Supporting Companies and Organisations
The Asahi Shimbun Company
Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
ANA Holdings, Inc.
Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd.
EBARA CORPORATION
Olympus Corporation
KOSÉ Corporation
Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Shimizu Corporation
Shinsei Bank, Limited
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd.
Sekisui House, Ltd.
Seven & i Holdings Co.
Softbank Corporation
Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited
Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
Daiwa House Industry Co.
Daily Advertising Co., Ltd.
Tobu Top Tours Co., Ltd.
BIPROGY Inc. (former Nihon Unisys, Ltd.)
Fujitsu Limited
Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Yamaha Corporation
ROHM Co., Ltd.
December 2021

Authors:

Global Compact Network Japan

Gender Equality Initiatives
in JapanInterviews with 24 Companies
on Diversity & Inclusion

Mari Iizuka, Professor, Doshisha University Graduate School of Business
GCNJ Secretariat

Acknowledgement:
We would like to express our sincere appreciation
to Professor Mari Iizuka of the Doshisha
University Graduate School of Business for her
valuable cooperation in the planning, editing, andwriting of this volume, and to the GCNJ member
companies and organizations who cooperated
with interviews and provided materials for thispublication.
In addition, a portion of funding was provided by
Doshisha University.

2C o n t e n t s
ForewordOn the publication of “Gender Equality Initiatives in Japan:
Interviews with 24 Companies on Diversity & Inclusion”

1.

Foreword

2.

Company Initiatives

3

The Asahi Shimbun
Company

Promoting gender equality within the company and in the society through “The Asahi
Shimbun Gender Equality Declaration”

5

Ajinomoto Co., Inc.

Continuing to evolve as a company where everyone is equal and plays an active role,
regardless of attributes, in line with the Ajinomoto Group Way’s stance to “Value People”

7

ANA Holdings, Inc.

Realising genuine inclusion by recognising unconscious bias. Innovation arising fromchanging attitudes.

9

Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd.

Promoting “Co-parenting” both inside and outside our company to support child-rearingin Japan towards a healthier and more abundant future for our children

11

EBARA CORPORATION

Communication as the key to promoting women’s empowerment in our company.
Aiming for true diversity.

13

Olympus Corporation

Aiming to be a global MedTech company that contributes to a sustainable society
through innovation born out of diversity

15

KOSÉ Corporation

Towards a gender-neutral society. Achieving diversity as the leader of a new beauty
culture.

17

Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Promoting diversity to strengthen technological capabilities across the company under
the leadership of a female CEO

19

Shimizu Corporation

Reimagining and improving our work styles as key to the future of the constructionindustry. Commitment from the top promotes diversity and drives the industry forward.

21

Shinsei Bank, Limited

Activities led by the Group Women’s Activity Promotion Committee. Developing leaders
who incorporate diverse perspectives into management decision-making

23

Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd.

Expanding the scope of women’s activities through ongoing training for engineers, and building
a gender neutral corporate culture that supports Japanese “monozukuri” (“manufacturing”).

25

Sekisui House, Ltd.

Creating a climate conducive to innovation by promoting diversity through active
dialogue to discover “happiness” in the workplace

27

Seven & i Holdings Co.

Diversity and women’s empowerment create new value in consumer-oriented business.

29

WEPs in Japanese.

Softbank Corporation

Expanding the circle of awareness and building a corporate culture of diversity,
regardless of age, gender, or nationality.

31

When we put out a call for examples of initiatives from our members, we received a far greater

Daiichi Sankyo Company, Actively incorporating the perspectives of diverse individuals to generate innovation
and realize our Group‘s Purpose
Limited33

Dai Nippon Printing
Co., Ltd.

Promotion of diversity and inclusion by each and every one of us with a sense ofownership, as a source of value creation

35

Daiwa House Industry
Co., Ltd.

Expanding opportunities for women to play active roles with measures geared toworksites and the “Jutaku Komachi” organization. Evolving as a company where
everyone can play an active role, regardless of age or gender.

37

The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is the world’s largest sustainability initiative,
bringing together the United Nations and private companies and organizations in an aim to build
a healthy global society. The UNGC works with more than 18,000 companies and organizationsin approximately 160 countries around the world to achieve a sustainable society based on its 10principles in the four areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption.
An important key to achieving these aims is gender equality.
Gender equality is a fundamental human right. If women, who make up half of the world’s
population, could participate in society without gender discrimination, we could solve many of theworld’s various social problems related to economic growth, poverty, and education. In particular,
the full participation of women in the workforce has been estimated to lead to as high as double-digit
economic growth rates and social development.
It is against this backdrop that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United
Nations in 2015, designate the promotion of gender equality as both a core principle and a goal.
In 2010, the United Nations Global Compact, in collaboration with the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM, now UN Women), developed the Women’s Empowerment Principles(WEPs) to encourage companies to voluntarily address gender equality as a core management issue.
In 2020, the Global Compact Network Japan (GCNJ), the local network of the UN Global Compact,in collaboration with WE EMPOWER Japan*, released the “WEPs Handbook” to introduce theresponse than we expected. We therefore decided to produce this collection of case studies that
explores the initiatives of 24 different companies in more depth, to serve as a practical version of
the WEPs Handbook. I would like to thank Professor Mari Iizuka of Doshisha University Graduate
School of Business, a member of GCNJ’s SDG Task Force, for her cooperation in conducting
interviews and preparing this report.

Becoming the “Best Place to Work in the World” based on a culture of mutual respect andDaily Advertising Co., Ltd. growth for each and every employee through the promotion of women’s advancement

All of the companies showcased in this volume, when hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, had no

39

Diversifying and developing the detail-oriented hospitality that only a travel agency canoffer, while providing new value to society.

41

Aiming to make diversity promotion self-driven in our workplaces and widen the circle
for creating change as a part of major reforms to our corporate culture

43

Fujitsu Limited

Creation of the “Global D&I Vision & Inclusion Wheel”. “Awareness and understanding”
as the primary focus to achieve true diversity.

45

efforts of their staff and the successes they achieved, are meant to serve as a practical guide.

Mitsubishi Chemical
Corporation

Turning diversity into strength! Creating a culture of innovation through bold HR reforms
and carefully-planned internal proliferation measures

47

I sincerely hope that this collection of case studies, which brings together the wisdom of each

Yamaha Corporation

Aiming to create new value by fostering conviction and a sense of ownership among
employees, and promoting diversification linked to our management strategy.

49

ROHM Co., Ltd.

Overcoming the “positive action” dilemma through ongoing discussions and strong
promotion of women’s participation

51

Tobu Top Tours Co., Ltd.

choice but to respond. They were able to flexibly change their mindsets and adopt new perspectives,

BIPROGY Inc.

leading to diversity and inclusion in their companies and, ultimately, initiatives that contribute to(former Nihon Unisys, Ltd.)

gender equality in society.
This volume and the strategic measures of the 24 companies highlighted within, as well as the tirelesscompany showcased within, will be a tool for all companies and organizations committed to genderequality to promote and strengthen their actions.

Hidetaka Yabe, Executive Director

3.

The UN Global Compact’s Initiatives in Gender Equality

53

Global Compact Network Japan

3* The WE EMPOWER Project was launched to promote women’s economic empowerment aimed at disseminating the Responsible
Business Principles in G7 member states, with activities taking place over a three-year period from 2018 to 2020.

Interviews for this volume were conducted from February to April 2021.

4

Promoting gender equality within the company andin the society through “The Asahi Shimbun Gender
Equality Declaration”

The Asahi Shimbun
Company● Aim: To communicate messages as a media outlet to promote
gender equality in the society as well as within the company, to createa society in which everyone can live comfortably.
● Approach: Release of “The Asahi Shimbun Gender Equality
Declaration”, aiming to achieve its goals by 2030.
● Conclusion: We can be a force for social change when we take on asense of ownership over events happening both within and outside
our company.

Please tell me about the “Asahi Shimbun
Gender Equality Declaration”.
The Gender Equality Declaration, released byour company President in April 2020, sets out four
indicators. The first two indicators are to achieve
gender equality in our morning edition’s “Hito”(“Person”) column, which showcases talented
people working in a wide range of fields, and in
speakers at the Asahi World Forum, a symposium
organised by our company. The other two indicators
are to double the ratio of women managers in thecompany, and increase the percentage of male
employees taking childcare leave. We have set
numerical targets so that we can verify our level ofachievement every year.
We drafted this declaration based on the United
Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
for 2030, and we are committed to achieving ourown goals by 2030 as well.
What made you decide to start with these four
indicators?
As a media company, we wanted to ensure
consistency between the messages we sendout on gender equality through our news andbusiness activities and the current situation in our

Our articles on gender issues can be found on our digital site, on a
page entitled “Think Gender”.

5

workplace, and we chose these indicators from thatperspective. The people we introduce in our “Hito”
column have a great deal of influence. Likewise, theAsahi World Forum that we hold every autumn has
addressed topics such as environmental issues andthe SDGs. We feel that the ratio of men and women
who appear in the “Hito” column and who speak at
the Asahi World Forum is a good indicator of theperformance our initiatives.
Doubling the ratio of women in management
positions is at the core of our efforts in genderequality, and we have set a target of 25%. We also
determined that increasing the percentage of men
taking childcare leave is essential to rethinking
our ways of working and creating a comfortableworkplace for all.
What was the motivation to make this kind of
declaration?
It was our journalists in the field who always
had the feeling that women in our country are too
underrated in many parts of the society. In 2015-16,
our paper was running a series of feature articles
on gender equality. Then, Japan’s ranking in the
Gender Gap Index, released in autumn 2016, was solow, the worst among the most developed countries.
That was when a group of volunteer journalists fromvarious departments got together and started areporting campaign called “Dear Girls” on 8 March
2017, International Women’s Day. As we continued
our reporting, we were increasingly asked bythose we interviewed, “What is the gender equality
situation at the Asahi Shimbun itself?” We realizedthat it was necessary to make further efforts as acompany, and this led us to draft the declaration.
So, you are driven by the voices on the ground.
Yes, and as we continued with our “Dear Girls”
campaign, gender issues came to be known as animportant theme among our journalists, including

those who weren’t directly involved in the campaign.
Actually, our paper was one of the first to reporton the derogatory remarks on women by YoshiroMori, who was then the head of the Tokyo Organising
Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Two of our male reporters were there when hemade that remark. The male journalist in his 30s as
the first to speak up, saying “Mori’s remarks wereawful.” He had been writing articles for some time
pointing out the lack of female participation in theworld of sports.
Also, nowadays, men as well as women in their
20s and 30s have a keen eye on gender topics aswell as issues regarding LGBTQ people.
Since we have announced the Gender Equality
Declaration, the level of awareness on increasing
the number of women in the decision-making
process in the company is certainly changing.
Please tell me about your efforts related tointernational symposiums.
At international symposiums abroad, theawareness of the gender balance of panellists isalways palpable. We felt that it was essential for us todo the same. The percentage of women speakers at
The Asahi World Forum was 41.8% in 2020 following
the declaration, and 49.5% in 2021, achieving thetarget. Everyone’s awareness has changed.
In addition to striking a balance between maleand female speakers, the proportion of womenattending the symposium also increased because
we held it online. We have also had requests fromlocal schools to use the symposium in their classes.
For these goals and the “Hito” column as well,
we do not plan to stop as soon as we achieve ourtargets. We intend to keep moving forward towards
higher ones.
What is the ratio of men to women in
management positions?
The ratio of men to women for all employees
is approximately 8:2. Management-level positions
in our company include not only managers withsubordinates, but also specialists such as editorial
board members, editorial writers, engineers in
information technology, and marketing personnel.
In the past, it was difficult for women to get into
management positions, but since initiatives were
begun in 2015, the ratio has increased to around
13% at present.
Our goal of doubling the number of women in
management positions by 2030 is based on theidea that staff in their 40s or older are ready for
management and professional positions, and on an
estimate of the number of women in our company
who will be in their 40s or older as of 2030, which we
believe will be about 25%. We are currently about
halfway to achieving this target and will continue
to work with those in charge of various divisions toachieve it.

The report on The Asahi Shimbun Gender Equality Declaration at
the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in 2021.

In addition to reporting, we are also involved in avariety of other businesses, including art exhibitions,sporting events, online shopping, and real estate.
We believe that having more women in decisionmaking settings will stimulate discussions based on
differing perspectives, enabling us to make better
decisions. We will continue to actively promotewomen in the company.
What are your hopes and expectations for thepromotion of gender equality?
The SDGs that were finalised at the UN General
Assembly in 2015, and the fact that gender equality
was incorporated into them, have played a big role.
The Asahi World Forum, which began the following
year in 2016, took the SDGs as a standard, instillingin us the awareness that the gender balance of ourspeakers should be a given.
We have been hoping for an improvementin Japan’s score on the Gender Gap Index, but
unfortunately the ranking remains low. This is why
the staff in charge in all of our divisions believe that it
is more important than ever to get actively involved.
One example of our workplace initiatives is toeliminate or reduce the number of night shifts, sothat the employees taking care of young children canstill take on management-level jobs in the various
departments. At the same time, we are trying to
make our work more efficient, so we can have more
free time to either spend with our family, learning
new ideas, or meeting with other people.
In some workplaces, we have started to offer
remote management positions to persons whosefamily commitments make it difficult for them torelocate. We believe that as these initiatives spreadfrom within our company to society as a whole, we
can change the world. As a media organization, we
will continue to re-examine our approach from theground up.
*See the following site for details.
Global Compact Network Japan’s YouTube Site.
ht tps: // w w w.youtube.c om / watc h? v = IIq 8 _ j 92
J K k& l i st = PLV 2 sX k w r LU c N m hf d 4 n l x y EH 0 Ep842suW&index=2

6

Continuing to evolve as a company where everyone is equaland plays an active role, regardless of attributes, in line with
the Ajinomoto Group Way’s stance to “Value People”

Ajinomoto Co., Inc.

● Aim: To provide equal opportunities tailored to the individual,
regardless of gender, generation or other attributes.
● Approach: We have completely stopped writing goals specifically for“women” in our Diversity & Inclusion goals.
● Conclusion: To become a company based on mutual respect
between each and every employee in an environment of growth.

Please tell me about your unconscious bias
training for all employees.
The e-learning course begins with a review of
our Group’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) objectives,
followed by use of concrete examples to learn
about the nature of unconscious bias. Participants
are then asked to write down on a post-it note
one unconscious bias that actually exists in theirworkplace and why they feel it exists. Then,
participants separate into groups with persons
in the same organization and take turns sharing
these unconscious biases and the reasons theywrote them down. They then deliberate on how toaddress the biases that are thought to be the mostproblematic.
First, we started in 2018 with our executives
involved in management and invited external
lecturers. It was a very lively workshop with data
showing, for example, that there is gender bias evenin the US. At the end of the workshop, we filmed
a video of each person sharing their feelings about
the training and a message on diversity, and sent it
out to all employees via the intranet. It was a great
opportunity to see the real-life side of executives,
some of whom had actually suffered as minorities

Training for the HR division in 20187

living abroad during their childhoods, and led to a
deeper understanding among employees.
We are in the process of rolling out the training
company-wide as some employees expressed aninterest in taking the course themselves. We havereceived mostly positive feedback, with about 80%
of employees sharing the opinion that, “I thought I
didn’t have any biases, but I have so many. It’s good
to find out about them.” On the other hand, somefound it difficult to share examples of biases that hit
so close to home. We realized that this is an issue
we need to clear up.
How did you go about solving this problem?
After the executives, we conducted thetraining for our HR department and found thatthe number of perceived biases in the workplacevaried considerably from team to team. There
were particularly few biases among membersof teams made up only of men in management
positions. Perhaps some feared being viewed byothers as a biased person. They also seemed tocome to fewer realizations when listening to otherteam members voice their biases.
Meanwhile, teams put together with a 50/50 mix
of men and women at various levels, from generalstaff to managers and executives, gathered the mostexamples. We put together one team expectingthat it would be difficult for women in general staff
positions to speak up in the presence of executives
and senior managers. However, their understandingof the purpose of the training exceeded our
expectations, and they were more interested inwanting people from various standpoints to know
about it. This team produced 18-20 biases perperson, compared to around 5 biases per personin the male managers-only group, so there was amarked difference.
As a result of this experience, we requested
that subsequent trainings in various organizations
be conducted in mixed teams of both men andwomen whenever possible, and that every person

be given the opportunity to speak. In order to roll out
the training company-wide, we trained facilitators
in each organization to facilitate the workshops, sothat trainings could be arranged and carried out ineach organization. We felt that it was important forpeople on the frontline to understand and accept
the significance of the training, and that the initiative
itself would not take root unless it was conductedby members who understood the issues in theworkplace.
What is the ratio of women in management
positions?
Since 2008, we have made work-life balancea part of our management strategy. The ratioof women in management positions across theGroup, including overseas workplaces, is 26%,
and this percentage becomes 35% when Japan is
excluded. The ratio of male to female employees
is approximately 7:3 for both Japan and global
operations, with the 3 representing women. Thisshows that the low percentage of female managers islimited to Japan. In the 2020 Mid-Term Management
Plan we announced last year, we released themessage that by 2030 we will close the gender
gap and equalise the ratio of men to women in our
workforce. We have also set ourselves the goal ofincreasing the ratio of women in decision-making
positions, such as directors and line managers, to
30% without increasing the number of positions
themselves.
Tell me about any specific efforts you havemade to achieve this 30% target.
When the D&I initiative was first launched, we
sensed that suddenly putting only “women” at theforefront might cause some negative reactions. The
Ajinomoto Group Way sets forth the idea to “Value
People”, and this is a key pillar of our operations.
In 2017, we intentionally did not include the word
“women” in our targets. Rather, our stated goal
was that “every employee is respected and able toparticipate fully” in order to create a work environment
where employees, regardless of gender or age, aregiven opportunities that they may lack individually
and are equally engaged in their work.
The first thing we did was to proactively
communicate this message for six months. Then
we introduced unconscious bias training to change
attitudes within the company, and finally, in 2020,
we launched the much-awaited initiative to support
women’s careers.
Firstly, we held a career workshop in whichfemale employees in general positions participatedin pairs with their supervisors. The aim was todeepen their understanding of what we were trying
to achieve with D&I promotion and why women inparticular needed career support opportunities.
The workshop gave rise to a common language
and made it easier for supervisors to encourage the

The ultimate
aim of diversity
promotion
Aiming to create a society
and company where all
employees are engaged andrespect each otherregardless of gender, age,nationality or background,the Ajinomoto Group
provides a system to support
individual careers (workstyle diversity) and bring out
the best in employees(career diversity), andencourages the growth of an
inclusive organizational
culture.

