SOCIAL
LABOR AND TALENT
Workstyle Reform, Diversity, and Inclusion
Initiatives in 2024
CASE
HOWS PARK (Diversity Office)
On the first floor of our head office, we built HOWS PARK, a pro-diversity office that embraces inclusive design. From the first stage of the design process, we engaged in dialogue with a diverse spectrum of lead users, including people with hearing impairment, mental-health problems, and lower-limb conditions, and wheelchair users to ensure that the office would be accessible and inclusive to all. The office serves as a place for testing ideas that incorporate HOWS DESIGN (KOKUYO’s concept of inclusive design). In fiscal 2024, more than 100 workshops were held. Consequently, 26.6% of our newly launched products were designed through the HOWS DESIGN process (our goal was 20%).
- *Related information
Launching HOWS PARK in a step toward D&I* - *Japanese Only
Programs
Programs for Workplace Diversity*
We are going further to support the careers of diverse employees and accommodate their needs associated with each life stage.
| Maternity leave | Pregnant employees are entitled to a leave of absence for a period lasting from six weeks before the due date (14 weeks if a multiple pregnancy) to eight weeks after it. |
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| Spouse’s leave | Employees whose spouse is pregnant are entitled to two days’ leave around the due date. |
| Parental leave | Employees are entitled to a leave of absence to care for their children until the child’s 2nd birthday (if the child’s second birthday falls in April, until the end of that April). |
| Sick child leave | Employees with children who are yet to enroll at elementary school are entitled to five days of leave a year or, if they have multiple applicable children, 10 days of leave a year (the leave can also be taken on an hourly basis). Taking such leave has no impact on wage or bonus. |
| Nursing care leave | Employees are entitled to take, for each care dependent, up to three periods of leave totaling no more than 183 days. |
| Short nursing care leave | Employees are entitled to take, for each care dependent, five days of leave a year or, if they have multiple care dependents, 10 days of leave a year (the leave can also be taken on an hourly basis). Taking such leave has no impact on wage or bonus. |
| Shorter hours | Employees with children are entitled to take shorter work schedules until the children complete grade 3 of elementary school. |
| Wellness leave | This is an updated form of menstrual leave. It now covers employees who require leave for menstrual pain or maternity checkups and to men and women who require leave for infertility treatment. |
| KOKUYO-Style Hybrid Work | We promote a mixture of home and office working. |
| Complete flextime (with no predetermined core period) | We encourage employee productivity with flexible work hours. |
| Re-employment system for employees who voluntarily resigned | We run a returnship program to help reintegrate into the workplace regular employees who resigned because of marriage, childbirth, childcare, nursing care, spouse relocation, overseas study, charity work, a career change, or other valid personal reasons. We believe that bringing in outside experience and insight further increases the diversity of our organization. |
| Re-employing mandatory retirees | We have in place a system that, in principle, allows employees who wish to work at the KOKUYO Group after retiring at the mandatory age of 60 to continue working as senior employees. Through this initiative, the retirees get opportunities to continue a professional role in society after mandatory retirement. In return, they use their experience and knowledge to help younger colleagues develop. |
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*These programs apply in KOKUYO and major subsidiaries.
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*View data on numbers of employees taking childcare and nursing care leave
KOKUYO-Style Hybrid Work
In 2022, we launched KOKUYO-Style Hybrid Work. This program honors diversity while encouraging employees to engage in workstyles that improve the productivity and creativity of the team as a whole, so that personal growth can accompany team outcomes. KOKUYO’s distinctive workstyle model is practiced by supporting each employee’s “life-based working,” a term we use to describe a situation in which the one’s workstyle, learning style, and lifestyle are balanced and embody one’s uniqueness.
For example, employees choose one of three workstyle categories (office-based, balanced, home-based) and then decide with their superiors on a workstyle that will best suit their individual and team performance. Teams regularly review members’ workstyles to see how they can improve.
With the workplace expanding, we provide employees with a satellite-style multipurpose space, known as n.5 (pronounced “enu-ten-go”). The space may be used as a satellite office, but it can also be used for activities related to employees’ working, learning, and living. Employees use n.5 for a variety of purposes, including for self-led seminars and other self-organized events.
Collaborating with External Organizations to Unlock New Workstyle Options
In 2023, KOKUYO earned an award from the Japan Telework Association, an organization dedicated to promoting telework as a flexible work option that uses digital technology to remove restraints of time and place. In an effort to explore new work options, we participate in a public-private council on telework and workations. The council was established to promote workations and build up the number of workation practitioners. We have been member of the Iku-boss Corporate Alliance (Sponsored by Fathering Japan) ever since the program began in December 2014. Members of this alliance share best practices for ensuring that leaders, in their efforts to empower the employees and deliver positive outcomes for the organization, are sensitive to employees’ need for work-life balance. Through our membership of the alliance, we gain opportunities to rethink approaches to diversity management and organizational culture.
