We are promoting work style reforms from three angles: flexible work styles, operational reforms, and the use of IT and AI. By offering a variety of work styles, we intend to create a work environment in which each employee can achieve results while feeling pride and job satisfaction.
Promoting a Good Work-life Balance
Based on the concept of “work hard, rest well,” we will promote an ideal work-life balance through flexible work styles. In addition to weekly no-overtime days, we support more flexible work styles with systems such as refreshment leave and memorial leave, an hourly paid leave system, and a super flextime system with no core hours. We also operate a flexible leave system that allows employees to take a leave of absence for personal reasons once during their employment for a maximum of two years at their own will.One employee made use of this system in FY2024.
Systems to promote good work-life balance
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| System | Content |
|---|---|
| Telecommuting System | Telecommuting system for full-time employees (temporary and contract employees may apply at the discretion of their department head), with no restrictions on reasons for use or number of days (starting in FY2019) |
| Annual Paid Leave Accumulation System (Expired Paid Leave Accumulation System) |
The number of days of accumulation is 5 days/year (maximum 40 days). Leave can be taken in full-day, half-day, and hourly increments (starting in FY2018) |
| Super Flextime System | A flextime system with no core hours that allows for voluntary and planned allocation of working hours. (starting in FY2015) |
| Hourly Paid Leave System | A system for taking leave in one-hour increments |
| Flexible Leave System | A system that allows employees to take a leave of absence for personal reasons for up to two years, regardless of the reason (starting in FY2019) |
| Childcare Support System for Balancing Work | Childcare leave can be taken until the child turns one year old (up to three years for certain reasons. For both male and female employees, paid leave of 28 days is provided beginning at the start of childcare leave). Support includes childcare leave for both male and female employees, reduced work hours for childcare, shortened work hours, staggered work hours, and subsidies for babysitting and sick child care expenses. |
| Nursing Care Support System for Balancing Work | A total of 365 days of nursing care leave can be taken (the statutory number is 93 days), and workdays can be shortened by up to two hours per day to provide nursing care (as per law) (starting in FY2016) |
| Internal Multiple Role System | A system that allows employees to voluntarily take on themes they wish to work on in parallel with their existing work (starting in FY2021) |
Improving Employee Engagement
In order to create environments in which employees are motivated and proud of their work and voluntarily demonstrate their abilities while maintaining a high level of willingness to contribute to the Company, we believe it is important to have a thorough dialogue with the executives and other people in various positions within the organization, and we provide many opportunities for such dialogue.
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| Measures | Targets | Current score |
To be achieved by |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dialogue with executives | The executives act as “Dojo” forum owners and invite employees as trainees to join a dialogue once a month for a period of six months to one year. Each Dojos has 6 to 8 participants as trainees, and the theme of the dialogue (what they want to convey to their employees) is left up to the Dojo owner. There were 13 Dojos conducted in FY2025. This system will continue in the future. In addition, the Company continues to hold monthly "morning meetings for all employees," in which executives give a talk to all employees. | Employee engagement (stress check) score of 51 or above | 44.8 | FY2025 |
| Training Camp OJT | This system sees business divisions or departments (10 to 30 people) spend one or two days discussing the organization's visions, challenges, etc. |
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| Salon | The system sees managers and executives become salon leaders and engage in dialogue with several employees on R&D, management, etc. | |||
| Group circle | A place where opinions can be freely exchanged without any concern for hierarchy. Another goal of these events is reducing psychological distance felt by improving the quality of relationships between generations. | |||
- Target employees include those transfers to subsidiaries and affiliates.
Business Innovation
We are promoting greater use of digital technologies, including the following systems, with the aim of enabling flexible work styles that are not bound by time or place, as well as improving productivity.
- A virtual desktop service that allows intranet access from outside the Company
- RPA (Robotic Process Automation) for automating and streamlining routine work
- A Business Intelligence (BI) system for more efficient use of internal information
- A proprietary digital platform powered by generative AI [Sanyo Data Hub, MI (Materials Informatics) for research and development]
- Inventory optimization tool “ZAIKO,” which reduces manual work in planning adjustments and levels workloads
External Evaluation
First Best Practice Company in Kyoto Prefecture
In 2016, our company was recognized by the Kyoto Labor Bureau as the first Best Practice Company in Kyoto Prefecture for its proactive efforts to "work style reform."
Certified with 3.5 stars in “NIKKEI Sustainable Management Survey, Smart Work Edition” (November 2024)
We were certified with 3.5 stars rating in the NIKKEI Sustainable Management Survey, Smart Work Edition, which selects leading companies that aim to maximize their corporate value by accelerating investment in human resources, fully leveraging their talent, generating new innovations and improving productivity.
This survey, conducted by Nikkei Inc. since 2017, targets listed companies and prominent unlisted companies nationwide, and evaluates “Smart Work Management”, which is defined as an initiative to maximize organizational performance through three elements: human resource utilization, human resource investment, and technology utilization, and is evaluated on a five-star scale.We received a grade of S for “Ability to human resource utilization” A++ for “Ability to human resource investment” and A++ for “Ability to technology utilization.”