Ultimate of Diversity & Inclusion promotion

women in their careers. We then started training for
selected persons.
Next, we invited external lecturers and expanded
the programme into a “mini-MBA”, a training for
women in general positions one step away frombecoming managers who were selected based on
submission of essays. At the end of the training,
the women presented their suggestions to the
President and other members of management. The
programme consisted of six sessions over a sixmonth period, with 25 participants.
What are your company’s aspirations for the
future?
Basing our initiatives on the opinions of teammembers within the HR department alone tends
to make them biased in terms of values, so wewant to ensure that many employees from different
organizations and with different backgrounds are
involved in planning measures. As demonstrated
by our unconscious bias training, it is only whenpeople with different values can come together
and exchange opinions in a safe environment that
we are able to spot problems early on. Three and ahalf years into our D&I initiative, we are beginningto see younger staff members who are eager to get
involved. If we can nurture such talent in each of
our organizations, we can achieve the diversity andinclusion that will allow us to quickly create a better
environment for both employees and the company
to grow.

*See the following site for details.
Diverse talent | Sustainability | Ajinomoto Group
Global Website - Eat Well, Live Well.

8

Realising genuine inclusion by recognising unconscious
bias. Innovation arising from changing attitudes.

ANA Holdings, Inc.

● Aim: To make Group employees aware of the existence ofunconscious bias, an impediment to promoting diversity and inclusion,and to make our Group a stronger organisation by focusing on
achieving inclusion.
● Approach: Introduction of unconscious bias training, strategic use ofdiverse talent, and sharing of examples at Group company meetings.
● Conclusion: Changing employee attitudes will accelerate thepromotion of diversity and inclusion, and ultimately lead to innovation
as a company.

Please tell me about your initiatives indiversity.
Our Group has various operating companies,
including aircraft maintenance, trading companies,
and building maintenance companies. Since 2020,
we have appointed about 70 persons to be in chargeof promoting Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) at thesecompanies. These people are at the helm of D&I
promotion in our workplaces.
Several times a year, we hold a meeting of D&I
promotion staff to share information and discuss
related issues, and we also arrange time forcompanies to introduce their D&I initiatives. Eachcompany then gets to take home the best practices
shared across the entire Group and can reflect themon its own measures, leading to the promotion of
D&I throughout our Group.
The aviation industry is currently in a very
difficult predicament due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Yet, it is precisely in this environmentthat we believe it is essential to intensify our D&I
promotion while keeping abreast of acceleratingsocial changes. We aim to create an environment

D&I training videos

9

where employees with differing backgrounds andexpertise can demonstrate their capabilities beyond
the boundaries of their attributes and affiliations,which will lead to the creation of new value andsustainable growth through innovation.
Would you share with me a real-life example
that led to innovation?
By thinking beyond conventional wisdom, we
can re-envision our work and business models,leading to innovations such as new service models
that respond to our customers’ expectations.
When you hear the word “innovation”, you may
think of something major, such as AI or robots, butthere are also smaller innovations that arise out of
person-to-person interactions. Since April 2020, ourGroup has drastically reduced international flights
due to restrictions on movement caused by the
pandemic. Our domestic operations are also lessthan half the scale we had planned. In the midst of
this situation, we have had our Group employees
think about and discuss the question “what can we
do now?”. We have made some adjustments. For
example, in the absence of actual travel,
we have taken on challenges that we had
never tried before. One was to create avideo introducing the work of pilots tochildren to make them more familiar withthe profession.
I think this is an example of innovation
born out of diversity in the sense that
employees from different departments
shared their ideas to create somethingnew.
Can you tell me about the impetus forstarting unconscious bias training?
Rigid ideas about gender roles, such as“men work and women stay at home” still

ANAグループ各社 社⻑メッセージ「あなたにとってのD&Iとは？」というテーマで、頂いたメッセージを動画放映しました。

Videos from presidents of Group companies on “What does D&I mean to you?”,created in collaboration with D&I promotion staff

persist in Japan due to historical and social reasons.
We believe this is one of the factors that hinders thepromotion of diversity in the workplace. Why, forexample, do bosses and colleagues react differently
about childcare leave when a female employee
reports her pregnancy and a male employee reports
his partner’s pregnancy? Likewise, why is it that awoman talking on the phone in the corridor is often
perceived as having a private conversation, but thesame does not hold true for a man? Both of theseexamples arose in conversations with employees,
and we realised that there were likely other instanceswhere people were unconsciously holding biases,
which is why we started the training.
I heard that you made the training videos
yourselves!
The unconscious biases we hold are inherently
unconscious, making it difficult to notice how
they affect our casual, everyday language andactions without seeing specific examples. That is
why we wanted to use easy-to-understand videos
to introduce some common examples from real
workplaces to help people become more aware ofthese biases.
We held a lot of discussions to decide on which
examples we would include. We created scenarios
based on specific images of people, such as those
who are hesitant to talk about their sexuality, andthose who are worried that people around themwould act overly cautious about their disability.
The videos were very well received by theemployees who watched them, with many sayingthat the videos made them more aware. We plan
to continue this initiative with more content in the
future.
Please tell me about your company’s futureplans.
We are an airline group with aviation as ourcore business. It takes many Group employees, allplaying their respective parts, to fly a single aircraft.
It is very important for our Group’s operations that
employees with diverse perspectives respect eachother’s strengths and work together to make themost of them. Our top management continuously
communicates the need to further accelerate thepromotion of D&I and its connection to innovation,
as we aim to firmly root these ideas in our company.
Based on this approach, a diverse group of
12 persons currently staff the D&I promotion
department. In addition to having different genders,
nationalities and ages, our department includes
employees with young children and those who havecared for elderly family members, those in the pilot
and cabin attendant profession, and many others.
Because of our differing backgrounds, a variety ofopinions come up when we discuss issues.
Sometimes it is hard to bring all of these ideas
together in our work, but new ideas can be generated
and risks can be reduced when we discuss issues
from a diverse range of perspectives. Over the past
year, we have come to realise that this is exactly why
we should promote D&I. We will continue our efforts
to ensure that D&I concepts become thoroughly
entrenched in our Group.

*See the following site for details.
Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) | Sustainability | ANAGroup Corp.'s Information

10

Promoting “Co-parenting” both inside and outside ourcompany to support child-rearing in Japan towards
a healthier and more abundant future for our children

Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To improve childcare environments for children’s physicaland mental health, and to promote solutions to Japan’s childcare
challenges● Approach: Promoting good family relationships by encouraging
communication and cooperation in parenting among family members(using a parenting app) based on the “Co-parenting” child-rearing
concept.
● Conclusion: Ensuring a healthier and more abundant future forchildren is the mission of our business activities.

Can you tell me about the origins of Glico?
Our corporate purpose is “Healthier days,
Wellbeing for Life”, and our mission is to contributeto society through our business. Our starting point
was a nutritious caramel called “Glico”.
For the two most important missions forchildren: “eating and playing,” our company was
founded about 100 years ago to support the healthy
growth of children , and we now promote the “CoParenting Project”* in order to improve child-rearingin Japan. This project takes into consideration theenvironment not only for children, but also for theirparents towards the next 100 years.
Our company founders set up a public interest
organization called The Mother and Child HealthFoundation in 1934, less than ten years after thecompany’s foundation. The aim of this foundation
is to promote the health of mothers and children.
Since its establishment, the foundation has
screened and awarded children with the excellent
health award, organized symposiums, andproduced and distributed newsletters. Today, thefoundation focuses on research grants in pediatric
medicine, and Ezaki Glico will continue to support
the foundation’s activities going forward.
Where did the idea of Co-parenting come from?
We began deliberations on the “Co-Parenting
Project” around 2017. It was around this time thata whole range of issues concerning children andparents came to the fore, including solo-parenting,“paternity harassment” (harassment of fathers
for taking childcare leave or raising children), andchildcare and postpartum depression. With the
declining birth rate, we felt that in order to create abetter future for our children, we must first improvethe childcare environment for parents. Discussions
were held with top executives on supporting childrearing as a community activity, and the Co-

11

Parenting Project was launched with the aim ofcreating a “Co-parenting society” where families
work together.
However, because we are a company, we must
operate as a business, so the project had to berolled out on a company-wide basis. Within thelarger framework of child-rearing, each division
has been carrying out activities in cooperation withothers. The reason why activities at our head officehave been so readily accepted internally is due toour deep-rooted desire to contribute to the physicaland mental health of children.
Please tell me about the specific initiatives of
the “Co-Parenting Project”.
Although the project is aimed at children,
we wanted to start by taking another look at theenvironment for parents. Viewing the first 1,000

Various initiatives of the Co-Parenting Project*The “Co” in “Co-Parenting” is intended to encompass thethree concepts of harmonious “Communication", good
“Cooperation”, and of course “Co-parenting”, or raisingchildren together, and is the concept of child-rearing
advocated by our company.

days starting before the birth of a child at pregnancy
as an important time to build the foundations of thechild’s mind and body, we launched the project tohelp address child-rearing issues that arise during
this period.
We also develop products that support Coparenting. In March 2019, we launched the firstliquid infant formula in Japan, Icreo Baby Formula.
The advantage of this product is that it can bepoured into a bottle and fed to infants anytime,
anywhere and by anyone. As well as helping to
reduce the burden of everyday childcare, it is also
expected to encourage men to take an active role inchildcare, as it allows anyone to easily feed a baby.
Also, because it requires no preparation, it can beeasily used at evacuation shelters in the event of adisaster, making it very useful for society in Japan,
which is a disaster-prone country.
We also developed a parenting app called “Cope” as a service to support Co-parenting. Thisapp helps to relieve the burden and worries aboutchildcare and housework. We surveyed many
fathers during the development of the app in orderto make it something that family members could use
to cooperate with each other from the early stagesof pregnancy. We have taken into account not only
mothers’ but also fathers’ thoughts, behaviours
and concerns about childcare and housework todevelop an app that makes it easier for fathers to
get involved in childcare. In addition to the basic
functions of a parenting app, the app promotes Coparenting through features such as childcare tasksharing among family members, a wealth of articles
compiled under the supervision of doctors, and a
support feature for one of the biggest concerns
related to childcare—sleep.
What are the childcare leave options for male
employees?
In 2017, the rate of male employees in ourcompany taking childcare leave was around 4%.
We knew that if we wanted to communicate amessage on men’s participation in childcare outside
our company, we first had to re-examine ourselves.
So, from April 2019, we made it mandatory for
employees to take five days of childcare leave.
However, many male employees who took
this childcare leave reported back that it was notmuch different from ordinary paid leave, and that
although they were able to spend time with theirchildren, it was far from full-fledged participation inchildcare. For some, five days was too short a time
period to result in any change in awareness andbehaviour. As a company, we want our employees
to engage in child-rearing, and we want to create
an organizational culture in which each employee
can design his or her own life, engage in highly
productive ways of working to achieve this life, andin which diverse human resources play an activerole. Thus, in January 2020, we established a new“Co-pe” Co-parenting app to support collaborative parenting by all

programme called the “Co-Parenting Month”, asystem for one month of paid leave for employees
who are eligible for childcare leave.
You received a national award. What was thereaction from inside and outside the company?
We received the “Understanding Promotion
Award” of the Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare’s “Ikumen Company Awards 2020”, which
has led to a greater understanding of Co-parenting
within our company. We have also received a numberof inquiries from outside the company, which hasprovided us with the opportunity to learn from theexamples of other companies. We hope that, evenin small ways, our efforts can serve as a reference
to other companies in Japan and beyond, and thatthey will be a catalyst for change in the world.
Finally, what are your company’s plans for the
future?
Changes in the child-rearing and social
environment happen very quickly, making it
difficult to always react in a timely fashion. With
the diversification of family types and lifestyles, wechanged our “Co-pe” app from one for only moms
and dads to one that can be used by grandparents
and everyone else involved in child-rearing. We
believe that constantly resetting our agenda, andtaking the time to learn, think and act, moving
forward every day, is the way we will get closer toour goal.
Our mission will continue to contribute to themental and physical well-being of people, and thiswill always remain part of our DNA.

*See the following site for details.
https://www.glico.com/global/about/csr/report/

12Communication as the key to promoting women’s
empowerment in our company. Aiming for true diversity.

EBARA CORPORATION● Aim: To raise awareness on the need for employees to fulfil theirpotential and develop their careers.
● Approach: Diversity training and leadership development for female
employees at different levels.
● Outlook: Promotion of true diversity regardless of gender, age or
nationality

What kinds of work are your women employees
in charge of?
EBARA CORPORATION (EBARA) is amanufacturer of industrial machinery that was
founded in 1912 as a pump manufacturer. We havesince produced a range of products that supportsocial infrastructure, including our fluid machinery& systems business, our environmental engineeringbusiness, and our precision machinery business.
In fiscal 2018, we abolished our system of support
staff positions, and female employees are now
engaged as either career-track employees or core
staff (management positions) in a wide range offields, including management, sales, research,development, design, and manufacturing.
In this context, what kind of activities do you
carry out in diversity promotion?
Set up in 2015, our Diversity Promotion
Department reports directly to the company
President. In order to promote the empowermentof women, some women were selected to be
the founding members of this department. After
conducting employee awareness surveys on
diversity and gathering feedback from employees
to identify and analyse issues, the department
has planned and proposed future measures andHuman Resources Pyramid for Female Employees

13

projects.
One of the key measures we put in place through2020 was training for female employees at different
levels. Based on results of awareness surveys, wefirst conducted career design training for young
women employees and their immediate supervisors.
Next, we added two more levels—pre-management
and management positions—to divide the trainings
into three tiers. The trainings consisted of four
workshop sessions with external lecturers focusedon the main objective of fostering awareness on
diversity.
Has there been any opposition from female
employees?
In fact, there was. Some asked, “Why are you
only including women?” People have diverse
backgrounds and ways of thinking, so we have tried
to maintain a stance whereby we provide support
while letting people come to their own conclusions.
Since then, we have seen a change in theawareness of these employees, and the factthat more women employees are passing theexamination year by year is an achievement.
What factors do you work to stay aware ofwhen promoting initiatives?
We consciously promote initiatives that involve
our workplaces (factories). When we work hard
together on a project, afterwards we have found thatthose employees begin to understand us and more
readily accept our diversity measures. It’s all about
the importance of communication.
What at first might seem like only small measures,
when carried out steadily at the grassroots level,slowly take root in our workplaces.
Can you give me some specific examples?
I will give an example of a female employee who
was promoted to a manager position. There are very
few women in the logistics department of our factory,
so I went to talk to a woman who worked there about

Training session

addressing any problems in her department. At first,
she was reluctant to talk about problem solving,
thinking it was meaningless.
But we convinced her that it would be worth atry. We reasoned with her, “We don’t know what’s
going on in your department from the outside. But
as someone on-site, you can come up with somechallenges that we can work to solve together.” As
we talked, she became more positive and agreed towork with us.

Our company holds an annual production
innovation conference, where employees givepresentations on on-site improvement activities tothe company President and directors. We asked thiswoman to present on these improvement activities
in problem solving. As there had never been apresentation by a woman at a production innovation
conference before, it attracted a lot of attention andreceived high praise from everyone in attendance,
including the directors. This motivated the woman
and raised awareness throughout the plant, which
led to improvements in operations.
In 2019, that woman was promoted to manager.
We were also able to have her make regularappearances in a programme broadcast on ourcompany intranet about women in management
positions, allowing us to distribute content on theactivities of female employees in the form of agenuine example in our company. We feel that thisgrassroots initiative has been successful.
Please tell me about childcare leave for men.
Nowadays, even though more and more couples
both work, our male employees have very little

understanding of the need and significance of men
taking childcare leave. So we communicate clearlywith our younger employees and foreign nationals to
make it easier for them to take leave.
We now have set up opportunities to encourage
our younger employees to take childcare leave. We
tell them, “If you are reluctant, your family will have tobear the burden (of housework and childcare) alone.
So you can take it.” We believe that diversity andwomen’s empowerment will not be realised unlesschildcare leave for men becomes established.
What are your company’s future plans?
In fiscal 2021, the Diversity Promotion
Department was integrated into the Human
Resources Development Division. From now on,
the Human Resources Development Division will
work as a whole to create a movement to promote
diversity from a broader perspective, regardless ofgender, age, or nationality.
At this stage, we would like to advance initiatives
in promoting the active roles of women. To do so,
we would like our female employees to change
their perspective from conventional ideas about
work to career development based on strong selfawareness. We strongly believe in creating anenvironment in which this can be achieved.

*See the following site for details.
https://www.ebara.co.jp/en/sustainability/social/information/promote-diversity.html

14

Aiming to be a global MedTech company that
contributes to a sustainable society through innovation
born out of diversity

Olympus Corporation● Aim: To become a global MedTech company toward the sustainablegrowth of our business and the realisation of a sustainable society● Approach: Establish a network between management and employees
for the realization of our new management strategy and a training
programme for the women’s empowerment along three axes.
● Conclusion: Diversity builds the strength of a company and gives riseto innovation.

I understand that you have made diversity
and inclusion part of your new management
strategy.
Since the announcement of our management
strategy in November 2019, we have been striving
to become a global MedTech* company and toachieve the sustainable growth of our businessand a sustainable society. In accordance with ourmanagement philosophy, we also aim to strengthen
our ESG initiatives.
Among these aims is strengthening diversity andinclusion. Our efforts focus not only on differencesin nationality, gender, age, and various otherbackground attributes, but also on the participationof seniors, especially in Japan, where there aremany caregivers and elderly people. We are also
working on LGBT issues, with the aim of becoming
a company where everyone can achieve their fullpotential.
Please tell me about your measures to promote
the women’s empowerment.
To promote the women’s empowerment, wehave a three-axis training programme. The first axis
aims to foster career awareness among womenthemselves, the second fosters women who aim for
management positions, and the third aims to create
a conducive culture within our company.
To create this culture, we have been holding
unconscious bias trainings since 2015. To date,approximately 1,100 people have undergone thistraining, which targets all levels of management thatserve as key players in the career development of
women.
Can you tell me more detail about trainings that
support women’s careers?
One problem we face is the extremely low ratioof women in management positions, and we are
currently running two training courses to improve
this.