Flextime in Distribution Centers
The distribution industry faces a number of labor challenges. For example, restrictions on truckers’ overtime will come into effect in Japan in 2024. To address the challenges, KOKUYO Group has embraced workstyle reform.
It is generally believed that flextime is unfeasible for the distribution industry. Nonetheless, KOKUYO Logitem introduced flextime for back-office staff in 2009 and then for distribution center staff in 2022. As well as prompting a higher uptake of flextime in delivery operations, KOKUYO Logitem has set a best-practice model for the industry. In 2023, KOKUYO Supply Logistics introduced flextime for distribution center staff and all other employees. With flextime, employees exercise autonomy in deciding which hours they work during busy periods. This frees up disposable time and reduces physical and mental strain. It also sets a good example of flexible workstyle practices for the industry.
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*Related information：KOKUYO Logitem’s news page*
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*Related information：KOKUYO Supply Logistics’ news page*
- *Japanese Only
Work-Life Balance
The KOKUYO Group endeavors to create an employee-friendly working environment with consideration for the work-life balance.
These initiatives have been recognized. Three companies* in our group have acquired the Kurumin Mark.
The Kurumin Mark is granted to companies and organizations which proactively support childrearing by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare that is working to reduce the declining birthrate. This initiative is based on the Law for Measures to Support the Development of the Next Generation.
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*The companies which have acquired the Kurumin Mark are KOKUYO Co., Ltd., Kaunet Co., Ltd., and KOKUYO Marketing Co., Ltd.
Employing People with Disabilities
KOKUYO has been an active employer of people with disabilities ever since 1940. In that year, KOKUYO started recruiting students from a school for the deaf in Osaka (now known as Chuo School for the Deaf). The students were employed in the company’s factory in Imazato, which stood on the site of what is now our Head Office.
A turning point in our policy for employing people with disabilities came in 2002, when we unveiled a program of structural reform. This reform program involved spinning off our business units into new companies. A question we then faced was how to provide jobs in the new group companies for people with disabilities. In September 2003, we founded KOKUYO K Heart as a “special subsidiary” (meaning a disability-friendly employer that is counted as part of the parent company). In December 2006, we founded Heartland, a subsidiary devoted to employing people with intellectual or mental disabilities.
As of June 1, 2024, people with disabilities make up 2.55% of the group’s workforce.
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*Related information:Employees Composition (Employees with Disabilities)
Embracing Diversity
The Campus (our office in Shinagawa, Tokyo) embraces diversity and inclusion. It has an all-gender bathroom that LGBTQ+ people or anyone can feel comfortable using. It also has a nursing room (accessible to men as well as women) and a multi-faith prayer room.
Believing that talent diversity is essential to creativity, we maintain a rough gender parity when hiring fresh graduates and actively hire people who already have career experience.
To help empower diverse talent, we operate the KOKUYO Academy, a talent-development institution that focuses on training up leadership talent to manage our businesses.
As part of our efforts to provide a workplace in which employees with family care needs feel supported, we have updated our support measures for balancing career with family care commitments, provided an in-office playschool for when schools break for spring and summer, and allowed the option to bring children to the office.
We are verifying real changes in the workstyles of such employees.
Human Resources Management
We aim for a cyclical process of employee growth and business growth. This approach balances two goals: expanding our business portfolio to cultivate a diverse ecosystem of businesses, and allowing individuals to expand their career opportunities.
Creating a Cyclical Process of Employee Growth and Business Growth
Talent Management Policy
In 2023, we established the Talent Management Policy. This policy enshrines the principle that KOKUYO’s workforce as an asset to society and that we should help every employee achieve their potential and cultivate talent that will drive business growth and contribute toward a better society. This principle is shared by the management and every employee.
