EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION
Employees Employee Communication
Basic Concepts
We are aiming to foster an open and easy-to-communicate organizational culture in which it is possible to create value through varied experimentation with members who have different values. The purpose of that is to be a company that creates new value by extracting the value of diversified human resources and solving social issues in 2030. We will look to entrench a culture of experimentation where all employees respect each other and can easily access the information they need. It will also be one where value is produced through repeated trial and error in our third medium-term plan, Field Expansion 2024. Our goal with that is to change the way of working at KOKUYO into one of hybrid work and project-based work.
Systems
Employee Satisfaction Survey (stress check)
We conduct an annual stress check as required under law. By analyzing the responses, along with overtime data and interview data, we identify issues. With this information, HR facilitates dialogues aimed at prompting self-led solutions.
Pulse Survey
We began a pulse survey to be able to rotate through the PDCA cycle at a high pace of once a month in KOKUYO Co., Ltd. and Kaunet Co., Ltd. One purpose of the survey is to grasp the state of teams and workplaces and to then use it as the impetus for discussions between members and dialogue between superiors and subordinates. Another purpose of the survey is for management to grasp the state of sites and employees even more timely and accurately while taking various measures such as new ways of working and initiatives to realize our long-term vision. We are aiming to foster an easy-to-communicate corporate culture in which employees can think and talk with each other about the company on an equal footing regardless of their position through establishing a habit to always be aware of the condition of their teams and organizations by continuing this survey every month.
Initiatives in 2022
Employee Town Meetings
In May 2022, we published our first integrated report and unveiled our corporate purpose: Presenting a tomorrow you can’t wait for. Since then, we’ve held a number of employee town meetings for discussing the purpose with employees. During the meetings, employees discussed what the purpose means to them and how they interpret and apply it.
President’s Award
In FY2020, we launched the President’s Award to honor initiatives that help build KOKUYO’s value. In 2022, the second year of the program, the prestigious award went to the project team behind seating for the Japan National Stadium The stadium opened in January 2020 and seats up to 60 thousand spectators. For this new stadium, the team developed and delivered Centura seats.* Centura uses a slim form while making the user feel secure and comfortable. The seating features a range of randomly assigned colors, creating a warm, natural feeling, evoking dappled sunlight filtering through forest trees. During what was the first in-person ceremony for the award scheme, each team member received a glass medal and bouquet, modeled after the Olympic prizes, along with a card bearing a message penned by President Hidekuni Kuroda. The winners were treated to a warm applause, with smiles all around.
This was a special delivery just for the stadium. The Centura model is not a regular model for sale.
In-house award program: Dynamism Challenge
A strategic priority in our previous medium-term plan (2019–2021) was to turbo-charge workplace productivity (“doubling the speed of operations through variety”). In 2019, we launched an initiative to help cultivate a workplace culture that rewards employees for thinking independently and taking the initiative. The initiative is titled Bottom Up, Top Pull (“bottom up” means frontline employees raising concerns or suggesting ideas, and “top pull” means the management taking up these ideas). In 2022, the following two prizes were awarded: Top-Pull Prize: This prize honors leaders who helped their team achieve growth or improve their performance. Entries are nominated by others. Dynamism Prize: This prize honors individuals and teams who push the envelope with bold initiatives for turbo-charging workplace productivity. Entries are self-nominated or nominated by others. Prizes were awarded at a business unit and regional level. For the top prize, the corporate officers then picked one individual (or team) from among the organization as a whole. The honored initiatives were then announced to employees in the company newsletter.