15

The first is a training course for employees at
the rank of sub-section manager, with the aim of
improving their skills to become section managers
or higher. About 15 persons are selected fromamong eligible female employees to attend a threeday training. This year, the first and third days wereconducted online, and the second day was conducted
face-to-face. The reason day two is conducted inperson is due to the content. Participants had to roleplay in various scenarios of challenging situations
prepared in advance, putting them in the thick of
the battle, so to speak. The purpose of this training
is to give female employees, who have not had todeal with such work situations because they havebeen given special consideration as women, theopportunity to learn how to deal with them.
The other is a training course for female
employees already in management positions whowant to move up to even higher positions. We
invite external instructors to conduct training oncea month for six months. The training starts with a
SWOT analysis and ends with a presentation tocompany directors. Participants experience thesame atmosphere as a board of directors meeting,which is usually attended only by department
heads and above. Having them present proposals
related to their own work later brings about positive
impacts on their jobs. Employees who make it to thepresentation stage are then mentored by a memberof the board of directors from the following year. In
this way, the management itself takes an active partin networking and strengthening the development of
women in management positions.
In order to maintain and develop this initiative,
boosting our recruitment of women is essential. At
present, women make up 16% of our workforce,
which does not provide a large pool of women who*MedTech: a combination of “Medical” and “Technology”, i.e.
the use of IoT and other technologies in medicine.

aspire to management positions. We have set atarget for 25% of new graduate hires to be women,
and we are working to strengthen recruitment.
Is mentoring going well?
I think that our mentoring scheme functions quite
well. There are two types of mentoring: mentoring
for women in management who want to become
directors or senior managers, and mentoring for
those at the pre-management level who want toadvance their careers. Both are well received.
Mentoring for women in management has led todirect communication of management’s thinking,which has helped the women to clarify points offocus in their work, resulting in quicker promotions.
In post-training questionnaires for trainings for premanagement employees, most reported that thetraining helped them to organize their ideas about
their careers and to become more proactive.
Does your company have any other measures
to support women?
We offer opportunities for female employees
who have temporarily left the workplace due to life
events such as childbirth or child-rearing to cometogether to think about their future careers. Many
employees are anxious about returning to work, so
we share information with them on what happened
while they were away from the workplace and invite
senior employees who can serve as role models.
Of course, employees can bring their children tothese events. It has been five or six years since westarted to focus on supporting employees’ work-lifebalance, and we now have a 100% return-to-workrate after childcare leave.
We also reach out to our female employees
after they return to work. We provide an opportunity
for everyone to come together and change theirmindsets as they think about their future careers.
Another initiative that we launched in 2014 is one
we call “Tsunagaru (means connecting) -Meetings”,
and the “Gerbera Smile Project” that arose out of
it. This project is mainly aimed at women working
in technical development positions, a field where
there are few women. Thus, the aim is to strengthen
horizontal connections through exchanges between
women managers and women employees in otherdepartments, and to provide opportunities for themto think about their careers.
We also have company-wide initiatives related
to harassment. Aside from, of course, having
consultation services related to harassment,
this year we delivered e-learning to all 16,000
employees in Japan, including those at Group
companies. We have also conducted online training
for the approximate 800 employees in management
positions, and intend to continue this work in a
steady manner.

Director presentations

I heard that you are working on an interesting
initiative in the United States!
We have an internal networking initiative called“Colleague Affinity Networks” (CANs). It is an
initiative run by the Olympus Corporation of theAmericas, and apart from one or two managers,
all of the other employees in general positions
have come together on their own for this initiative.
For example, the employees themselves organize
lectures by experts to pave new paths for women’s
empowerment, or they serve each other homemade food from their home countries as theycelebrate each other’s differences. These activities
are considered part of their work and take place
during working hours.
While it is also related to features of the USA
as a country, these activities help to further
understanding on diversity and the way companies
are made up of a variety of cultures, people andcircumstances. They also promote contentment
among employees.
Please tell me about your company’s futureplans.
In carrying out various activities, we havecome to understand that diversity initiatives help
employees to feel more secure and improve their
physical and mental health. Research has also
shown that they also lead to a reduction in employee
turnover rates, making these initiatives an essential
element in creating a greater sense of unity within
a company. We will continue to work hard going
forward to ensure that our employees can continue
to work in a stable environment, both physically andmentally, where they are motivated to do their best.

*See the following site for details.
Diversity and Equal Opportunity : Social :Sustainability : OLYMPUS (olympus-global.com)

16

Towards a gender-neutral society. Achieving diversity as
the leader of a new beauty culture.

KOSÉ Corporation● Aim: To be a company where all employees can shine by doing awaywith stereotypical gender roles● Approach: Initiatives to change employees’ attitudes through thelaunch of an organization for company-wide promotion of diversity● Outlook: Sparking a new make-up culture in a gender-free world

How would you describe the gender balance ofyour employees?
More than 80% of all group employees are
women, including our Beauty Consultants (BC) insales positions. Accordingly, men and women work
together as a matter of course in our corporate
culture. Yet, considering that the ratio of women in
career-track positions, such as head office staff,
R&D, and sales, is just under 50%, while the ratioof women in managerial positions is around 30%,
the majority of decision-making positions are heldby men. For this reason, a company-wide project
was launched in 2017 aimed at encouraging all
employees to play an active role and enhance theirjob satisfaction, regardless of gender or job title.
What prompted you to launch activities in
2017?
As a forerunner to this project, we had been
carrying out initiatives to run our operations more
efficiently and improve productivity. When we hadachieved a certain level of success, our company
CEO & president, Kazutoshi Kobayashi, decided thatin order for us to grow into a company with a global
presence, we needed not only to empower women,
but also ensure that all of our employees, regardlessof gender, experience, or age, were able to play anactive and rewarding role in the company. That is
how this project came about. Because our president
and other members of management encourage
employees to take on new challenges, our company
has always had a culture in which everyone, not just
women, can take on new challenges. The project
was launched with a message from managementthat the power of women is necessary for the growthof the company.
Please tell me about the status of women’s
advancement activities.
In order to support women’s advancement, itis necessary to go through the following stages:
institutional improvements, creation of a conducive
culture, and development and strengthening.

17

Women employees, including one of our leading
women executives and women in BC positions,take part in a team in charge of promoting diversity
within the project. This team carries out activities
that would be impossible for any single department
to accomplish alone. These activities have provided
a chance for female members to speak up andcommunicate the message that the success of thecompany as a whole is dependent on two points—
that we promote a culture where both women andmen can play active roles in career-track positions,and that we expand career opportunities beyond theshop floor for BC positions. As the project has only
been in existence for a few years, it is in a sense
a simple grassroots activity, but team members
are very passionate about leading the company’s
diversity and inclusion activities.
At the end of last year, this team hosted a lecture
by Yukino Kikuma, a lawyer and one of our external
directors, on the topic of “How to build a happy
career”. Ms. Kikuma delivered a strong message
on the need for women to give 150% of themselves
and to clearly visualise their career plans and invest
in their careers themselves. In a follow-up survey
after the lecture, many positive comments werereceived, for instance, “I realized that it is okay to
be more proactive”. The lecture thus served as

Seminar on career mindsets by one of our women external directors

an opportunity for mid-level women employees
and above to change their mindsets. A video ofthe lecture was subsequently shared with male
employees, thereby helping all employees to build amindset that allows them to create careers suited tothemselves, regardless of gender.
When we talk about women’s advancement, we
generally tend to focus on institutions for supporting
women, but it is also important to support men. One
example is providing opportunities for equal divisionof labour within the household. To this end, we have
set up a unique system called the “KOSÉ IKUPAPA
Support System”, which is a system to support
fathers of newborn babies, to encourage men to
take childcare leave. In fiscal 2020, the rate of men
taking childcare leave exceeded 50%, a significant
increase from the previous year. In this way, we
are working to create an environment in which
employees can work without having to be consciousof their gender.
How have you tackled unconscious bias?
We provide training for managers. When there
were fewer female employees in career-track
positions, there were some well-meaning malesupervisors who assigned women with young
children to mainly support staff positions with lessresponsibility, without confirming the intentions ofthese female employees. However, as this kind of
unconscious bias caused by excessive awarenessof gender differences can happen regardless ofgender, going forward, we must first accumulate
more knowledge and then work to create a morefavorable environment.
In the past, there was a clear division of roles
between men and women, with men working thebusiness side of sales and women working thesales floor. Today, things are different. Yet questions
still arise, such as how a male boss should treat afemale subordinate who is newly assigned to an allmale environment. We believe that an understandingof our unconscious biases can facilitate better
communication.

Company-wide meeting of diversity teamapplied company-wide, and it very quickly became
widely accepted. Some women employees who had
been experimenting by trial and error in balancing
work and child-rearing found that they were able tofree up time by using their commuting time as time
for work, making them feel even more engaged. We
have come to realize that employees can perform
well even when working from home, and now view
telecommuting as an opportunity to reform our ways
of working.
What are your company’s future plans?
Historically, women have been at the forefrontof beauty culture. However, as our society becomes
more gender-neutral, men have also come to enjoy
wearing make-up and caring about the condition of
their skin. We believe that we need to be consciousof this change.
We have very close interactions with ourcustomers through our cosmetic products. The
messages we send out to the world as a company
are a clear indication of how we intend to interact
with society going forward, and these messages
are immediately conveyed to our customers. We
will continue to utilise the diverse strengths of ouremployees to contribute to society as the leader of a
new gender-neutral beauty culture.

Do you have an anti-harassment policy?
We not only provide training for managers, buthave also set up a hotline to support any affected
persons. We also use e-learning and internal
newsletters to raise awareness of the need toprevent harassment between employees. As abusiness-to-consumer (B2C) company, we havea strong awareness within our company thatenhancing ethics in the workplace is also related tothe quality of service we provide to our customers.
Has the pandemic resulted in any changes?
Even prior to the pandemic, we had been
experimenting with telecommuting for thoseengaged in childcare and elderly care. With the
pandemic, our system for telecommuting was*See the following site for details.
https://www.kose.co.jp/company/en/sustainability/
diversity/

18

Promoting diversity to strengthen technologicalcapabilities across the company under the leadershipof a female CEO

Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To come out on top in the engineering consulting industry,where people are the most important asset● Approach: Through certification schemes that add value for clientfacing operations together with promotion and leadership by our
female CEO● Conclusion: Increase the number of female employees by creatinga workplace where women want to work over the long term, andstrengthen the company’s technological capabilities

Please tell me about your company’s businessactivities.
We have two main businesses. The first is thegeospatial information business, where we acquireand analyse a wide variety of digitalized spatial
information from aircraft and satellites, as wellas analogue location information such as maps
to provide value-added solutions. The second
is our engineering consulting business, which
encompasses urban development, infrastructure
planning, environmental management, and disasterrisk management.
One of our strengths is that, while we are anengineering consulting company, we can acquirenearly all of the data we use in our work ourselves.
Few companies in the industry are able to do this,and it is a feature that sets us apart. As of March
2021, we have 1,940 employees, the majority ofwhom are engineers, as we provide technicalservices.
Please tell me about your initiatives in genderequality.
In 2007, we developed a compliance manual.
The 12th topic in the human rights section statedour policy related to gender, and this marked thestart of our activities to promote gender equality.
Then in 2013, we received Kurumin certification asa “Childcare Support Company”, and in 2019, we
received a Grade 2 certification under the Eruboshi
certification system based on the Act on Promotionof Women's Participation and Advancement in
the Workplace. These certifications are renewed
annually.
Most of the engineers in our company are men,and the older the generation the more this holds
true. At one time, civil engineering was seen as
men’s work. Nowadays, with the improvementof technology, the way we work has changed
dramatically, with less on-site survey work and19

more indoor work. Such changes made the work
environment easier for women to work in, and gave
little reason to prefer men over women, and thenumber of female engineers has increased.
For quite some time now, we have been
recruiting on the basis of ability, irrespective ofgender. An increase in female graduates in thesciences has helped us to increase the proportionof overall female employees from around 10% in
March 2015 to around 20% as of March 2020. We
are currently working to create a workplace where
women will choose to work over the long term, evenafter marriage or childbirth.
Was there an impetus for these changes?
Government incentives for companies with
Kurumin certification in the public procurement
process has had a major impact, not only on ourcompany, but on the industry as a whole.
Eighty per cent of our company’s sales come frompublic works, which are tendered using a Request
for Proposal system. The proposal with the highest
score is awarded the contract, and scores not only
take into account price and technical content, butalso Kurumin and Eruboshi certification. In manycases, the difference between first and second
place bidders is less than one point, which meansthat a very small difference can be the deciding

All-company network meeting of female employees

factor in winning a contract. For this reason, notonly our human resources development department
but also our sales department is very supportive ofinitiatives to promote gender equality.
In addition, as society has come to place greater
emphasis on diversity considerations, diversityconscious planning has become an essential partof urban planning and other consulting work. The
bottom line is that the inclusion of female engineers
has become indispensable for us to reflect diverse
viewpoints in our work products.
The appointment of Sandra Wu, Wen-Hsiu as thefirst female Chairperson and CEO was also a major
turning point for our company. Under her leadership,
our human resources development department
established a network for female employees andheld an all-company network meeting of female
employees, as well as male employees with female
subordinates. At this meeting, ways to makecorporate regulations more women-friendly andhow to create more comfortable work environments
for women were discussed. Such initiatives madeit easier for female employees to share theirconcerns and issues, and for the company to grasp
the problems they face; these efforts not only
influenced our HR department, but also worked
towards changing our male employees’ ways ofthinking. At the same time, I think our mandatory
employee training on power harassment and sexual
harassment have accelerated our efforts to promote
gender equality and women’s advancement.
The percentage of female employees inmanagement positions was around 2% in 2014, but
has risen to 5.3% in 2019 following the all-company
network meeting.
Has the industry itself changed since the startof Kurumin and Eruboshi certification?
I can say for sure that it has. We meet each otherand work together as the Japan Civil Engineering
Consultants Association; with the increase in womenengineers, work groups for female engineers inconstruction-related industries have appeared
within the Association. I think such groups will
become increasingly active in the future.
What is the situation regarding the recruitment
and promotion of female employees?
We have not made a distinction between men
and women in our recruitment for over 10 years.
We focus on people who are highly qualified andwho will fit in at our company. For some years,
the percentage of women among new graduate
hires has exceeded 50%, and the ratio of female
employees has been steadily increasing.
In our company, it takes about ten years tomove from a general position to a managementlevel position. Although we have more women
employees, the number of women in management
positions is still small due to the small number

All-company network meeting of female employees

of women employees in the age group that arebecoming managers. The proportion is certain to
increase in the future.
Our business divisions actually wield thestrongest influence over human resources, as they
are the profit-generating engines of the company.
As such, the persons in charge of businessdivisions and teams need to understand company
policy and what makes a workplace friendly towomen engineers, and take action. We believe it isimportant for us in management to clearly explain
where things stand and make sure that they are on
board.
To this end, we launched a comprehensive
training programme that is not limited to managers.
For example, as soon as new hires join the company,
they undergo a number of training courses to learn
about women-friendly work environments andgender balance.
Please tell me about your company’s futureplans.
Our human resources development department,
human resources department and corporate
planning department are jointly formulating a midterm plan and general action plan related to the
Act on Promotion of Women's Participation andAdvancement in the Workplace, in consultation with
our directors. Our action plan will include activities
to increase the ratio of women in management
positions within five years, starting from fiscal year
2021. Although we are still in the early stages, we aredetermined to make steady progress in promoting
the gender diversity through the advancement of
women.

20

Reimagining and improving our work styles as key to the
future of the construction industry. Commitment from the
top promotes diversity and drives the industry forward.

Shimizu Corporation● Aim: To promote diversity as necessary for the transformation of ourbusiness model from a long-term perspective.
● Approach: Commitment from top management for opportunities for all
and gender equality in evaluation, and the elimination of unconscious
biases held by men and women.
● Conclusion: The gender equality perspective can also lead to work
style reforms for male employees, improving the overall work-lifebalance of the workforce.