Talent Management Policy
*Japanese Only
Actions in Line with Talent Management Policy
| Providing opportunities for all employees to shine |
A broad spectrum of employees (young to senior) volunteer for the 20% Challenge (internal moonlighting). In 2024, we started supporting talent fluidity, an important measure for career support. We offer many opportunities to work in another division or other country. We believe that such redeployments help employees uncover their hidden potential and grow, provided that the person’s career preferences are respected. |
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| Maximizing the speed of growth in talented and passionate employees |
In 2024, we opened a talent-development institution called KOKUYO Academy. The idea behind KOKUYO Academy is to give attendees an idea of yokoku as the source of corporate and personal growth and to help them refine the leadership and creative skills they need to make their yokoku a reality. We also have a number of training programs to support employee growth. For junior employees, we offer KOKUYO Career Dock. KOKUYO Career Dock includes two programs run simultaneously. One is a self-development program for the junior employees. The other is a program for training subordinates attended by the employees’ supervisors. KOKUYO Career Dock is designed to foster a common understanding between supervisors and subordinates about career growth and challenge-taking. The training programs are also attended by senior managers to encourage the junior employees to commit to professional development and their supervisors to support their development. Our talent management system is designed so that employees can step up the career ladder regardless of their age or years of experience. |
| Nurturing leadership talent for leading team-based value creation |
The task of nurturing leadership talent is not left entirely to employees’ immediate superiors. It is a job shared by other senior staff around the person, managers of other divisions, and by HR. At the Talent Development Committee, members discuss career and growth opportunities for individual employees, considering multiple perspectives. All career-track staff receive 360-degree assessments to provide feedback about their leadership performance. They also attend workshops to further develop their leadership skills. |
| Helping employees build diverse and fulfilling careers |
To prevent situations in which employees are forced to give up their career because of childcare commitments or family care commitments, we have revised our systems and improved our programs for helping balance career with such commitments. We have also revised our personnel evaluation approach for employees on maternity or parental leave so that their leave does not create a blank period in their record. We track the skills employees are accumulating over time and provide continual feedback to support the person’s growth. To give middle-aged and senior employees greater autonomy over their careers, we have partially eased our prohibition on working second jobs. Believing that employees should take the initiative in their career and growth, we are providing the support measures to facilitate such self-driven action and improve the value of our talent. |
Yokoku for Long-Term Value Creation
Creative yokoku by diverse talent is key to creating the new value expanding the reach of our business fields. We define yokoku as the passion and aspiration to create a better future.
The source of our value creation lies in our employees’ sensitivity to the problems our customers face and their resolve, or yokoku, to address these problems in creative ways. We maximize this strength by shining the spotlight on each employee, bringing out their uniqueness and talent to the full, and by nurturing the leadership skills to put yokoku into action. Alongside this, we foster an open organizational culture that encourages employees to express their yokoku and a workplace environment that emphasizes bonding and solidarity among diverse employees who share the yokoku spirit.
Initiatives in 2024
Creating new opportunities for challenge-taking
CASE
20% Challenge: Internal Moonlighting
In 2020, to promote an empowered workplace in which employees actively pursue opportunities for professional development, we launched 20% Challenge, a program of internal moonlighting in which participants spend 20% of their working time engaging in a job for another organizational division. Organizational divisions issue recruitment notices for certain jobs (“challenges”), employees apply for them, and the head of the division in question works with the HR team to find the right candidate. The program runs for three to 12 months, and participants’ achievements and efforts count toward their individual personnel evaluation. To date, approximately 370 employees have participated. These participants stepped across business and organizational boundaries to engage in challenges such as market research for overseas businesses, strategy support, R&D solutions for digital learning, and raising employees’ eco-awareness. The idea is that employees try to divide their time 80–20 between their normal work and the new assignment, a ratio that is ideal for raising workplace productivity without compromising one’s normal work. Through this program, we visualize workplace activity. We then identify aspects to rectify or recalibrate through dialogues among the employees concerned and their managers and HR.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
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| Cumulative total of employees who have participated in the 20% Challenge | 129 | 189 | 266 | 378 |
CASE
KOKUYO Marketing University and KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School
KOKUYO Marketing University is a project-based training program for employees who graduated from university between three and 12 years ago. The program teaches attendees to consider customers’ perspectives and to develop ideas that tap into an unmet need. The attendees acquire knowledge about marketing and strategic planning. They then apply their knowledge in a project in which they create a product concept. Under the guidance of external corporate strategists, they spend around half a year perfecting the product idea and then present it to the management. Since the program began in 2017, more than 190 younger employees have taken on a project related to development, planning, or another area. The program continues to provide a starting point for employee development and action. For example, attendees can enhance their learning by making use of the program’s mentorship system, in which they receive support from graduates of the program. Additionally, attending the program leads to positive changes in workplace outputs and encourages the employees to accept an offer of redeployment and the fresh challenges it brings.
KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School is a program for mid-level leaders, who are aged between 30 and 40. The program is designed to equip these employees with strategic acumen, including the ability to objectively forecast future scenarios. During the program, attendees are presented with 10-year business themes determined by the management. Under the guidance of external marketing professionals, they spend around nine months engaging in team work to perfect their growth strategy for KOKUYO and then present it to the management. Since the program’s launch in 2019, more than 130 employees have participated. Many of the program graduates are playing an active part in the company after seizing opportunities to take on the challenge of an even larger role such as through company-wide projects after completing the program.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
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| KOKUYO Marketing University Participants (cumulative total) |
118 | 143 | 168 | 192 |
| KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School Participants (cumulative total) |
73 | 93 | 113 | 133 |
at KOKUYO Marketing University
at KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School
