In October 2015, we established the Basic Principles on Women’s Empowerment to encourage the creation of new added value through collaborations with diverse human resources, revitalize our organization, and reform our organizational culture, by promoting the active participation of female employees. We implement initiatives based on these basic principles and the Action Plan legally required by the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement enforced on April 1, 2016.
We began a three-year initiative in fiscal 2018 on the theme “Expanding the career options for female employees. Specifically, we selected priority plants, and each plant took its own initiative to have each business unit and plant implement relevant measures independently. In addition, we have routinized diversity training for managerial positions and started a follow-up course for past participants in April 2018.
In the following fiscal year, fiscal 2019, we held information exchange sessions to introduce examples of initiatives taken at the priority plants and offered female manager training (involving female managers from Group companies) for such purposes as increasing their awareness of acting as role models for female employees in the position immediately below them. We also provided training related to diversity and human rights to raise the awareness of all employees. In addition, we started an internal diversity website as a tool that shows what activities we conduct to encourage diversity, including the empowerment of women. We update the initiatives as necessary.
In fiscal 2020, the final fiscal year for the initiatives taken at each plant, each initiative was deepened, and a general review of past activities was conducted. Reflecting results, in fiscal 2021, we plan to formulate and implement the next three-year plan by increasing the number of plants that are participating in the activities promoting the active participation of women.
The Company has a system for supporting childcare and family care that goes beyond the legal requirements. For childcare, we have made part of child nursing leave into paid leave as well as introduced a childcare subsidy system and an allowance to facilitate a quick return to work after taking childcare leave, starting in 2014. And in 2017, we also introduced a support and consultation scheme for employees returning from maternity leave, to reduce the anxiety of employees who will take the leave and be away from their workplaces for a while and facilitate their return to work. We also made it possible for employees to take out child nursing leave in half-day units.
Further, in 2018, we extended the upper limit of the age group for which reduced work hours for children apply. In 2019, we took the same measures for child nursing leave. Thus, we improved our support for employees who wish to balance family and work.
In terms of family care meanwhile, we allow employees to take leave at intervals and allocate accrued leave towards caring for the same family member. In 2017, we increased the maximum length of family care leave for employees to care for any one family member from 365 days to 36 months, and extended the period of reduced working hours from 365 days to 72 months. We have also made it possible for employees to take family care leave in half-day units. In addition to all of this, we are taking initiatives in various other areas, such as organizing care seminars at our Head Office and plants as well.
| Subject | Men | Women | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of paid leaves taken (Based on calendar year) |
ー | ー | 89.1% |
| Number of employees taking maternity leave | ー | 26 | 26 |
| Number of employees taking childcare leave | 8 | 39 | 47 |
| Number of employees taking family care leave | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Employees using the childcare subsidy scheme | 88 | 24 | 112 |
We promote creating working environments that enable our employees to strike a balance between their work and their private lives. As well as enabling employees to adapt their working patterns in line with events in their lives, we make every effort to establish and continually improve a range of support schemes so that employees can advance their careers and take on challenging jobs.
We have introduced a system that permits employees who are leaving the Company due to unavoidable family circumstances (marriage, childbirth, childcare, nursing care, or transfer of a spouse) to return to work under specific conditions (a reemployment scheme for retired employees), a special temporary retirement program that permits employees to take a leave of absence in the event of overseas transfer of their spouse or to take education at their own expense, and a by-the-hour paid leave system.
In an effort to reduce long work hours on a companywide scale, we have established an exploratory committee on reducing working hours, consisting of both labor union and management. We are also working to reduce out-of-hours work and encourage employees to take paid leave, in line with actual operations at each of our facilities.
Percentage of paid leaves taken (calendar year): 89.1%
We allow our employees to carry over up to five days of unused paid leave each year, up to a maximum of 45 days, and then use those days to take “wellness leave.” Employees can use wellness leave for reasons relating to their own health, including recuperating from illness or injury, or attending medical examinations or gynecologist appointments, or for purposes such as caring for family members, taking leave to return home if working away from their families, having in- and out-patient fertility treatment, or taking part in volunteer activities. We are working to extend this system even further. We made it possible to take wellness leave in half-day units to support family care in fiscal 2020. We extended the system in the same way in fiscal 2021 to support employees who visit hospitals regularly over long periods due to their own serious illness.