When did your company start working on
diversity issues?
In 2009, we set up our Diversity Promotion Office.
The construction industry developed in a maledominated society. When we looked at the longterm future of our company, we concluded that we
could not expect sustainable growth if we continued
to operate our construction business as we had in
the past. We announced a long-term vision in 2010.
In the process of formulating this vision, we decided
to make a course correction based on the belief that
we must create a place where a diverse range oftalent can play an active role if we are to evolve asa smart innovation company that creates new value
beyond the construction business.
Our activities were also motivated by the factthat the President of our company at the time,
Yoichi Miyamoto (now Chairman of the Board), hadbeen very vocal since around 2013 about the needfor equal opportunities and evaluation for senior
management.
Originally, the Diversity Promotion Office
was working on the three pillars of promoting theengagement of women, foreign nationals, andpeople with disabilities. While striving to create
a better working environment and provide equal

Diversity forum on the topic of unconscious bias

21

opportunities for women and other minorities, wesoon realized that we needed to make our company
a place where all employees can play an active role.
It was important to start by changing the mindset ofmanagement, and from there we have continued to
expand the scope of our work.
How many female employees do you have?
Although the ratio of women in our workforce isjust under 20%, the ratio of women in management
positions is only 3.1%. We have been focused on
recruiting more women since 2008, and expect
the ratio of women among our employees and inmanagement positions to increase in the future.
In recent years, we have seen an increase in thenumber of young people applying for positions at ourcompany, both male and female, who are looking tofind fulfilment both in their work and personal lives.
There is an organization called the Japan
Federation of Construction Contractors, which ismade up of general contractors from all over thecountry. They set up an organization called the“Kensetsu-Komachi Committee” to support women
working in the construction industry. Initiatives in theindustry as a whole have become more active, andwe believe that the number of women working in theconstruction industry will increase going forward.
What about childcare leave for men?
Since 2017, we have pursued initiatives toincrease the number of men who take childcare
leave. We were making efforts, such as distributing
an e-learning course to all employees and posting
testimonials on our intranet. Then, at the beginningof last year, our company President, Kazuyuki Inoue,
proposed doing more to increase the number of men
taking childcare leave, volunteering his assistance.
Since then, things have progressed more quickly.
In fact, it all started at a meeting with women
employees who had returned to work after taking

childcare leave. One woman employee voiced theopinion that men must also take childcare leaveand participate in housework and child-rearing
after returning to work, otherwise they could neverunderstand the position of women or promote
their advancement. Our company President was
100% convinced. We began an initiative whereby
letters signed by the President are sent to male
employees, not only congratulate them on thebirth of their children, but also to encourage themto take childcare leave. Letters are also sent totheir superiors asking for their understanding forchildcare leave of their subordinates.
After starting, we received a letter of thanksfrom a male employee who had taken childcare
leave and his partner, addressed to our company
President, who then asked us to make new efforts
to increase the rate of employees taking childcare
leave. Top-down actions have made these initiatives
much easier to implement. (From October 2021, we
introduced a “Paternity Leave System”, which allows
employees to take four weeks of paid leave during
the first eight weeks of a child’s life.)
Do you have any initiatives to address
unconscious bias?
We believe that unconscious bias is the biggest
obstacle we face in furthering our aims. When bias
is unconscious, it is hard to recognize. For example,
when deciding whether a person is capable of doinga certain job or not, we might hear someone kindheartedly say, “It would be a pity to make a woman
do that work”. They do not realize that their wellmeaning comments are actually depriving a personof an opportunity. On the other hand, someone
might lose an opportunity by stepping back from ajob saying, “I might inconvenience others at work if
my child suddenly has a fever”. We should be awarethat unconscious bias is at play in these situations.
In our company, there was an implicit divisionof labour roles, with the site supervisors always
being men who were expected to work 24-hour
shifts. From 2008, women finally began to join thisworkforce. We have also seen a similar situation insales and marketing, and we hope to expand therange of positions in the future. Our immediatepriority is to have a woman construction manager(management level position).
What are some of your challenges and how will
you address them?
We are doing everything we can to ensure agood balance between work and child-rearing,
but we still face some challenges in the area ofbalancing work and elderly care. We will continue
to work to improve the work-life balance of all of ouremployees and create an environment where theycan enjoy both their work and personal lives.
We also need to make sure that the criteria forevaluation are clear and that employees understand“Kawanishi Komachi ICT” team at a construction sitethat everyone is given equal opportunities andevaluated on the basis of their performance. We
imagine a variety of situations—such as a person
in a senior position imposing old values or trying
to teach younger employees in the same way they
were brought up, and we organize trainings to deal
with them. Training is vitally important, which isalso why we provide communication training for
management.
What are your company’s goals for the future?
We do not want to increase the number of womenin our company just because women’s advancement
is being promoted. Rather, we want to make ourcompany a place where people with dreams join
our company and can realize their dreams. For
example, if a person who dreams of building a dam
joins our company, we would like them to believethat if they continue to work hard, one day they will
have the opportunity to actually build it. We arehighly conscious of the fact that the changes weare making to provide equal job opportunities area matter of course, and we want to make sure thatthe advancement of women also becomes more thenorm.
We hope that when a company like ours,
which has a long history and is relatively large inthe construction industry, makes efforts such asthese, we can have a positive impact on the wholeconstruction industry as well as on society.

*See the following site for details.
Promoting Diversity/Corporate Information/Shimizu
Corporation (shimz.co.jp)

22Activities led by the Group Women’s Activity Promotion
Committee. Developing leaders who incorporate diverse
perspectives into management decision-making

Shinsei Bank, Limited● A im: To embrac e diver se values and inc or porate diver se
perspectives into decision-making settings.
● Approach: Taking a macro and micro view of women’s empowerment.
● Conclusion: Removing biases, such as “women should do women’swork”, and focusing on the unique characteristics of each individual
allows people to achieve success in their respective fields ofexpertise, creating a diverse group of leaders.

What circumstances led to the creation of
the “Group Women’s Activity Promotion
Committee”?
It started with the participation of top managementin the “Male Leaders Coalition for Empowerment of
Women” organized by the Cabinet Office and thelaunch of an initiative to advance radical projects
to address various human resource challenges.
The Group Women’s Activity Promotion Committee
comprises the influential heads of business units
and group company officers, leads our Group’s
efforts to promote the empowerment of women.
The Group Women’s Activity Promotion
Committee launched a women’s development
programme to select and foster potential womenleaders, and we have come through a trial and error
process in implementing this programme.
General managers, as the supervisors of selectedparticipants, created individual development plans,
which were then reviewed by the secretariat
and the HR director. Early on in the programme,development plans were limited to certain skills andareas, with goals such as “to become a specialist in
this area of work” or “to improve skills in this area”. It
took two to three months just to create development
plans that served our original purpose of creating
leaders for the organization.
In addition to line supervisors and officers, weSponsor Officer Scheme

23

matched each participant with a “sponsor officer”
from outside their line to provide support from a
position outside the chain of command.
We started off the programme with training
sessions for officers. External lecturers werebrought in to conduct training on the obstacles
women face in their careers and the ways women
can be supported to foster women’s empowerment
and development.
What is the status of other initiatives topromote women’s empowerment?
There was one incident that made top
management think very seriously about the needto promote women’s empowerment. Every year, ourcompany makes two lists to recommend promotions
for executive officers and general managers. One is“those likely to be promoted this year” and the otheris “those likely to be promoted in two to three years”.
Even when women were put on the list of those likely
to be promoted in two to three years, they nevermade it to the list for the current year promotion,even after several years had passed. We wondered
whether the problem was with the women who werelikely to be promoted, or was on the organization.
Even when a uniform evaluation system is in place,there are various biases in the viewpoints of those
who actually administer the system.
There are certain people who argue that thepromotion of women’s empowerment should be
about evaluating men and women equally, notabout showing favouritism to women. They claimthat selecting women for training programmes or
conducting trainings only for women amount toreverse discrimination. However, it is undeniable
that who evaluates whom and by what measure,
have an impact on job assignments, evaluations andrecommendations for promotion. Biases can arise
in evaluations when only a single measurement
is used. So, we believe that those conducting
evaluations need to be diverse and use a variety ofmeasurements.

Organizational chart of the Group Women’s Activity Promotion Committee

There are also challenges on the women’s side.
The secretariat met for about an hour with each of the
60 participants in the initial session of the first stageof the programme. In the course of these interviews,
we often heard these women comment that they did
not want to be treated differently only on the basisof being women. Meanwhile, when discussing theissues in depth, some women revealed that, in theirhearts, they still believed that it should be men in
management positions.
Were there any reasons that they might think
this way?
In the past, in the name of promoting women’s
activities, we appointed many women to management
positions at a stage when the system was notready for career women, and their own strengths
and mindsets were not sufficiently developed. We
made mistakes that made things difficult for both
the women involved and those around them. Many
women who had witnessed such examples did notwant to end up in a similar situation.
Each one of us holds some kind of bias, and it
is quite difficult to recognize them and change ourattitudes, but we believe in the necessity of working
to unravel these sorts of complexities.
Does this mean that it’s important to change
our attitudes?
We once gave programme participants andtheir supervisors a simple survey asking whether
they thought various words sounded masculine or
feminine. There were about 30 words and phrases
including, for example, “in charge of big projects”,“ambitious”, “competitive” and “sensitive”. The results
showed that most people felt that “in charge of big
projects” and “ambitious” sounded masculine. In theend, we believe that the most important thing when
thinking about diversity and inclusion is changing
attitudes, but this is rarely a straightforward or easytask.
What are your company’s future plans?
For one project, we selected a team of people
to come up with good ideas for the project, and we
ended up with a team of only women. It was more

about putting the right people in the right place, andless about them being women. It is important forpeople to make the most of their skills in the areas inwhich they excel. We also believe that when selecting
women, it is important not to confuse macro effects
with micro effects. From a macro perspective, it
is already clear that companies committed to theadvancement of women and gender equality tend to
perform better and have higher share prices.
On the other hand, from a micro perspective, it
is not appropriate to evaluate the effectiveness of
initiatives to promote women’s advancement basedon the example of one female leader. Because
women leaders are still in the minority, they tend to
attract a lot of attention, and sometimes one woman
is seen as representative of all women leaders,even though she is only one of the examples. We
believe that we should not refer to individual cases
to argue that women leaders are inferior or superior,and that individual cases cannot be used to makesuch judgments.
In order for our company to make great strides in
the future, it is important to have diverse perspectives
in decision-making settings. We believe that this willlead to diversity in the true sense of the word.

*See the following site for details.
Initiatives for Employees | Sustainability |Management Policy | Corporate/IR | Shinsei Bank(https://www.shinseibank.com/corporate/en/policy/
esg/employee.html)

24

Expanding the scope of women’s activities throughongoing training for engineers, and building a gender
neutral corporate culture that supports Japanese“monozukuri” (“manufacturing”).

Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd.

● Aim: To solve the problem of predicted labour shor tages atconstruction sites by creating sites where women can play an activerole.
● Approach: Expanding the scope of women’s activities throughtraining for engineers, which has been going on for 45 years, andpromoting childcare leave for men.
● Conclusion: We can create a culture that supports Japan’s strength
in manufacturing as corporate citizens that work together regardlessof gender.

Manufacturers’ factories are often thought ofas men’s workplaces. What initiatives do you
have in place to increase the number of womenhires?
Of the approximately 4,500 employees we
directly employ, not only in our factories, about
18% are women. The largest proportion of these
are in administrative positions, and there are notmany women in technical positions working in ourfactories.
However, as part of our efforts to achieve an
equal gender balance, we now want to recruit
women in the same way as men when it comesto new graduate hires. For this reason, we havesteadily continued to take a focused approach, forexample by informing high school teachers that wewould like female students who are interested in the
manufacturing industry to join our company. As aresult, the number of women working in our factories
has increased year by year, doubling compared to
five years ago.
For women employed in technical positions, inwhat areas are they engaged?
Of the products made at our plant in Komaki City,
Aichi Prefecture, 70-80% are automotive products.
Among these, the main products we manufacture areanti-vibration rubber that reduces vibration in cars,and rubber and resin hoses for cars, and women are
mainly engaged in our hose manufacturing division.
We also manufacture the same products at our plantin Matsusaka City, Mie Prefecture, where many
women also are actively engaged.
Another major site where women are active is
our factory in Ageo City, Saitama Prefecture. There,
we mainly manufacture rubber seals, which areused on the ends of automobile harnesses. Over
90% of our inspectors are women. Women serve in

25

important roles such as the head of the inspectors’organization and in a wide range of other jobs
including supervisors.
Many women also work as operators, monitoring
and controlling machines. Women are also actively
engaged in the inspection process in factories that
produce roller parts for printers and multifunction
printers.
Are there any initiatives to increase the numberof women in management positions?
We run a training course called “F-Training”
which is the gateway to becoming a site supervisor.
The training lasts four months and is designed tohelp the trainees learn about real problems andchallenges in the manufacturing process. Learning
opportunities maintain a balance between study andpractice, and are aimed at improving the company
and developing the skills of individuals. The training
is conducted non-stop three times a year, with only

Presentation of insights and learning in front of board members at
end of the F-Training

the participants changing. In 2021, we celebrated
its 45th anniversary. Employees from all factories,
including group companies, are invited to apply. Of
the roughly 75 employees who undergo the training
every year, the number of female participants has
gradually increased over the past ten years, andnow almost every session has women participants.
More than half of the women who have taken partin the F-Training have been appointed to the positionof team leader, which is an on-site supervisory
position. This is a high percentage, and we believethat this training has given them the self-awarenessto play active roles as team leaders.
During the training, employees work in groups ofthree or four people from different workplaces andvarious fields, so even women with no experiencein manufacturing can participate in the training
without any problems. It also helps them to build
connections within the company.
What factors influenced the increase in womenparticipants in the F-Training?
We have repeatedly sent out information to alldivisions recommending the training for women. We
have also devised ways to make women want to takepart in the training, such as introducing women who
have played active roles in the past, and improving
the content of the training, taking into account theopinions of previous women participants.
For example, one of the things we try to do iscreate an environment where women who want toleave work on time to pick up their children can doso without worrying about others. Many women feelguilty about being the only ones that leave work
early, so we try to increase communication on a daily
basis to deepen understanding among trainees.

“Koala Pokke” onsite childcare centre at the Komaki plant.
The centre was established in 2009, the same year childcare
encouragement leave was introduced. About 30 children are
regularly cared for there.

encouragement leave is limited to the period up to achild’s first birthday, some employees have said that
it was easy for them to tell their colleagues, “I haveto take some time off because the system only lasts
one year”.
As is the case throughout the Japanesemanufacturing industry, the shortage of labouris expected to become even more acute in the
future.
It will continue to be important for us to prove
to women that our company is a good place towork, but we must not let this stop at the level of
performance. Ultimately, our aim is to createa working environment where all employees
alike, regardless of gender, can support Japan’s
manufacturing industry as corporate citizens.

I heard that you have set up an additionalchildcare encouragement leave scheme inaddition to childcare leave. What kind ofsystem is it?
The system allows male employees to take fiveconsecutive days off with pay when a child is born.
We thought that although it may be difficult for mostmen to take months off for childcare, they would be
able to take one week, including the weekends, so
we implemented this system.
In fiscal year 2019, 50 employees took advantageof this scheme. This is about 30% of those who
were entitled to take the leave, and we think thescheme has been effective on a certain level. To
date, we have made continuous efforts to improve
the working environment for employees raisingchildren, for example by building day-care centreson company premises and expanding childcare
leave. In the process, we feel that male employees’
awareness on childcare leave has also changed.
Inaddition,
becauseourchildcare*See the following site for details.
https://www.sumitomoriko.co.jp/english/csr/portal/

26

Creating a climate conducive to innovation bypromoting diversity through active dialogue to discover“happiness” in the workplace

Sekisui House, Ltd.

● Aim: To pursue happiness in the 100-year-life by “making homes thehappiest places in the world”.
● Approach: In order for our employees to pursue happy lives, we as acompany must first discover our own happiness and the happiness in
our workplaces. We will engage in-depth dialogue on this topic.
● Conclusion: Initiatives to create a workplace climate conducive toinnovation.

What was the impetus for your company topromote childcare leave?
After our CEO, Yoshihiro Nakai, was appointed
President in 2018, his first overseas investor
relations visit was to Stockholm. He was shocked tosee so many men pushing prams, a sight completely
different from Japan. We began operation of ourchildcare leave scheme for men just four or fivemonths after his return.
In July of that year, we declared publicly that ourcompany would aim for all male employees withchildren age three and under to take a full monthor more of childcare leave. We believed it to bemeaningful to have all eligible employees be asked
to take childcare leave.
In Japan, the image of a man as the breadwinner
and the mainstay of the family remains strong. Even
when we told them that childcare leave benefits
were available, it was difficult to find people who
were willing to take extended leave. It seems they
were worried that they would lose their wages andbonuses if they took a month off, or that they would
not be able to pay their mortgage or make ends
meet. So we decided to offer them full pay startingfrom the first day of their leave for up to one month,along the same lines that annual leave is offered. We
told them that the company would be responsible forpaying their basic salary and all other benefits, sothey could take leave without worry.
Even so, many voiced anxiety about taking awhole month off work. Thinking it would be easierfor people to return to work after childcare leave ifthey took only a week off, we made it possible for
employees to divide childcare leave into a maximumof four separate periods, depending on their family
circumstances and work commitments. We believedthat if we could ensure flexibility, it would be easierfor everyone to take their leave.

27

Did you face any difficulties in implementing
the system?
The most important thing was changing themindsets of employees, and that was the hardest
part. Previously, employees had only taken one
or two days of childcare leave and that was it. It
was hard for many to imagine taking a month off
all of a sudden. So we organized an internal event
called the “Ikumen (‘Good Papa’) Forum”, where
President Nakai talked about his experiences in
Stockholm, why men should take childcare leave,
and the benefits of doing so. We connected about
1,900 employees , including the target group andtheir bosses, and streamed the event live. We werealso joined by the Chairperson of Fathering Japan,
Tetsuya Ando, who spent about an hour and a half
giving us a good overview of the benefits of men
taking childcare leave.
We created a portal site on our intranet where
we showcase examples of employees who took
their leave. For example, some thought it would be
impossible for employees in customer-focused sales
and design positions at a housing manufacturer
to take leave, but by showing an example of an
employee who took a month’s childcare leave but still
produced results at work, we were able to changeboth the motivation and mindset of our employees.
I heard that your company has its own
guidebook and white paper on men’s childcare
leave.
From the early period after the system waslaunched, we used a questionnaire to carefully
survey employees who took the leave. We used
this feedback to compile our “Guidebook for Men on
Childcare Leave” containing first-hand accounts ofexperiences and failures, comments from spouses,
and a Q&A section that gives advice on what to do
in various situations.
In 2019, we also began holding forums open
to people outside the company. As a part of this“Men's Childcare Leave
White Paper”, published in
September 2021.

