Senior International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said this initiative will also prevent operations disruptions and lessen the impact on productivity when there a positive case emerges among workers in a company.
"Workers identified as close contacts of positive cases will be isolated from the community and other workers until all of them are certified safe from Covid-19, based on their (health) screening.
"With the Safe Work Bubble, all close contacts will be placed at a hostel away from other colleagues and can continue to go to work until their test results are out," he said in a press conference today.
He noted that 194 Covid-19 clusters in the country were linked to the manufacturing sector, adding that the ministry was taking a proactive and responsive approach to ensure operational continuity.
Azmin said the responsibility for creating the bubble between the workplace and the workers' hostel as well as ensuring that the movement of close contact workers was safe and did not bring any negative impact on others falls on the company management,
Other aspects of the initiative include the establishment of a Preparedness and Emergency Response Team by the company for the preparation and implementation of procedures to manage emergency cases, as well as ensuring compliance to standard operating procedures (SOP), performing regular monitoring and audit.
The company must also conduct continuous sanitisation at their factories, use company vehicles to ferry their workers at full capacity, as well as provide and manage a conducive workers' hostel in line with the Workers' Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990.
"(Other aspects include) conducting targeted screening for relevant workers in the manufacturing and service sector, and providing information channels related to pandemic control procedures from employers to employees," Azmin added.
He said as an incentive for employers to implement Safe@Work, additional tax cuts for those in the manufacturing and service sectors would be given on premises and workers' hostel rentals, and on equipment such as installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, wearable tracking devices and other needs as required by the Safe@Work SOP.
Expenses eligible for this additional tax deduction would be limited to RM50,000 per company, he added.
"The ministry hopes that with this initiatives, companies in the manufacturing and service industries would increase their SOP compliance to ensure that their factories can operate as usual.
"This is also in line with the Whole-Of-Society approach to foster a spirit of self-reliance and responsibility within society," said Azmin.
He added it was important that industries realised their role and responsibilities to help achieve the government's aim of balancing the demands of safety, lives and economic sustainability.
Companies can apply to be part of Safe@Work through the Covid-19 Intelligent Management System (CIMS) starting Apr 1, 2021.
Muhyiddin announced the launch of the Safe@Work initiative during a special televised address to unveil the Strategic Programme to Empower the People and Economy (Pemerkasa).
This programme is an initiative under Focus One of Pemerkasa, which is aimed at controlling the spread of Covid-19.