account the cardiovascular, digestive system and other key areas, with points assigned to each to be added up for a total score to place a person’s health in one of three levels for health management. Placement in level 2 does not constitute severe health issues and one will have to complete specific health education according to the condition in question. However, placement in level 3 would necessitate compulsory medical treatment and monthly follow-up. Not only that, we will also arrange for the factory resident physician to interview the employee and assess the suitability of his/her current position. In 2021, we had arranged for a total of 87 employees to seek a medical consultation with the resident physician.
For employees involved in special hazardous operations, we ask them to go through additional health examinations due to their exposure to noise, dust, or high temperature. The results of the health examination for the aforementioned employees are classified into four levels. Level 1 represents the normal range, while employees in level 2 would receive health care education through consultation, e-mail or health promotion leaflets for the sake of raising awareness. Employees in level 3 would require compulsory medical assistance as required by law. In 2021, 168 employees were asked to take the examination, and 11 were placed in special hazard level 4 for exposure to noise, while 15 were placed in special hazard level 2 for exposure to dust and another 21 in special hazard level 2 for exposure to high temperature. YOKE has assisted all of them in seeking further diagnosis by specialist physicians at hospitals.
In addition, with regard to employees' workload and mental health, they are asked to complete a scale which to facilitate analysis, which also served as a predictor of their likelihood to suffer cardiovascular diseases within the next decade. In 2021, 357 employees completed the survey and based on the results. They were classified under categories of optimal, mild, moderate, and severe. In 2021, a total of 25 employees were found to be recommended for consultation and in need of consultation, and the Company had already arranged for them to be checked by the resident physician. We have also been tracking their record for receiving treatment and whether they were in need of adjustment in terms of work before relaying the physician’s recommendation to the Human Resource Department for relevant assessments/adjustments to be made. For employees suffering from excessive stress, we have planned specific health promotional classes to help them alleviate their stress and feeling of burden. We would refer them to the Company’s employee assistance program (EAP) for more personalized assistance for employees who require further assistance.
In March 2021, we held a three-month fat loss competition called "Enjoying Health, Defeating Body Fat" and held healthy eating seminars and aerobic exercise classes at the same time. 23 people completed the competition and lost a total of 43.1 kg, 25% body fat, and 90 cm in waist circumference. In response to the increased severity of the COVID-19 epidemic and the raising of the Level 3 epidemic alert throughout Taiwan, in addition to the exercise classes suspended in response to the epidemic, three thematic health seminars (7 sessions in total) were held before and after the epidemic became severe: metabolic syndrome, healthy eating, and illegal infringement, with a total of 437 participants. Furthermore, YOKE reached out to Taichung Blood Center to organize charitable blood donations at Taichung Industrial Park. 42 of our employees rolled up their sleeves and donated 65 250-ml pouches of blood to the center.
In 2021, the road runners’ club and mountain climbing club had approximately 60+ new members. To put things in perspective, that was almost 1/6 of YOKE’s entire staff pool. Among the participants, there are many section-level supervisors and managers who joined and participated in the training, as well as several Filipino employees. Regardless of status, age or nationality, their participation would no doubt foster a stronger sense of camaraderie and start a trend for physical exercise. The Company’s sports clubs conduct regular external group training every month. In 2021, 12 training sessions for mountain climbing and road running were held, and a badminton club will be established in 2022 to develop a multi-sports club.
In 2021, the Company was awarded the Sports Enterprise Certification by the Sports Administration of the Ministry of Education for its health promotion achievements, and was awarded the second place in the "CHR Health & Wellness Healthy Citizenship" group of less than 500 people by Commonhealth Magazine, recognizing the efforts of YOKE in promoting a healthy workplace and emphasizing employee health.