The 6th graduating class and training curriculum flowchart of the Sekisui House Women’s College
Curriculum Outline
First Year: Learning about the essence of management by acquiring the skills to develop a management
perspective→Second Year: Strengthening problem-solving skills and other abilities through experiential
learning to resolve workplace issues→Presentations to top management

initiative, we conducted a questionnaire survey ofa total of 9,400 people—100 men and 100 womenfrom each of Japan’s 47 prefectures—to ask about
the actual state of men’s engagement in childcare
and housework, as well as the thoughts of theirspouses. The results were compiled into the“Ikumen White Paper”. Researching and analysing
the actual state of childcare leave for men revealeda difference between our company and Japan as awhole. We published this white paper twice, in 2019and 2020. Then in 2021, we changed the name to“Men's Childcare Leave White Paper,” which we
published in two volumes, the main volume and a
special edition.
Please tell me about your policies ontelecommuting and well-being.
We are working to improve our systems andfacilities to promote new ways of working, such as
telecommuting, without compromising productivity.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we haveencouraged working from home and staggered
working hours. Telecommuting allows for more
efficient use of time and has the advantage ofmaking it easier to balance work with childcare andelderly care. Even if the pandemic tapers off in the
future, we intend to continue to practice a balance
between in-person work and telecommuting.
What measures do you have concerning
women in management positions?
Since 2005, we have been actively recruiting
women, especially in sales and marketing, basedon the concept, “without women, there will be no
growth for our company”. We began by training
women salespeople and technical staff to work on
the front lines. In 2006, we established our policy ondiversity promotion, and since 2007 we have held
events for women salespersons to interact. This
year marked the 14th time we have held this event.
Starting in 2014, we began a training programme

for prospective female managers called the“Sekisui House Women’s College”. Each year, weselect approximately 20 participants and focus
on efficiently and effectively developing suitablepersonnel for management positions based on acurriculum lasting approximately two years.
In the past, site supervisors were all men. In
an aim to expand work opportunities for women,
our national headquarters and head offices
teamed up on the “Women Site Supervisors
Support Programme” to support the developmentof female site supervisors. After making upgrades
to workplaces including toilets, we are now seeing
more female site supervisors. Half of our customers
are women, and we often hear that women havedecision-making power when building homes.
We believe that we need women’s perspectives
to develop products that meet the needs of ourcustomers, and to generate diverse ideas from thestandpoint of real-life situations.
Please tell me about your company’s future
outlook.
We also believe that men wield considerable
influence in promoting women’s empowerment. In
the construction industry in particular, 80% of theworkforce is men, so we are very supportive of UN
Women’s “He for She” concept, which advocates
partnering for gender equality. We are taking on
many challenges, including childcare leave for men
and the promotion of women’s empowerment. We
believe that the best way to come closer to genderequality is for men to take childcare leave, notonly at our company, but throughout Japan. Goingforward, we hope to make contributions to society
by communicating our efforts to the world at large.
*See the following site for details.
https://www.sekisuihouse.co.jp/english/diversity_
inclusion/

28

Diversity and women’s empowerment create new value
in consumer-oriented business.

Seven & i Holdings Co.

● Aim: To directly link diversity and women’s empowerment to ourbusiness while maintaining a consumer- oriented perspective.
● Approach: Encouraging a transformation in awareness that allows all
people to promote diversity.
● Conclusion: Creating innovation through the active promotion of
women

How long has your company been promoting
the active role of women?
Our Diversity Promotion Project was launched in2012. Our Group was ahead of the times with our
first woman director in 1993, so we have long had agood foundation for women to play active roles. We
had difficulties to increase the number of women in
executive positions at that time, and we launchedthis project in response to the growing focus ondiversity. The commitment of our top management,even from the early stages, has been a major driving
force to this day.
Was there any particular impetus for launching
this initiative?
In 2006, Toshifumi Suzuki, who was CEO at
the time, declared to the Group’s executives at the
management policy briefing for that year that ourGroup would actively promote women and increase
the ratio of women executives to 20 or 25 percent.
These goals were also communicated externally.
This declaration was based on an unshakeable
belief that the first step to bring about the innovationnecessary for the sustainable growth of ourcompany was to actively promote women.

geared to the customer’s point of view. The
motivation of the employees making the suggestions
also increased. As the working environment was
improving rapidly, the data showed that time spent
in meetings was reduced and overtime was halved.
These achievements boosted women’s confidence.
How did this lead to subsequent promotion of
women’s activities?
Although there was no immediate increase in
the number of women in management positions,
we did see a transformation in the attitudes of men,
especially those in management positions. As
more women were actively promoted, management
positions with shortened working hours werecreated. The number of women in management
positions has without a doubt gradually increased.
Every year since around 2014, we have also
invited a variety of external speakers to conduct
awareness-raising seminars aimed at a deeper
understanding of diversity in terms of reforming
ways of working, leadership and other issues. This
year the seminar was conducted on the topics of

Are there any innovations that have actually
been made possible by women playing anactive role?
In 2012, we implemented an initiative in our
department stores and supermarkets to have
women employees lead in managing the stores. All
store managers and floor managers are women. It
was Suzuki’s idea, and it created a good chemistry.
Women are good at creating flat organizations.
First of all, this makes it easier for opinions to comefrom the bottom up. Previously, documents were
often prepared in order to convey opinions to thestore manager. However, the women managers
immediately took action on opinions that were
exchanged verbally, which was reflected in thecreation of a sales floor and product assortment

29

Initiatives to promote Diversity & Inclusion

unconscious bias and psychological safety. To date,more than 5,000 employees in management positions
have participated. Messages to management on
the importance of diversity and inclusion that comefrom within the company often go unheeded. We
have found that when these messages come fromoutside the company, our managers perk up theirears, leading to new awareness.
What sort of results have you seen?
When the project was launched, we conductedinterviews with female employees about the issues
they were facing. Results showed that althoughmany of them enjoyed their current jobs and foundthem rewarding, they were worried about what
would happen after they had children. This led tothe creation of our “Mama’s Community”, an activity
for women who are raising children. The community
made some institutional changes. For example,
we set up temporary childcare facilities called“Spot Day Care” for employees who work on public
holidays, both in the company and in regional offices(currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Mothers and fathers can bring their children to workand leave them at the day care, then go about theirnormal day at work, pick up their children and go
home. This has had the added benefit of increasing
the understanding of bosses and colleagues who
actually see the children. We also have day care
centres for our merchants and plan to continue
these initiatives. Employees can also use a system
for shortened working hours until their children start
junior high school, so the systems we have in place
do serve as a safety net.
It sounds like things are going well, but do you
have any challenges?
One challenge is that we do not have a large poolof women candidates for management positions.
In recent years, the ratio of male to female newgraduate hires has become more equal, but in termsof the Group as a whole, the percentage of female
employees is around 30%. Also, when it comes towork-life balance, the retail industry operates on
weekends and evenings. We have always felt that,compared to other industries, this causes somedifficulties for employees with young children or
those caring for the elderly.
What efforts are you making to improve thesituation?
At Ito-Yokado, about 70% of all employees are
part-time workers. This is why we have a systemthat allows part-time employees to play an activerole. Last year, we even had a store manager who
was first hired as a part-time employee.
Each of our companies has been implementing
measures to foster women candidates for managerial
positions, and from this year we have gone one stepfurther and increased opportunities for development

Women’s Encouragement Seminaras a Group. About 60 women candidates withhigh potential for growth were selected from eachcompany in the Group to take part in the Women’s
Encouragement Seminar, a group-wide training
programme.
Because we held the seminar online, employees
could participate from their respective locations
around the country, including those who work shorter
hours. After hearing about our Group’s management
policy and philosophy, product strategies and SDGs
initiatives from the President and other senior
management, participants engaged in discussions.
The seminar not only provided an opportunity forparticipants to cultivate an interest in management
by listening to stories told from different perspectives
than those they usually come across at work, butalso increased their motivation through discussions
with other participants from diverse backgrounds
and occupations. Many reported that they wereencouraged and inspired by the comments ofwomen working in the same Group.
What is your vision for the Diversity andInclusion Promotion Project?
One of the key features of our work is that we
do not focus only on a specific target group, but on
everyone. We have tried to raise awareness among
managers and non-managers, men and women, andamong everyone. There are still some people who
do not feel a personal connection to this issue, but
we have seen definite changes in the awareness ofmanagers, male employees and female employees.
We will continue our steady efforts to promote
diversity and inclusion going forward.

*See the following site for details.
https://www.7andi.com/en/sustainability/theme/
theme4/humanresource.html

30

Expanding the circle of awareness and building a
corporate culture of diversity, regardless of age, gender,or nationality.

Softbank Corporation● Aim: To increase the ratio of active women in our company,
regardless of age, gender or nationality.
● Approach: Conduct trainings that can be attended voluntarily at theparticipant’s own time and pace.
● Conclusion: Expanding the circle of awareness within the company
creates an environment that embraces diversity and different
perspectives.

Please tell me how diversity promotion isorganized at your company.
We are committed to providing opportunities
and a conducive environment for diverse talent,irrespective of age, gender, nationality, or disability,
to demonstrate their individuality and strengths.
Positions and benefits are determined on the basisof fair evaluation according to role, performance,
and ability.
We aim to create an organization in which eachand every employee is united in our ambition torealize our management philosophy, and in which we
can freely exchange ideas and generate innovation
while making the most of each other’s strengths.
Promotion of diversity within our company is the
responsibility of the executive director in chargeof human resources (Chief Human Resources
Officer (CHRO)), under whose supervision it iscarried out. In order to address issues faced byeach organization, the Diversity Promotion Section,
a dedicated unit within the Human Resources
Division, is responsible for implementing initiatives
such as our e-learning course on unconscious bias
for all employees and diversity management training
for managers.
Our Diversity Promotion Section was set up
in 2017 within the Human Resources Division. It
consists of seven employees, each of whom is
responsible for diversity promotion in addition to theirother duties, and is set up in a way that allows eachof them to demonstrate their respective expertise.
What percentage of your employees are
women?
As of April 2021, the ratio of women among
our employees is approximately 26.9%. While webelieve that our company provides an environment
in which all ages, genders, and nationalities canplay an active role, the percentage of women in
management positions is 7.1%.

31

Why are there so few women in management
positions?
We conducted a survey to understand attitudes
towards female management within the company.
The results showed that, compared to men, women
were less likely to want to become managers.
There were two main reasons for this. The firstis concern over working hours. Many felt they would
be willing if they could fulfil their role without working
overtime, if they could fulfil their role with shorter
hours, and if they had the understanding and supportof others. Yet, they felt that environment was not yet
available to them. The other reason was a lack ofconfidence. One of the survey questions was “Do
you think men are more likely to be given jobs thatlead to promotions?” A certain percentage of both
men and women said that men were more likely to
be entrusted with such jobs. We believe that having
opportunities to achieve results in challenging work
is a good way to build confidence, so we need towork on the way work is assigned.

Training session

Training session

Is there anything you are doing to increase thenumber of women in management positions?
We provide career training for women
employees. We ask senior female managers to be
on a panel for this training, and it has been very wellreceived. After the training, the number of womeninterested in taking on leadership and management
roles most definitely increases. This is a greatthing for our company. When employees have theopportunity to put their careers in perspective andgain confidence, they have a change of heart. We
are aware of the importance of continuing to support
women in our future efforts—helping them to flickthat switch by reminding them that they originallyentered the workforce with a career in mind, and of
the joy of a challenge.
We also ran a training course for female
employees on the subject of becoming aware of thebiases that women have about female employees
and the biases that women have about themselves.
This training was designed to help them realizethat in some cases, giving up on work because of alack of confidence can turn into a loss for the team,
thereby encouraging them to take a step forward.
Please tell me more specifically about yourwork on unconscious bias.
We are running an e-learning course formanagers and general staff. We developed it basedon the advice of experts, and the content is focusedon examples of work assignments.
For managers, we do another practical training togo along with the e-learning course that helps themreflect on their own biases and how to overcome
them. For example, we have them brainstorm andwrite down what kind of bias is lurking in the word
“normally”, a term that is often used casually. We
invite external lecturers and share real examples ofwhat happens in the workplace, using discussion
and group work to promote learning. We also havethem engage in role-playing sessions simulating

one-on-one interactions with subordinates. By
also taking on the role of different subordinates,
participants can relate better to the feelings ofsubordinates and become more aware of the biases
held by supervisors.
Please tell me about the future outlook for yourcompany.
We have set a target to have 20% women in
management positions by 2035. In order to achieve
this goal, we have set up the “Committee for the
Promotion of Women in the Workforce”, which
includes external experts as advisors, to identify
issues and promote further initiatives.

*See the following site for details.
https://www.softbank.jp/en/corp/philosophy/humanresource/diversity/

32

Actively incorporating the perspectives of diverse
individuals to generate innovation and realize ourGroup’s Purpose

Daiichi Sankyo
Company, Limited● Aim: To promote inclusion and diversity to accomplish our Group’s
Purpose “to contribute to the enrichment of quality of life around theworld” by expanding our global business and creating innovation.
● Approach: Our Group has implemented a wide range of initiatives
in response to the issues of (1) motivating women employees, (2)supporting work-life balance, and (3) fostering a good workplaceculture, including various training programmes and the enhancementof institutions to support a balance between work and family life.
● Conclusion: We can accomplish our Group’s Purpose by valuingeach person as an individual and actively embracing diverse
perspectives in the course of our work.

Please tell me about your company’scommitment to inclusion and diversity.
Our Group defines diversity in the broad sense
as encompassing a range of attributes, including
nationality, gender, and age, as well as the differing
specialities, attitudes, values, and lifestyles ofdifferent jobs. We believe that when all of our Group
employees actively embrace the diversity of eachindividual, we are able to maximize each person’s
potential, leading to expansion of our global
business and the creation of innovation.
Why are inclusion and diversity necessary?
Our Group’s mission is “the creation of
innovative pharmaceuticals and the provisionof pharmaceuticals addressing diverse medical
needs”. In order to achieve this mission, we believe
it is essential to create a culture of mutual respectamong our employees from a global perspective.
On a global basis, we are promoting the practiceof core behaviours to foster a “One DS Culture” asone of the strategic pillars of our Fifth Mid-TermBusiness Plan.
One of our Group’s three Core Behaviors is “Be
Inclusive & Embrace Diversity”, which is definedas “valuing people for who they are as individuals
and welcoming diverse perspectives which enables
us to achieve more”. As part of our efforts to put
this Core Behavior into practice, we launched
the Global I&D Project to promote inclusion anddiversity through regular information sharing andcollaboration between personnel from the Group’s
various global locations.
In Japan, we have a variety of measures
underway to promote inclusion and diversity,
including measures to improve productivity based on
various kinds of support and to assist employees in

33

Do you have any initiatives to increase thenumber of women in management positions?
In 2016, we set up the Shining Women’s
Advancement Network (SWAN), a network of womenin management, and activities are ongoing. SWAN’s
activities play an important role in creating a place
where women managers can share their concernsand encourage each other to improve, where womenmanagers can support the next generation of evenmore active women, and where women managers
can receive support from management to further
advance their careers. In 2016, only 12 women(women employee ratio of 2.4%) held managementlevel positions, but by 2020, this number had risen
to 40 (women employee ratio of 7.3%). Fostering thedevelopment of the next generation of women is an
issue shared by all divisions. A greater number ofwomen managers enables business decisions to
be based on diverse perspectives and viewpoints,
which we believe will lead to sustainable growth asa global company over the medium and long term.

realizing a work life cycle. These include promoting
women’s advancement and initiatives for sexual
minorities such as LGBT, support for balancing workand life events such as childbirth, childcare andelderly care, support for activities of the elderly, andemployment of people with disabilities.
Can you tell me about the context in which
women’s advancement is promoted?
In 2016, when we were formulating our General
Business Owner Action Plan based on the Act
on Promotion of Women’s Participation andAdvancement in the Workplace we conducted anassessment of our current situation and an analysisof challenges faced, focusing on the evaluation
criteria used to certify companies that excel in thisarea. As a result, we identified the following issues:“the percentage of female employees still employedat our company approximately 10 years after being
hired as new graduates is lower than that of male
employees” and “the percentage of female workers
in the executive ranks is lower than the industry
standard”.
Please also tell me about your efforts tocorrect this gender ratio.
Our Group is implementing a wide range ofmeasures, including various training programmes
and upgrades of institutions to support a balance
between work and family life, based on thefollowing issues: (1) motivating women employees,(2) supporting work-life balance, and (3) fostering
a good workplace culture. The ratio of women
employees is now increasing. In addition, the ratioof new graduates hires is roughly the same for men
and women.

Trend in women managers at Daiichi Sankyo
Blue: Number of women managers (persons)Green: Ratio of women managers (%)

What are some of your initiatives to address
LGBT issues?
To date, our Group in Japan has held LGBTseminars for human resources professionals to
promote understanding and awareness on LGBT
issues. We have also incorporated precautions
related to outing into the content of trainings for new
managers and implemented an e-learning course
for all employees. Likewise, we introduced an LGBT
support system and set up an external consultation
service aimed at creating workplaces that are
comfortable for members of the LGBT community
and those around them. In terms of LGBT support,
in October 2020, we revised our company system
to allow same-sex partners to receive the same
support as legal spouses. For the first time, we
entered the PRIDE Index 2020, developed by avolunteer organization called “work with Pride”,

Prideand received a bronze award in recognition of ourefforts.
In what ways do you support your employees
in developing their future careers?
Our initiatives include provision of career pathmodels, publication of job and organizational
information, and professional training programmes
for all employees.
From fiscal year 2019, we began offering a Career
Design Seminar in the form of an online webinar for
women whose work is more likely to be affectedby life events. This event was designed to provide
enhanced career support by bringing in external
speakers to give lectures and including panel
discussions by senior women employees within thecompany. In 2020, the webinar was opened up to
all employees, not only women, to provide themwith an opportunity to consider how they can takeadvantage of change to develop careers well-suited
to themselves.
Please tell me about your company’s future
outlook.
Our mission is to research and develop medicinesand create new medicines that contribute to society
by fulfilling the unmet medical needs of a wide rangeof patients. We believe that we can achieve greater
goals by valuing each person as an individual andactively embracing diverse perspectives in thecourse of our work.

*See the following site for details.
Inclusion & Diversity - Our Workplace Sustainability - Daiichi Sankyo

34

Promotion of diversity and inclusion by each and every
one of us with a sense of ownership, as a source ofvalue creation

Dai Nippon Printing
Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To implement our Diversity Declaration as part of our mid-termplan and management strategy and strengthening of non-financial
capital.
● Approach: Visualizing diversity and inclusion activities based oneasy-to-understand and thorough methods, utilising data.
● Conclusion and Goals: To become a company that creates innovationand value, where each and every employee is a party to thepromotion of diversity.