In addition to these, we have introduced an optional welfare scheme in an effort to cater to our employees’ increasingly diverse needs, including travel and life support. A great number of employees as well as their families are using the scheme.
Our Human Resources Department provides a range of support to encourage disabled persons’ employment within Mitsubishi Materials and at group companies, based on the principles of social responsibility, legal compliance and diversity of human resources. The department offers a “model workplace for disabled employees” at the Marunouchi Head Office and the Saitama Office, aimed at enabling disabled people to learn, grow and contribute to society through their work. We provide jobs such as cleaning the cafeteria, meeting rooms, and other rooms at the Head Office and jobs at the Saitama Office such as cleaning the cafeteria and other rooms, maintaining greenery on company premises, and producing business cards, including for group companies. In addition, we also actively engage in social contribution activities such as accepting internship of students from local special needs schools, and volunteering to help out with litter collection activities in the local area.
* Until fiscal 2016, we counted each fiscal year from the end of March, but we changed this to April 1 from fiscal 2017.
We applied for a workplace slogan competition hosted by the Government-Labor-Management Meeting (Kou-Rou-Shi Kaigi) of Saitama Prefecture. Named Dare-mo ga kagayaku shokuba slogan (“a workplace slogan that allows anyone to shine”), the competition is aimed at encouraging the creation of pleasant, motivating workplaces. Applications are solicited from business companies and other organizations in Saitama. The slogan from Mitsubishi Materials, which means “respecting the distinctive characteristics and possibilities of individuals, encouraging to let them do it and leaving it to them are the first steps toward growth” won the grand prize (dare-mo ga kagayaku shokuba taisho) in October 2018. In the final review, we gave a presentation about initiatives taken in our workplaces as the background of the slogan, and staff members with disabilities who work at the Human Resource Development Center politely answered questions from judges. We earned high marks for our efforts to create workplaces where the creative measures we devise and work improvements increase the volume of work that can be handled by staff members with disabilities, while each staff member finds job satisfaction and enjoys working.
We rehire retired employees aged 60 and over who wish to work, in order to give them the opportunity to find reemployment at one of our offices or affiliated companies, whilst at the same time enabling us to continue benefiting from the skills and expertise of employees who have reached retirement age. A total of 72 people were newly rehired as part of this program in 2019.
We will also extend the mandatory retirement age in April 2021. Thus, through consultations between labor and management, we continue to review our employment systems in light of changing employment conditions for people aged 60 and over.
Article 1 of our Code of Conduct relates to human rights, and states that “we will respect human rights of all.” This means that we will never discriminate based on race, gender, religion, nationality, or any other factor not related to an individual’s abilities or performance. We aim to raise awareness and provide training based on the principle “we will eliminate discrimination and respect the dignity of each individual.” We also organize human rights awareness training on an ongoing basis in order to encourage individual employees (including short-term, part-time, temporary and contract employees) to take a personal interest in human rights issues, and to ensure that they maintain a deep-rooted awareness of the importance of human rights as part of their day-to-day activities, based on a resolute determination not to engage in, allow or tolerate any form of discrimination. As a result of promoting human rights awareness training throughout the company, 3,700 employees underwent a combined total of 4,037 hours of training in fiscal 2020.
Any form of harassment, including sexual harassment, power harassment, or harassment relating to maternity or care leave, can stifle employees’ enthusiasm and erode an otherwise congenial working environment. We believe that stepping up educational and training programs, and implementing a range of preventive and response measures, are both effective ways of combating harassment. We revised our guidelines on preventing harassment to reflect the contents of the revised Act on Comprehensive Promotion of Labor Measures and Stabilization of Employment of Employees and Enrichment of Their Working Lives, Etc., which came into effect in June 2020. In addition to an Internal Contact Office for employees of the Group, we also appoint in-house supervisors at each of our enterprise place to provide advice on harassment, and have also established an external consultation service to ensure that all matters are handled appropriately. (Consultation services were contacted with regard to 11 matters during fiscal 2020.)