FAQs: Guidance for Malaysia HR leaders for addressing the impacts of haze at work

Employers should identify employees with heart or respiratory illness, as well as those with symptoms related to haze and ask them to seek medical treatment.

The current transboundary haze situation threatens to affect workplace health and safety in Malaysia, particularly poor visibility and exposure are creating risks for employees. As such, Malaysia’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) has released guidelines for preparations and precautions employers should consider at different Air Pollutant Index (API) levels.

The FAQs below summarise the guidance, including risk assessment, outdoor work, respirator use, commuting, and more.

Q. What is the purpose of the guidelines?
The guidelines aim to help employers and employees prepare to minimise or mitigate the effects of haze. The API values they use refer to the 24-hour running average of PM10, the main pollutant of concern identified in the Malaysian Ambient Air Quality Standard issued by the Department of Environment.

Q. When should employers start preparing?
Following an announcement of increased haze risk by a relevant government agency, employers should begin preparations to protect employees’ safety and health.

Q. Which employees should employers identify as potentially susceptible?
Employers should identify employees with heart or respiratory illness. They should also identify employees with symptoms related to haze and ask them to seek medical treatment.

Q. What symptoms does the guideline list?
The listed symptoms are throat itchiness and coughing; irritated or watery eyes; a running nose and sneezing; itchy skin; and difficulty breathing or breathlessness.

Q. What should employers do about outdoor work?
Employers should identify the types of outdoor work that may need to be reduced during haze and determine criteria for stopping outdoor work. The guideline defines outdoor work as work carried out outside buildings regularly or most of the time.

Q. What preparations does the guideline recommend?
The guideline recommends that employers conduct respirator fit testing for employees who need to work outdoors and maintain sufficient stocks of disposable N95 respirators. It also recommends improving the efficiency of workplace air-cleaning devices and equipment, and establishing a haze communication system between employers and employees.

Q. What should employers do when API exceeds 100?
The guideline states that when API exceeds 100, employees face higher safety and health risks due to poor visibility and/or the ill effects of haze. Employers should conduct a proper risk assessment and implement appropriate measures to minimise or mitigate identified risks, including specifying when work should stop.

Q. What does the guideline say about strenuous outdoor work?
At API above 200, outdoor work involving strenuous activity should be avoided.

Q. What should employers consider for crane operations?
At API above 300, employers should conduct risk assessments to determine whether outdoor lifting operations involving tower and mobile cranes should cease. The guideline identifies foreseeable poor visibility as a risk that could compromise the safety of people at work. Such operations may only be carried out when appropriate precautions have been taken to reduce the risk.

Q. What changes at API above 400?
At API above 400, the guideline identifies an increased risk of ill health for everyone, including employees doing non-strenuous outdoor work. The risk assessment should consider the effects of haze on the health of all employees, especially those working outdoors. If the risk of ill health cannot be mitigated, the work activity should stop.

Q. What does the guideline say about emergency and essential services?
Where emergency and essential services must continue at API above 400, the guideline says the risk should be mitigated by wearing suitable respirators.

Q. Does the guideline give advice about commuting?
Yes. At API above 400, it advises employees to use public transport.

Q. Does it recommend working from home?
The guideline does not set out a work-from-home recommendation or general remote-work policy.

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