Please tell me about the Diversity Promotion
Department.
In 2016, we established the Diversity Promotion
Department to accelerate our efforts to create value
by leveraging diversity. In order to promote theindependent activities of our business units, we also
placed a Diversity Promotion Committee in eachbusiness unit, which is chaired by the head of thebusiness unit. The three basic principles are: (1) todevelop a diverse workforce, (2) to foster a culture inwhich diverse talent can play an active role, and (3)to realize diverse ways of working.
In promoting activities, members of the Diversity
Promotion Department are particularly conscious of
the following four points: visualization of diversity &inclusion (D&I) activities, information dissemination
based on facts and data, company-wide
partnerships, and maintaining psychological safety
in the workplace. While we have many ideas, wehave opted to make activities to promote diversity as
visual as possible and to put out information basedon facts and data, avoiding sensationalism.
In addition, our policy on diversity states that“each and every employee is a member of ourdiverse community”. By making it clear that diversity
includes everyone, not only certain groups suchas women or people with disabilities, we hope that
employees will take an active role in addressing theissue, rather than thinking it has nothing to do withthem.
Please tell me about the initiatives and systems
you have in place to promote diversity.
In our mid-term management plan releasedin June 2020, we set out to “strengthen our nonfinancial capital”. Diversity is a key element of thiseffort. In July of the same year, alongside a “Diversity
Declaration” issued by our President, we formulated
a mid-term vision for diversity management.
One of our efforts is in promoting childcare
leave for male employees. In December 2020, our35

President endorsed the “100% Paternity Leave
Declaration”, run by Work-Life Balance, Co., Ltd.
Companies declare their aim to have 100% ofmale employees take childcare leave, and thisdeclaration is shared on Work-Life Balance’s
website. Thus, companies’ declarations are
publicized both internally and externally, leading togreater promotion of childcare leave for men.
Our system for childcare leave is unique in that it
can be taken multiple times until the child turns two
years old, and the first five days are paid. In addition,
we have been running our “Kangaroo Club”, aseminar to support employees in balancing workand child-rearing, for over 10 years. The seminarplaces emphasis on three points: (1) discussing
childcare and careers as a couple, (2) allowing nonemployee partners to participate, and (3) divisionof participants into two groups: (a) prospective
parents and (b) parents returning to work. We havereceived positive feedback from participants. Some
commented that they had never had the opportunity
to discuss their careers together as a couple before,
and that the seminar gave them a chance to plan
their careers together. Others noted that the seminargave them peace of mind regarding what to expect
after returning to work.
How many people actually take part?
In the seminar held in February of this year,
participants for both the morning and afternoon
sessions totalled around 90 people, including
employees and partners from other companies. In
a post-seminar questionnaire, 20 of the 25 male
respondents, or 80%, said they would like to takechildcare leave. For those who did not plan to takeleave, we asked them about their reasons, allowing
us to ascertain the factors making it difficult for themto take childcare leave, such as a lack of awarenessof the system and the individualization of their work.
We are now working on measures to address these.

(Left) Next generation womenleaders training(Right) Internal web page forour first Diversity Week

What is the current status of women’s
advancement?
The ratio of women in our workforce is around20%, and about 7% for management positions.
In recent years, women have accounted foraround 40% of new recruits. Thanks in part to our
D&I promotion activities and systematic training
programmes, the number of employees who are one
step closer to management positions has increased,
and the percentage of women among employees
promoted to section manager has risen to a certain
level. Ultimately, we aim to create an environment
in which women can aim for higher management
positions, from section manager to department
manager or general manager.*
Mentoring is used in trainings for the next
generation of women leaders. Women are pairedwith mentors who are general managers fromdifferent divisions. This is designed to give both sides
the opportunity to broaden their horizons. Female
employees have the chance to discuss their careers
without worrying about hierarchical relationships,
and the mentors have the chance to learn about theideas and abilities of female employees.
Please tell me about any concrete efforts toaddress unconscious bias.
We implemented an e-learning course along witha “follow-up worksheet”. Because the e-learning
course is done individually, it is easy to see theunconscious biases that affect oneself, but difficult
to figure out what unconscious biases are reflected
in one’s own behaviour. Accordingly, we set up
workshop sessions for section and team members
to discuss the unconscious biases they have been
exposed to in an aim to promote deeper awareness.
In February 2021, we organized an internal
company event called “Diversity Week”. More than
15 different kinds of programmes were offered on
topics including “fostering a sense of ownership”
and “making D&I easy to understand”. By clearlycommunicating the ideas of management with*In July 2021, we launched a sponsorship programme topromote the appointment of women to senior management
positions, with the aim of fostering an organizational culturethat makes the most of individual strengths and creating newvalue by enhancing diversity in decision-making settings.

a message from the President and a roundtable discussion among the heads of the various
business units, we were able to promote thepsychological safety of our employees. To createa sense of unity among employees, we madesure to include programmes in which employees
could easily participate. For example, we held a“diversity lunch” simultaneously with company
cafeterias in all our locations across the country.
What many at first thought was Japanese food wasactually international cuisine prepared innovatively
in a Japanese style, and the lunch included an
explanation of these dishes. We also held a diversity
poetry contest on topics such as telecommuting,which provided an opportunity to experience thefunny side of our diverse workforce.
Do you have any other unique initiatives?
In cooperation with one of our publishingcompany clients, we created a picture e-book on
D&I that we made available to employees and theirfamilies free of charge for a period of time. Thisinitiative aimed to give employees the opportunity
to think about D&I with their families. For example,
employees who are parents might gain new insightsfrom the honest and straightforward opinions voicedby their children when they read the book together.
It was also intended to help employees understandthat it is normal for employees to differ from eachother, just as family members are all people withdifferent ideas.
Please tell me about your company’s futuregoals.
As stated in our mid-term vision, we aim foreach and every one of our employees to have a“sense of ownership”. We can create new value by
understanding that we are all part of diversity and bypromoting dialogue and collaboration based on ourcompany’s guiding principles. We will continue tomake every effort to promote diversity and inclusion
going forward.

*See the following site for details.
Diversity & Inclusion/DNP Group36

Expanding opportunities for women to play active roles withmeasures geared to worksites and the “Jutaku Komachi”
organization. Evolving as a company where everyone canplay an active role, regardless of age or gender.

Daiwa House
Industry Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To increase the ratio of women in management positions byreforming our personnel system, creating more comfortable work
environments, and promoting standardization of work.
● Approach: Implemented through training, internal anti-harassment
code, external guidebooks, and the “Jutaku Komachi” network ofhome builders, with “Increase, Maintain, and Utilize“ as a key words.
● Conclusion: We want to increase the number of women in
management positions, allowing both men and women to balance
their active work and personal lives.

What was the impetus for your project topromote women’s advancement?
In 2005, we launched a project within the Human
Resources Department and began to explore forourselves what we could do to promote more activeroles for women. Then, after interviewing office
workers and other women employees, we came tothe conclusion that we were in a vicious cycle where
we had only a small number of female employeesthat we were having trouble maintaining, making
them unable to play active roles. We then began
to think about measures to deal with each of theseissues based on the keywords “increase, maintain,
and utilize”. Bosses in our various departments also
sensed a pending crisis if women continued to beunable to play active roles, realizing that our company
would fall into decline. In the beginning, because we
had many women working in administration, the aim
was to make use of their abilities in some way, notonly in support positions.
In 2006, when former Chairman Takeo Higuchi
went overseas on an investor relations trip, he
was very surprised when told by investors that heneeded to increase the ratio of female directors to
50%. This was one of the reasons why promotion of
women’s advancement accelerated.
What is the current status of women in hiring?
We have always aimed to recruit a ratio of 30%
women. We hire about 150 new female employees
at a time, and we get recommendations fromuniversities all over the country. We also visit schools
to advertise ourselves as a company where women
play active roles. In terms of job types, we have alarge number of women who want to work in design,perhaps because general housing and shopping
malls appeal to them. For the last five years or so,
half of our design staff has been women.

37

I heard that you are actively increasing thenumber of female site supervisors.
A site supervisor’s job is to ensure the safety ofthe site, to foresee hazards, to supervise workers,
to ensure that design plans are communicated toworkers accurately, and to check the quality of thework. The job does not require any physical strength
or muscle power. The job can be adequately carriedout with a good knowledge of architecture and theability to manage people. The number of femalesite supervisors has been increasing because werealized that they can do the job well.
When women are active on sites, we gain
new perspectives and ideas on how to makethe environment more friendly for everyone. For
example, we made improvements to toilets forthe women, which ended up also being greatly
appreciated by the men. We switched from heavy
helmets to more lightweight ones, which was also
appreciated by our aging site supervisors andworkers.

Woman employee supervising construction work at a building site

In addition, alongside nationwide work-stylereform, there has been a trend towards a five-day
work week on construction sites. Likewise, some
employees with small children are leaving thesite at exactly 5 o’clock in order to pick up theirchildren. Having consulted closely with female site
supervisors, the industry now has an organisation
called the “Jutaku Komachi”, in which womenthemselves are discussing what changes need tobe made.
Also, it is not only women site supervisors thatare on the increase. We have also increased thenumber of women in after-sales service positions,a specialized position in housing inspections.
Originally there were only men, but now there
are between 60 and 80 women working in thisposition. Having men and women work in pairs has
contributed to levelling out of the workload and alsoenhanced customer satisfaction by making female
customers feel more at ease when asking questions.
Please tell me about the number of women in
management positions and your approach tocareer development.
The number of women in management positions
has doubled in the past four to five years, from around80 in 2015 to 160 at present. From the beginning of
our initiatives, we intended to increase the number ofwomen in management positions, thereby bringing
more diversity into decision-making settings. For
this reason, we have continued to provide training
for management position candidates.
The training is open to all employees, regardlessof job category or business type, and is conducted
over two days with a break in between. There
were some employees who felt uncomfortable andresisted the idea of holding the training only for
women. However, we told them that the training
was not being held because they were lacking insome way, but to provide a learning opportunity. We
also made sure not to use words like “feminine” or“female perspective”. We have continually worked
to send out a message that women can aim for
management positions while maintaining their own
personal work style, and little by little, we are seeing
results.
How did you roll out your diversity initiatives
across the country?
Originally, we evaluated our company’s
performance on an office-by-office basis. We later
decided to include criteria that could be objectively
and quantitatively measured in an aim to achieve
diversity at all of our offices, not just in terms of sales
and other figures. From the perspective of diversity,
we incorporated criteria not only concerning
women, but also the employment rate of people withdisabilities, turnover rate among young employees,
and the percentage of men taking childcare leave.
In addition, we included items related to theTraining of women candidates for management positions (currently
conducted online)

improvements in work style we wanted our offices toimplement, such as reduction in overtime hours andpercentage of paid leave taken. We also provide acompany-wide training to deepen understanding ofLGBT issues.
What is the rate of men taking childcare leave?
At present the rate stands around 42%. This is
only for short-term childcare leave, so we consider
this to be challenge we face going forward. As
mentioned earlier, we incorporated the rate of male
employees taking childcare leave into evaluationsof our offices, which has increased the rate by
about 10 percent in just one year. Of course, taking
leave is not the only objective. We intend to set upother systems and frameworks to create working
environments where employees can be involved inchild-rearing not only during their leave, but also on
a daily basis.
Please tell me about the future outlook for yourcompany.
We have implemented a variety of measures, butthere are still employees who struggle to balance
their work and personal lives. Going forward, wewant to involve more men in the process. Whilesetting up systems and frameworks is a given,
we also want to develop internal networks andemployee groups in which the voices of individual
employees can be heard. We are working to build on
our achievements one by one to become a company
where all can play active roles, regardless of genderor age.

*See the following site for details.
Diversity and Inclusion | Commitment to Society |For a Sustainable Future | Daiwa House Group38

Becoming the “Best Place to Work in the World” based ona culture of mutual respect and growth for each and every
employee through the promotion of women’s advancement

Daily Advertising Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To become the “best place to work in the world” based on thesteadfast belief that our company cannot grow and develop without
the active contribution of women.
● Approach: Using knowledge gained on tours of Scandinavian
countries that lead in gender issues and in trainings for women in
management to continue to build new frameworks.
● Conclusion and Goals: To create a culture based on the mutual
respect and growth of each and every employee. Ultimately, we willcontribute to society by sharing our know-how on promoting women’s
empowerment with those outside our company.

I have heard that your company is very
forward-thinking when it comes to women’s
empowerment.
Our company will be celebrating its 60th
anniversary in 2022. For the past 30 years, ourCEO, Kazunori Ishikawa, has been saying thatthe active participation of women is essential forthe development of our company. We have always
had a global perspective and focused on employee
training. We spend a lot of money on training for eachof our employees based on the idea of “earmarking
all profits for the training of employees”.
We currently have about 800 employees in ourGroup as a whole, and more than half of them are
women. The ratio of men to women in our company
is also around fifty-fifty.
It is often said that awareness at the top is
important for the success of women.
When our CEO was general manager of sales,
he offered to take over the company that his
predecessor was trying to shut down. About 45
years have passed since then. He is a visionary
with a keen business sense. Some 30-40 years
ago, our employees were mostly men, but we havecompletely changed. He believed in the power ofwomen.
Ishikawa often tells the story of how, when he
was young and visiting New York on a tour of theadvertising industry, he saw a woman in red highheels walking briskly across an office floor andthought, “This is the way it has to be from now on”. Inan age when men were the main workers in Japan,
seeing women who were just as active as men madea big impression on him and became a symbol that
he always kept in mind.
Since the 1990s, he has also made frequent
visits to Europe. In many European countries,

39

women have been quite active in the working world
for some time. These visits were also a major
influence in forming his global perspective.
This is one of the reasons why, for three years
starting in 2012, Group employees were sent on
study tours of Scandinavian companies.
Then in 2019, we sent ten women executives
to the United States, mainly New York, to visit
companies and gain knowledge by interviewing
active women and top management. Althoughcurrently interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic,
we have a three-year plan to carry out this projectagain.
Have your systems and initiatives for women’s
empowerment run smoothly from the
beginning?
In the beginning, during an age when there waslittle understanding of women’s advancement in
the workplace, we naturally faced a great deal of
opposition from male executives. Even though theymight verbally agree that we needed to bring in more

Company tour in the US: We were inspired and learned throughinterviews and discussions about the mindset and spirit of working
women leaders.

women, changes in attitudes lagged behind, making
it hard to get rid of the male-dominated mindset. Of
course, there were no female executives in thosedays, so there was no one in a position to voice any
counter opinions. Even so, after 30 years of work,
we feel that we have finally cast off this old mindset.
Today, the percentage of female managers at thegeneral manager level and above for all Group
companies has exceeded 30%. However, Ishikawa
is still not satisfied. We are currently in the processof drawing up a plan to increase female directors.
Please tell me about your tours in Scandinavia.
For three years, starting in 2012, we sent about
10 people each year on a 14-day tour of Scandinavia.
I myself participated for two consecutive years,
visiting local companies and interviewing womenleaders. Looking back, I think that these trips to
Scandinavia represented a major turning point forour company.
What concrete changes happened at thispoint?
Through our visits to Scandinavia, we learned thatthe most important thing for women’s empowerment
is the establishment of systems. Listening to
women’s stories, we realized that the situation in
Europe 30 years ago was similar to Japan’s at thepresent time. The women in Europe had had a reallyhard time, but they managed to change the system
in 30 years. All the women discussed together what
we could learn from them and what we could takeback and apply to our own company. That was thefirst year. Yet it was not so easy to get male leaders
to accept the proposals that we had worked so hardto put together. We realized that changing only
women’s attitudes is not very meaningful.
So, for the second year, two male leaders
were invited to participate in the tour along withthe women. In the third year, we increased thenumber of men to four. The attitudes of thesemale leaders did change, but it took some time forthese ideas to sink in. Involving male leaders andhaving them experience first-hand the importanceof the initiative, led to a shift in awareness—fromwomen’s empowerment being “something promoted
by women” to it becoming “a strategy that should be
implemented by all employees”.
We now have a 100% return-to-work rate
after maternity and childcare leave. Before we put
systems in place, many women’s only option was toquit. The visits to Scandinavia provided the impetus
to revise our existing systems and create new ones.
We have repeatedly updated our systems, and I
believe that they now support a work-life balance.
We have also made it easier to take time off bygiving various names to different types of leave,such as Birthday Holiday, Refresh Leave, Family
Support Days, and Health Holidays. Employees
can take leave to look after themselves and their

A voluntary-participation based “New Shirayuri Club” training
course on product development from a woman’s perspective atour Hokkaido training centre and winery, NIKI Hills. Products are
actually commercialized and sold.

families.
What have you been working on recently?
We also have our “New Shirayuri Club”, inwhich female employees from all Group companies
can connect. Only women can join, so from agender perspective it may not be equal, but it is
an important forum for communication as well as
for promoting women’s empowerment. Since the
COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder to get
together in person, we began releasing videos in2020. Topics are wide-ranging, from how to write athank you letter to fashion and make-up. The videos
are only 5-10 minutes long, but everyone seems to
enjoy watching them. From 2022, a male advisor
was added to the group in an effort to make it more
active.
What are your ambitions for the future?
Over the past few years, an increasing numberof people have suggested that we use the training
programmes we have developed over the years tocreate a curriculum to use in seminars for our clientsand other external parties. We would be delighted if
the know-how we have accumulated could be of use
in promoting women’s empowerment.
For us, an ideal world is one in which there isno distinction between men and women, whereindividuals are respected and everyone can growtogether. We believe that creating environments
where women can be more active and genuine
to themselves, and where their opinions arereflected in their companies, will absolutely bringabout innovative changes and developments forcompanies.

40

Diversifying and developing the detail-oriented
hospitality that only a travel agency can offer, whileproviding new value to society.

Tobu Top Tours Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To take advantage of corporate consolidation to promote
diversity● Approach: Childcare leave for men, manager training, andunconscious bias training.
● Conclusion: We want to deepen our understanding of diversity tofurther diversify the detail-oriented hospitality we have cultivatedover the years to create new value for travel agencies.

What was the impetus for your company tostart working on diversity?
We were influenced in part by the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancementin the Workplace, but the major turning point was
the merger of Tobu Travel Company and Top Tour
that established our company in April 2015. Top
Tour, which specialized in corporate clients, had alarge number of male employees, while Tobu Travel,
which handled mostly individual clients, was mostly
female employees. With the merger, it became
necessary to create a work environment where both
men and women could work equally in order to bringout the best in each other.
Is your company doing anything in particular
to create a better working environment for
women?
As we have offices in all prefectures from
Okinawa to Hokkaido, it is easier for us toaccommodate employee requests to move within
Japan, for example, due to lifestyle changes suchas marriage, childbirth, or a spouse’s work transfer.
As a result, the number of women employees who
leave the company after getting married has been
decreasing over the years.
In some workplaces, employees with young
children can take advantage of shortened work
hours and shift work options, but unfortunately
there are some jobs for which this system is notapplicable, such as tour conductors. For thisreason, we also use tour conductors provided by astaffing agency that is one of our subsidiaries. This
allows employees who are unable to work full-time,for example due to child-rearing commitments, tochoose a work style that is suited to their lifestyle.
Please tell me about your childcare leavesystem for men.
We started a full-scale initiative on childcare
leave for men from January 2020. First of all,to raise awareness of this system, we began by41

simply approaching male employees who submitted
applications for new dependents after a child wasborn. We believe that increasing the percentage
of men who take childcare leave will reduce theburden on women, making it easier for them to work.
In order to make use of this system a more regularoccurrence, we also make sure to explain it during
trainings for management.
What challenges have you faced in increasing
the ratio of women in management positions?
The travel industry has long been popular withfemale students as a place to seek employment.
Although roughly 80% of new graduate hires are
women, a high turnover rate has meant we havealways ended up with more male employees. For
this reason, the ratio of women in management
positions is inevitably low. Also, when women takeextended time off for childbirth or childcare, theprogression of their careers comes to a halt, so theyfall about two or three years behind men. However,
we do not make any distinction between men andwomen in the selection process for management
positions.
I have also heard that your unconscious bias
training was very well received!
We have been conducting this training since
the year before last as part of our diversity training
programme, mainly for managers. It has been wellreceived by participants. Some were made aware of
discriminatory behaviours they had not realized they
had, and others came to see unconscious biases
in ways of thinking and points of view that they
had always taken for granted. We also introduced
an online training last year, which seems to havemade communication more lively. Reducing thephysical distance between people in this way gave
participants the opportunity to communicate witha new generation of employees, with whom they
had had little contact before. Because younger
employees are predominantly female, some malemanagers voiced concerns over how to treat
female employees who were around the same ages
as their daughters. But we believe that a better
understanding of the unconscious biases that arise
from differences in age, gender, and position has
led to smoother communication.
Do you have any other initiatives to improve
communication within your company?
The size of our offices varies from region toregion, with the number of employees ranging from10 to 100. We often hear from employees at small
offices that they feel they do not have anyone close
to their age to talk to about work issues. So, we now
use online meetings to strengthen horizontal links
between our employees.
For example, at a meeting for all employees, wecreated 10 workshops on different topics, such as“career advancement” or “support group for working
mothers”, asking employees to choose the workshop
they wanted to join. Many unexpected connections
were made. For example, a young women employee
who had just joined the company and was looking toplan her future had the chance to communicate withwomen employees who already had two or threechildren. Also, several male employees participatedin the working mothers workshop because theywanted to learn more about the worries andconcerns of their subordinates who have children.
The event has been well received by participants,
and we plan to make it a regular event in the future.
A programme for students to learn about theSDGs is a unique initiative of yours.
We are also a signatory to the UN Global Compact
because we believe that tourism is an industry
relevant to all of the goals of the SDGs. There are
networks led by local authorities in various regions
to promote the SDGs. Our offices participate in the
programme by creating opportunities for junior highand high school students to learn about the SDGs.
Because the aim is to make students familiar with
the SDGs, rather than a difficult approach, we use
board games and other activities to help the children
understand the SDGs in a programme that lasts

SDGs Board Game Facilitator Training

about 1-2 hours.
What are your company’s ambitions for the
future?
Beginning in January 2021, we formulated a
Women’s Empowerment Action Plan, and we havebeen conducting training to raise awareness on ouraim for gender equality, in addition to setting up asystem to support employees in acquiring various
qualifications.
We have also set two specific targets: to increase
participation in career development training forboth men and women in career-track positions to80%; and to reduce overtime for all employees toan average of 20 hours or less per month. We willcontinue to work on these targets.
The COVID-19 pandemic came at a time when
it had become easy for anyone to book a hotel or aflight, and the very existence of travel agencies was
being called into question. We are under pressure
to make big changes. In order to keep up with thesechanging times, we need to understand diversity.
We want to further diversify the detail-oriented
hospitality we have cultivated over the years andcreate a new value that only we can provide as a
travel agency of the future.

*See the following site for details.

Working mothers workshop on Zoom

https://www.tobutoptours.co.jp/society/people/
https://www.tobutoptours.co.jp/common/pdf/plan_of_woman.pdf?202101

42

Aiming to make diversity promotion self-driven in our
workplaces and widen the circle for creating change asa part of major reforms to our corporate culture

BIPROGY Inc.
(former Nihon Unisys, Ltd.)● Aim: To renew our corporate mission statement based on a strong
sense of urgency in the fast-changing IT industry and to expand
diversity in the context of a major reform of our corporate culture.
● Approach: Putting emphasis on “face-to-face dialogue” in unison withfrontline workers. Aiming for self-driven promotion of diversity in our
workplaces, not only from the top down.
● Conclusion and Goals: Each and every employee takes on a senseof ownership to generate change themselves, further expanding thecircle and virtuous cycle.

What is your approach to diversity?
Our Diversity Promotion Office was establishedin 2013, and we launched training and other concrete
initiatives in 2016. For those first three years, we
mainly worked on promoting work-life balance andfocused on developing systems and frameworks
to create a workplace environment that facilitatesbalancing work and child-rearing.
Since 2016, we have been working on
three initiatives: proactively communicating top
management’s commitment; setting up companywide systems and frameworks to improve working
environments for employees; and coming up
with measures that encourage awareness andbehavioural change in line with our targets.
Measures have been carried out to address various
issues, for example, a management development
programme for female employees and measures tosupport employees balancing work with life events
such as childcare and elderly care.
Until now, our promotion department has led
these initiatives, but we felt that there was a limit
to fully understanding the true essence of diversity
with a top-down approach. We believe that it isnecessary to move to a phase in which workers on
the frontline take the initiative in promoting diversity.
So, this year we are working on a dialogue-based
approach in unison with our frontline workers.
How does this approach play out in practice?
We selected eight executives and top-classmanagers from frontline departments who werewilling to take a progressive approach, and formed
a team to develop an image of what we want “to be”(our “to be” image) when it comes to diversity andinclusion for the BIPROGY Group.
We invited an external facilitator and held morethan a dozen meetings, both regular and ad-hoc,over a period of six months, totalling about 30 hours.

43

At first, members tended to be a bit reticent, making
discussion slow. So, for the first two meetings,
we asked each person to talk about themselves,
their thoughts on diversity, and what they thought
the company should do in the future—focusing on
options for what our company “will” do in the future.
In the third meeting, the discussion evolved from“will” to “must”, and what we needed to achieve andcommunicate became clear. We also discussed
details on the number of women in management
positions.
The rest of the meetings went smoothly, andat the end, we came up with a single statement on
what diversity and inclusion looks like based on “tobe” images in various categories. A heated debate
took place before the statement was finalized, withmany disagreeing on the right words to use. Having
a facilitator from outside the company enabled us totake a new approach that we could not have doneon our own. Now, diversity promotion is beginningto change from what we “must” do to something we“want” to do.

The BIPROGY Group's “to be” image for diversity and inclusion

Have you faced any difficulties in promoting
diversity?
The commitment of our top management makes
it much easier to get things done. However, noteveryone, including some in management, feels
positively about the effort. Thus, the most difficult
aspect of our work has been to get these people
to understand and cooperate with our efforts. We
have invited experts from outside the company togive lectures and held seminars attended by all
employees, including representatives and directors.
We have collected information, including academic
studies, on why diversity promotion is necessary
and what is needed to achieve it, trying to get asmuch convincing material as we can.
Please tell me about the ratio of female
employees and your development programme
for women.
About 20% of all employees are women. The
ratio of women in the IT industry is low overall.
The number of female employees who leave ourcompany due to childbirth or childcare is low, and it
is normal for women to take maternity and childcare
leave. For more than 10 years, we have maintained
a return-to-work rate close to 100%.
Regarding the development of women, we
provide training for employees who are one stepaway from becoming managers, and for mid-level
employees right below them. Perhaps it is because
men outnumber women, but when men and women
are working together, women sometimes lackconfidence or become withdrawn. This training isdesigned to encourage them in these situations.
Once trainees pass the exam for the first half ofthe training, they move on to the second half, withthe entire training lasting one year. The trainees’
supervisors are also invited to take part in the
training, not only to develop their coaching skills, butalso to provide a forum for trainees to discuss theircareers with their supervisors. We support them ingaining both the awareness and skills to take on
management roles in the future.
Meanwhile, training of female employees alone
will not lead to promotions unless their supervisors
also have a certain level of understanding. So, we
also mandate training for supervisors. They learn
about ideas on developing women employees andhow to manage employees who are constrainedby childcare or elderly care. We also talk about
unconscious bias and how understanding thelife events characteristic of women can lead toadvancing their development at the right time.
Have you faced any challenges in conducting
training?
Of course, some of our women employees are
not quite ready to take on a managerial role whenapproached about taking part in the training. It isdifficult to make sure that these women and their

Development training for women (held online from FY2020)

supervisors are thinking along the same lines.
However, as the training progresses, we can see
their awareness about their own careers graduallychange. It also provides a good opportunity forsupervisors to get to know the true feelings ofthe employees, which are not always heard inregular interactions, thereby improving mutual
understanding.
Please tell me about your company’s future
outlook and challenges.
There are still a number of people among
the management who are resistant to promoting
women’s advancement. A future challenge for us
is to reach the middle management level, where
unconscious bias can be deeply rooted. I honestly
feel that we have yet to reach a place of true
understanding of diversity.
In order to deepen understanding throughdialogue, our future goal is to train people in the field
who can coordinate this dialogue.
We believe that if we can create coordinators in
all parts of our company, our company culture will
improve and the frontline departments will become
more self-driven in promoting diversity. We would
also like to develop more and more people whowill take on sponsorship roles beyond their own
organizations.

*See the following site for details.
Integrated Report 2021
https://pr.biprogy.com/invest-e/ir/pdf/ir2021_e.pdf
BIPROGY Inc.
https://www.biprogy.com/e/44Creation of the “Global D&I Vision & Inclusion Wheel”.
“Awareness and understanding” as the primary focus toachieve true diversity.
● Aim: To engage in responsible business activities that respect
diversity and foster a corporate culture where everyone can bethemselves as they play active roles. To encourage everyone toembrace differences and play active roles, regardless of personal
identity, particularly gender, age, SOGI, ethnicity & race, and health& disability.
● Approach: Sharing a vision to be realized throughout the Group, androlling out measures to foster an inclusive organizational culture, led
by a dedicated department.
● Conclusion: We are making progress on implementing measuresand creating frameworks that take diversity and inclusion into
consideration in a variety of areas.

Fujitsu Limited

Please tell me about your initiatives inpromoting diversity.
We have formulated the “Global D&I (Diversity& Inclusion) Vision & Inclusion Wheel” to serve asa guideline for accelerating our efforts, not onlyin terms of superficial attributes such as gender,
disability and race, but also making the most of
the diversity of individuals to achieve “inclusion”.
To achieve the goal of enabling everyone to “BeCompletely You”, our Global D&I Vision sets out
five key areas of focus: gender, health & disability,
ethnicity & race, sexual orientation & gender identity(SOGI), and age.
Can you tell me the background for launching
this initiative?
In 2008, we set up a Diversity Promotion Office.
At that time, many Japanese companies were setting
up organizations to promote the activities of women.
There were growing calls for our company to set up
a dedicated organization. Based on management’s
decision at the time, a project team was set up inlate 2006 to start the process of setting it up.
Our Diversity Promotion Office was set up as anorganization separate from the Human Resources
Department, with the aim of first raising awarenesson the term “diversity” within the company. The main
focus of activities was “awareness and understanding” of diversity in the workplace, including promoting
the active participation of individuals with certain
attributes, such as understanding and support for
women and people with disabilities, and promoting
understanding of diverse work styles. Since then, we
have accelerated our efforts linked to “practice andcontributing to business” by supporting diversityrelated activities in the workplace.
What initiatives do you have underway toincrease the number of women in management
positions?
One of our KPIs in relation to D&I is to increase
the ratio of women in management positions. In
fiscal year 2020, we introduced a new HR scheme
called the “Posting System”. In the past, promotion

Inclusion Wheel
Global D&I Vision0

Global D&I Vision&Inclusion Wheel

45© 2022 Fujitsu Limited1© 2022 Fujitsu Limited

Career workshop online seminar

to management positions was based on a processof recommendation by superiors, followed byan interview. We changed to a system where
employees aim for management positions based on
their own choices and self-directed career planning.
In line with this change, we hold career workshops
for women employees in non-managerial roles
one step before management positions. These
workshops are designed to dispel any anxiety aboutbecoming a manager and to enable them to takeownership of their careers. This initiative is carriedout in unison with our domestic Group companies.
The content of the career workshop includes
opinion exchange with senior management,interaction with senior employee role models, andlearning about leadership from external speakers.
We recruit participants for this initiative by inviting
employees to apply. The programme was launchedin 2016 and, with more than 250 graduates, hasalready produced several female managers.
What are you doing to change yourorganizational culture?
We believe that in order to support and promote
the activities of persons in the focus areas we havedefined, it is essential for us to develop and reform
our organizational culture, and we placed “inclusive
culture” at the centre of our Inclusion Wheel. Since2008 when the Diversity Promotion Office was
first established, we have held an annual Diversity
Company-wide Promotion Forum (now called
the Diversity & Inclusion Session) to facilitate thedevelopment of mindsets necessary to foster an
inclusive organizational culture. At these sessions,
top management delivers a message on D&I, andexternal experts give lectures on a variety of D&Irelated topics, leading to the introduction of new
knowledge into the company.
We also use an internal newsletter, internalsocial media, and our office’s e-mail magazine asmeans of disseminating information and to promoteawareness on diversity among each and every
employee.

How about work-life balance?
In fiscal year 2017, we introduced telecommuting
to support the autonomous work style of each of
our employees. In 2020, in the context of the “newnormal” brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic,
we announced the promotion of “Work Life Shift”, a
new way of working that will enable us to accelerate
our transformation into a DX (digital transformation)company, and allow our employees to be even moreproductive and continue to create innovations.
Although we have seen a trend toward improved
job satisfaction related to work-life balance withthis initiative, it has also led to some problems
related to time management and communication
with managers and colleagues. There is also a
debate related to detecting health-related changes
in employees. To address this issue, we haveintroduced a system of 1-on-1 meetings where
employees can talk freely and honestly to their
managers not only about their careers, but also
about various growth issues they are facing.
Please tell me about the future outlook for yourcompany.
Simply having a diverse workforce, including
women employees and foreign nationals, within an
organization or project does not mean that diversity
has been truly realized. We believe that only bycreating an environment in which each and every
employee can play an active role will we be able
to engage in responsible business activities that
respect diversity and eventually foster a corporate
culture in which everyone can play an active role as
their true selves. We are committed to contributing
to the creation of a society where people appreciateeach other’s differences, regardless of personal
identity.

*See the following site for details.
https://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/csr/diversity/46

Turning diversity into strength! Creating a culture ofinnovation through bold HR reforms and carefullyplanned internal proliferation measures

Mitsubishi Chemical
Corporation● Aim: To promote diversity and convert it into strength in order tosurvive in radically changing times.
● Approach: Making bold reforms in our human resources systems
implemented through multifaceted and carefully-planned measures
to promote internal understanding and proliferation.
● Conclusion: When diverse talent plays a lively and active role,innovation arises, leading to growth of the company.

I heard that you have made some majorchanges to your HR system. Was there any
impetus or reason for this?
We, the Mitsubishi Chemical Group, with
“KAITEKI Health and Productivity Management”
as our Group Vision, are very conscious of the factthat changes in the environment around us meanthat we, as a company, must also change in orderto survive.
Why are initiatives to promote diversity
necessary?
The idea is that an actively-engaged diverse
workforce leads to innovation and the developmentof the company. The time-consuming nature ofdecision-making in our company and our verticalorganizational structure have come up from time totime as issues. Younger employees were dissatisfied
because their opinions were rarely heard and oldideas persisted, leading to a loss of motivation.
Thus, we made major changes in our HR system
and introduced a system of internal recruitment.

Until recently, personnel relocation decided
by the company created an environment in whichmainly men, with no restrictions, were able todevelop their careers, while women had no choice
but to continue in the same job after marriage andchildbirth, which tended to prevent the developmentof their careers. By using internal recruitment for job
transfers, employees can apply for the jobs theywant, and the host workplace can bring in goodtalent, regardless of working style or gender.
It is also relevant in terms of embracing diversity,
including in ways of working, in order for employees
to take charge of their own careers. Diversity isclosely connected to our HR policies.
Have you encountered any difficulties inpromoting diversity?
There have been times when we focused on“women” rather than on diversity. When people intheir late twenties who grew up with little difference
between men and women enter our company tofind that we are “promoting the advancement of
women”, they wonder why we are only focusing on
women. Yet, the reality is that in many cases they
run up against a wall for the first time when they
have children and work while raising them. It isvery difficult to tell young women about the current
status of internal initiatives regarding women’s
advancement, gender, and diversity.
Do you have any initiatives targetingsupervisors?
Although held online due to the pandemic, we
invited a speaker to give a lecture on unconscious
bias for about 1,200 people, and we held group
discussions.
We rolled out the initiative by first conducting
training for executives, followed by supervisors.

Career workshop

47

What made this training possible?
In 2018, a major point of change was the arrivalof a diversity promotion officer from a foreign-owned

company. This officer took the lead in visiting all of
our workplaces and interviewing approximately 600
employees at all levels. A number of issues wereraised, and to address one of them we launcheda “Women’s Council” as a forum to discuss issues
related to women’s empowerment. The Council was
made up of management and the heads of eachdivision. Discussions were held and measuresdeliberated, leading to a variety of actions over a
two-year period. Currently, the Women’s Council is
not only targeting women, but is working to expand
to also involve supervisors and male colleagues. In
order to send out a message on diversity, one of theconcepts of our recent HR reform, we held a live
online event on 8 March, International Women’s Day,
where the President and members of the Women’s
Council gave talks about the top management’s
ideas on gender and diversity.
Please tell me about your specific policies on
diversity.
A prerequisite of diversity is respect for thehuman rights of all employees. We have long beencommitted to respecting human rights.
Along these lines, we have held lectures on
LGBTQ issues to further understanding of what
LGBTQ means and what constitutes discrimination.
We have started to apply the same benefit programs
to same-sex partners as legal marriage. In addition,as part of our “Sokai Project”, we are refurbishing
old restrooms in our offices and factories in agender- and LGBTQ-friendly manner.
In addition, COVID-19 has led to advances inremote work. For personnel transfers based oninternal recruitment as well, employees can utilize
our remote work system, enabling them to balance
work and family life from remote locations.
We are also working to provide more information
on childcare facilities, including information oncompany-run nurseries. One of our current efforts
is in promoting understanding of men’s participationin childcare. We are producing videos andhandbooks, and holding events where we ask men
who have actually taken childcare leave to speak.
We have been able to increase the number of male
employees taking childcare leave by keeping theminformed and making the system more flexible byallowing a portion of unused lapsed paid leave to
be used for childcare leave through the end of thefollowing year.
We conducted a survey on the state of nursing
care and found that a large number of managementlevel employees will be faced with nursing care infive to ten years’ time. We produced a handbook
to promote understanding of how to prepare fornursing care, and have held seminars. We have also
made efforts to provide information by setting up a
consultation service.
A key point has been interaction between
caregivers within the company. While the numbers

Conceptual diagram of Diversity & Inclusion according to Mitsubishi
Chemicalare small, we have brought in a nursing caremanager and are working on exchange and sharing
of information.
Do you have any initiatives in diversity for yourmanufacturing division?
In terms of women in manufacturing sites, wehave just started to recruit female staff and operators
in earnest, as there are not many female employees
in the manufacturing division to begin with. We
also keep in touch with employees after they havealready joined our company. We have heard thatthe atmosphere in the workplace has become morecheerful and that a culture of care and concern has
been fostered.
We are prepared to accept that it will taketime for these reforms to produce results. By
implementing a range of carefully-planned follow-up
measures, we hope that the reforms will take root in
our company. We aim to be a company where thediverse members of our workforce play lively andactive roles, leading to speedy innovations and thegrowth of the company.

*See the following site for details.
Together with Stakeholders:Together with
Employees:Respect for Human Rights andPromoting Diversity/ Sustainability/Mitsubishi
Chemical Corporation (m-chemical.co.jp)

48

Aiming to create new value by fostering conviction anda sense of ownership among employees, and promoting
diversification linked to our management strategy.

Yamaha Corporation● Aim: To create frameworks linked to our management strategy and afavorable climate. We value the conviction and sense of ownership ofeach individual.
● Approach: Commitment from top management and intensive trainingof women leaders + training and problem-solving projects for bottomup awareness-raising.
● Conclusion and Goals: Our promotion of women’s advancement
is not limited to making it easier for women to work, but also aims
to create new value by diversifying management decision-making.
To this end, we will create a climate in which everyone understands
diversity and values differences.

Please tell me about your efforts to date inpromoting active roles for women.
In 2004, a group of volunteers came together
to launch the “Positive Action Project”, which madea number of recommendations. The following
year, in 2006, an independent organization for thepromotion of women’s activities was established,which marked the beginning of our company’sefforts. We were quick to set up systems that madeit easier for employees to work, even before related
laws were enacted, including a system for supporting
employees balancing work and childcare. For
example, special leave can be taken in one-hour
increments for personal illness or injury, nursing or
care of a family member, or childcare. We also havea system of shortened working hours for employeeswith children in the third year of primary school andyounger, as well as a system for rehiring employees
who have been posted overseas as trailing spouses.
As a result, there is now no difference in the
average length of service for men and women, andour return-to-work rate for those who have taken
childcare leave has remained at 100%.
What about the diversity and inclusion policy
you launched in 2019?
Yes, this was a turning point in our work. In
this policy, we clearly positioned diversity as asource of value creation. Then, we had to consider
how to link gender differences, a universal theme
within diversity, to value creation. First of all, it was
important to increase women leaders in decisionmaking settings and to reflect diversity at the core of
our management. Despite the fact that 20% of ourworkforce is made up of women, the ratio of womenin management positions is only 7.1%, and we have
only a very small number of women directors. We

49

discovered a renewed awareness of the need fora systematic approach to developing and creating
women leaders, while at the same time seeking to
make it easier for women to work.
Please tell me about your specific efforts todevelop and create women leaders.
In January 2021, we established the Working
Group for Gender Equality under the Human
Resource Development Committee as an advisory
body to the president, and declared our commitment
to the strategic, intensive, and ongoing development
and creation of women leaders. Since then, we havecarried out a variety of initiatives, including a factor
analysis based on surveys and interviews with theheads of all divisions, as well as the provision ofcareer development tools to support the individual
development of female employees. In September
2021, we joined the “30% Club Japan”, endorsing
the aims of the “30% Club”, a global campaign aimed

International Women’s Day initiative: Women Leaders’ Dialogue

at achieving a proper gender balance in corporate
decision-making bodies. We are committed toensuring that each and every one of our employees
can achieve their full potential based on the firm
commitment of our top management.
Please tell me about any difficulties you have
faced in implementing measures to support
women’s careers.
For many years, we have continued to develop
initiatives to increase the number of womenin management positions, including selective
training and development programmes for female
employees. However, there have been some within
the company who have raised questions about why
the trainings are targeting only women, or someparticipants asked why they had to accept. How
should we get through these psychological division
or apathy? Therefore, we realize that it is important
to ensure women-specific development measures
are not designed for women but organization, andlet them understand the significance of “WHY” they
are chosen rather than “WHAT” to do. From thispoint of view, we believe that our initiatives musttake into account not only the sense of convictionof the women concerned, but also awareness andacceptance throughout our organization for all
people involved.
What approaches have you taken to
promote conviction throughout your wholeorganisation?
I will give you two examples. The first is a
training for employees taking childcare leave andtheir bosses.
We offer a return-to-work seminar for concerned
employees to help break down the prejudice thatmaternity leave is a “career gap”, and to help themplan their careers making the most of their maternity
leave experience. We also provide information on
how to achieve success at work efficiently and ina short period of time. Meanwhile, supervisors are
given a test prior to trainings using a tool called“ANGLE” to measure their level of unconscious bias,
and also undergo an e-learning course on ways tocontrol their biases.
Then, participants share learning and insights
in a group training session. Here, we focused on
ensuring that the “real voices of subordinates” were
heard during the training. Put simply, the values ofpeople who take childcare leave are diverse. Somewant to work at full capacity, and some would rather
put off work for a year and then prioritize a balance
between work and child-rearing. When we visualised
this in a graph, we got a lot of different responses
from the bosses. By having them exchange opinions
on how they felt about the questionnaire results, wewere able to get them to see the issue as a meansof revitalizing our organization.
The other example is a bottom-up, problem-

Intranet for disseminating information on diversity
and work-life balance

solving project called “LADY Go!”, that was createdby our marketing division in 2016 with the aim of“helping all women working in the Yamaha Group to
become brighter, smarter and more powerful thanever”. This project has led to the revitalization of ourorganization as a whole, using the unique insights
and questions raised by women as a springboard
for activities that transcend the boundaries of ourorganization and workplaces. These include an inhouse live show called “Mix Juice Night”, lectures byexternal speakers, and the production of hospitality
goods for visitors to corporate museums.
So, inclusion of individual differences has led
to the growth of your company.
We have focused our discussion on women,
but our company’s idea of diversity and inclusion
involves embracing individual differences, including
values, and expanding our imaginations to see
the unseen, leading to innovation and the growthof our organization. The unprecedented events of
the COVID-19 pandemic have changed the valuesof our society. We have developed a service thatallows people to enjoy ensembles online, and wehave provided a free system that allows people tocheer on a football match remotely. Every day, we
work through trial-and-error to provide new value tosociety. We will continue to make further efforts to
evolve as a company and a society in which diversity
is a source of value.

*See the following site for details.
Promotion of Diversity and Inclusion - Sustainability- Yamaha Corporation

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Overcoming the “positive action” dilemma throughongoing discussions and strong promotion of women’s
participation

ROHM Co., Ltd.

● Aim: To increase the number of women in career-track positions by
having employees in general office positions switch over.
● Approach: Volunteer participation in leadership training for womenand unconscious bias training for supervisors.
● Conclusion: Overcoming the dilemma of whether positive action is“good for the company” or “good for the individual”.

What was the impetus for starting initiatives
on women’s active participation and what wereyour objectives?
Our initiatives did not arise out of any issues orproblems, but were more about going with the flowof social trends. At the time, many women wereleaving the workforce after taking maternity andchildcare leave, so we started by supporting them in
keeping their jobs. It has been more than ten years
since we started with this small initiative.
Seven years ago, we set up a committee on
work style reform aimed at promoting women’s
active participation, but in the end accomplishedonly information gathering. We were able to makecontacts by attending workshops with people
actively involved in the promotion of women’s active
participation, but came to the conclusion that ourcompany was not yet ready to embrace reforms atthat time.
Our initiatives started in earnest in April 2019,
when we submitted our General Business Owner

Promotion of Diversity & Inclusion

51

Action Plan to the Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare. We set goals such as increasing thenumber of women candidates for management
positions and re-envisioning new institutions thatenable women to continue to work and play anactive role in the company. At the same time theaction plan was submitted, the committee resumed
its activities and the human resources department
began to roll out measures in earnest. Another way
we worked to achieve these goals was by setting up
a training course on unconscious bias.
What is the content of the training?
In order to promote awareness of ourunconscious biases, we held a training course fordivision heads and women in career-track positions.
An external lecturer was invited to give a training
on future career planning for career-track women
employees.
Actually, We had the impression that many
had negative feelings about the training, probably
because we had not done much training for division
heads before. For example, when we talked
about management of female subordinates andunconscious bias, we had them discuss what kindof comments actually constitute unconscious bias.
Perhaps we did not find any answers right away, but
one outcome of the training was the sharing of goodpractices—participants realised that the people
around them were having the same problems andwere addressing them in creative ways.
Is it difficult to reconcile the world of Kyoto
dialect and unconscious bias?
It is true that here in Kyoto, both men and women
may read too much into each other’s comments.
Also, rather than unconscious biases, there may
be a problem with the communication style itself,
and people may be quick to think, “no matter what
I do, he won’t change” or “I’m not saying anything
anymore”.
In fact, we now have a training program designed

to make improvements in this area. Originally we hada system for learning the basics of management, butthere was no opportunity to learn the skills beyond
that. We decided to improve upon this by having
people learn how to develop their communication
as a business skill, rather than relying solely on theskills of individuals.
Last year, we began a training on facilitation asa way of getting people warmed up to this idea. We
introduced a framework that enables employees tolearn skills on consensus-building in meetings andother situations where there are people with diverse
ideas.
How many women are in management
positions?
We have nearly 4,000 employees at our head
office alone, but there are only 70 women in careertrack positions, including those at foreman andassistant manager levels. Due to this small number,it has been difficult to create horizontal connections
in our work environment. The main purpose of the
training was to bring together the 70 women in
career-track positions to promote networking.
There was some controversy as we had never
had a women-only meeting before, but it was agood opportunity for the company representatives
to communicate their views on women’s active
participation to employees.
What are you doing to increase the number ofwomen in management positions?
We ran a three-month training course to develop
female leaders. For the first time, instead of selecting
participants ourselves, we invited interested women
employees to participate. We reached out to people
who were aiming to take on management positions
with subordinates in the future, and about 10 people
took part. While this is not a large number, from theperspective of the organizers, we were surprisedthat people actually raised their hands.
While some of the participants were young
people who wanted to challenge themselves in the
future, most were veteran employees in their late
30s to early 40s. We also had some participants ingeneral positions, not only those on the career track.
Many of the participants had not had the chance toparticipate in this sort of learning opportunity when
they were younger, and they wanted to absorb asmuch as they could to improve their careers now
that they had gotten through the busiest years ofchild-rearing.
Have you faced any difficulties in promoting
women’s active participation?
There are not many female engineers, not only
in our company, but in the industry as a whole.
So, when we try to increase the number of womencareer-track employees, we inevitably end up
competing with other companies for talent. From

Leadership training for female employees

the employment perspective, gender has nothing to
do with the competence of an employee. We hopethat the population of women engineers and female
students in the sciences will increase.
Please tell me about your company’s future
outlook.
In order to increase the number of women in
managerial positions, we are actively encouraging
employees to switch from general to career-track
positions, but inevitably there is a gap between
them and male employees who have already gained
experience in career-track positions. We mustensure to not focus on increasing women in number
only. In addition, as we have a high percentage
of non-Japanese shareholders, the management
understands the need to set up indicators and sendout messages on the active participation of women.
Discussions are ongoing on this issue.
For some time to come, we will continue to face
the dilemma of whether it is really in the best interestsof the individual or of the company to support female
employees who wish to take on the challenge of acareer-track position. We hope to overcome this bycontinuing to discuss and implement initiatives tosteadfastly promote the advancement of women.

*See the following site for details.
Diversity & Inclusion | Human Capital Management| ROHM Corporate Social Responsibility

52

The UN Global Compact’s Initiatives
in Gender Equality
Initiatives of the UN Global Compact

The GCNJ, in collaboration
with WE EMPOWER Japan*2,
produced the WEPs Handbook,which
providesdetailed
information on the WEPs, how
to proceed with becoming asignatory, and a collection of
corporate case studies. It is
designed to provide practicalinformation and tools to help
companies and organizations
integrate gender equality into management
strategies and achieve concrete results throughtheir business, human resources, collaboration withdiverse stakeholders, work style reform, new value
creation, and information disclosure.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted
by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015,
as goals to be achieved by 2030 based on partnerships andcooperation among all stakeholders in the world.
The promotion of gender equality is key to achievement of
the SDGs, and the preamble to the Resolution on the SDGs*1
clearly designates gender equality as an overall objective of
the SDGs.

In 2009, the UN Global Compact and UN
Women (previously known as the United Nations
Development Fund for Women) developed the
Women’s Empowerment Principles ( WEPs),a comprehensive international framework for
promoting gender equality that predates the SDGs.

WEPs are a set of action principles for companies thatare actively involved in promoting the advancementof women. They are made up of seven principles,
including promoting gender equality based on “highlevel corporate leadership”. The WEPs emphasize
inclusion and the need to involve business partners,
investors, local communities, NGOs, governments,and other stakeholders in business activities andmarketing strategies aimed at promoting inclusion.
As of December 2021, more than 5,700 companies
and organizations worldwide have signed the WEPs
to show their commitment to promoting genderequality.

53

The Global Compact Network Japan (GCNJ) works together with its many member companies
and organisations to promote women’s empowerment.

Publication of the WEPs Handbook

Building a sustainable society is the vision of the United
Nations.

Formulation of the Women’s
Empowerment Principles (WEPs)

Initiatives of the Global Compact Network Japan (GCNJ)

The following are five benefits for companies andorganisations that sign the WEPs:(1) By positioning the promotion of gender equality
as a management priority, companies canenhance their corporate value;(2) As a response to the SDGs and ESG investment,
companies can implement initiatives in accordancewith global standards and disseminate them both
domestically and internationally;(3) Companies can build the necessary foundations
to promote the advancement of women, as well
as diversity and inclusion;(4) Companies can build a foundation for responding
appropriately to Business and Human Rights, aswell as Human Rights Due Diligence;(5) Companies are able to implement a comprehensive approach that encompasses management strategy, workplaces, marketplaces(including supply chains), communities, andinformation disclosure.
WEPs is also becoming increasingly importantfor investment institutions in the context of recent
trends in ESG investment and financing. If you areinterested in signing WEPs, please see below.
♦ WEPs official website♦The Japanese version can be found in the WEPs
Handbook.

The handbook includes a “WEPs Gender Gap
Analysis Tool” to help companies and organizations
measure their level of acceptance and level ofprogress on the WEPs, as well as to promote the
WEPs.

WEPs Gender Gap
Analysis Tool

By logging in to the WEPs Gender Gap Analysis
Tool and answering each question, a score can becalculated and data registered with the UN Global
Compact/UN Women WEPs Secretariat. Please
note that neither the names of individual companies
or organizations, nor their scores, are made public.
This tool also helps companies and organizations
to determine what indicators are important for themwhen communicating and disclosing their efforts topromote gender equality externally.

WEPs Subcommittee Meetings
In GCNJ, member companies and organizations
take the initiative in organizing topic-based
subcommittees. The subcommittees have becomea central part of GCNJ’s activities as a forum for“open social innovation”, where members actively
participate, learn, collaborate, and communicate
beyond the realm of companies and organizations.
One of the subcommittees, the WEPs Subcommittee,
was launched in 2016. In its first year, thesubcommittee aimed to provide a forum for Japanesecompanies to become aware of the real challenges
in promoting women’s empowerment in Japanesecompanies in order to link their initiatives toenhancing their international competitiveness.
From fiscal year 2017 onwards, the GCNJ has
aimed to contribute to improving the international
competitiveness of GCNJ signatory companies and,by extension, to raising the level of gender equality
in Japanese society by referring to the seven
WEPs principles to address the real challenges ofpromoting women’s empowerment and by carryingout activities and communications that are useful foreach participating company in implementing its own
concrete initiatives.
As of the end of 2021, approximately 200 companies
have gathered regularly to share their knowledge
and experience on gender equality.
*2 The WE EMPOWER Project was launched to promote women’s
economic empowerment aimed at disseminating the Responsible
Business Principles in G7 member states, with activities taking
place over a three-year period from 2018 to 2020.

*For more information, please see
the following website. Please also
refer to the links in each illustration.
Global Compact Network Japan(ungcjn.org)*1 Document No. A/RES/70/1

54

About the front and back covers.
In the preamble to the SDGs, gender equality is described as an objectiveof the SDGs as a whole. This is because gender inequality is at the root ofmany problems in our societies.
In this context, the promotion of gender equality must incorporate a wide
range of initiatives from diverse perspectives.
Companies have a part to play in this effort.
Much like a complex jigsaw puzzle, it will require persistent effort andwisdom to figure out.
However, if the efforts and wisdom that each company accumulates are
combined, an image of gender equality can be completed as if the pieces
were put together one by one. That is the image of the future depicted on thefront and back covers.