CSR Communication

Outside scholars who participated in the panel discussion

Many Individuals, Many Work Backgrounds

ShioiriWith our theme as "Diversity," today we have gathered company employees of different backgrounds and work styles for our dialogue. Please introduce yourselves, telling us about your work style and current situation.

KogaI joined the company in 1993 as a general position, then received a branch recommendation to become a full-time position. I was then given a career-track position two years ago.
I had managed construction projects in the Chiba Branch for 15 years since joining the company, but then received the transfer to the International Operations Headquarters I had been hoping for after receiving a career-track position. I have performed construction project management at construction site offices in Dubai, Vietnam, and now China.

HassanI am originally from Syria. After graduating from the Damascus University Civil Engineering Faculty in 1992, I worked in Syria and the United Arab Emirates. When I was studying for a post graduate degree in Management, I was introduced to a book by Konosuke Matsushita. His ideas and philosophy interested me, and I decided to go to Japan.
I came to Japan in 1998, studied at Tohoku University and Akita University. After receiving a master's degree, I worked at a Japanese civil engineering firm for two years before returning to school to obtain a doctorate. I then became a contract employee of Taisei Corporation in 2005.
At the beginning I worked hard to do more than I was asked in order to eliminate the stereotypes about foreigners that I experienced. This work resulted in being promoted from a contract worker to a full-time position, and in 2008 I was given a career-track position. I have spent my entire tenure with Taisei in the International Operations Headquarters Civil Engineering Department, mainly handling such tasks as estimates, overseas project bids, client negotiations, and presentations. I am also currently involved in handling construction claims and providing support for current work sites and new projects.

OmoteI joined the company in 2000, working in the Nagoya, Chiba, and Tokyo branches before being currently positioned in the Yamanashi site office.Today I am participating as someone who has received child-care leave. I was married in 2005, when I was working at the Chiba Branch. My wife was working in Yamanashi, and we were married after a long-distance courtship. When my wife became pregnant the next January, I told my superior that I would like to transfer to Yamanashi. There happened to be an opening there, so my transfer was completed in July and my child was born in August. Three or four months after delivering our child, as my wife was preparing to return to work, she was diagnosed with hip joint problems, and it became impossible to place our child in daycare. We decided that I would take child-care leave while her hip recovered to facilitate her returning to work, so I requested and received child-care leave from the site office manager. The leave was originally scheduled to be four months long, but I was able to return after two months because my wife was able to receive a second child-care leave.

ShioiriNext, we would like to hear from Ms. Miyawaki of the Design Division. Ms. Miyawaki is a person with hearing-impairment, so we have asked Mr Sato of the Personnel Department to provide sign-language interpretation.

MiyawakiI cannot hear. I currently have three children, but I have continued to work after delivering them.
When I joined the company, there were only four employees with hearing impairment, including me, and I was the only such person in my division.Because of this, I was not well understood by my coworkers and communication was very difficult. I didn't understand anything that was said at planning sessions and meetings, and though I would later receive a summary of what was said, I was very eager to know how discussions had progressed. I also felt isolated when others would engage in small talk that I couldn't understand. However, I didn't want to be thought of as incapable because of my hearing disability, so I proactively asked for all kinds of tasks.
Now that information technology has progressed, I am able to carry on necessary communications by e-mail, and if there is something I don't understand, I can get an answer through e-mail. Things have changed a lot, for the better.
When there is a conversation between a small number of people, I read lips to understand. I use this method and watch people's eyes, but to avoid any mistakes, I carry out all work-related communications in writing or by e-mail. I also make sure to attend meetings in person. Most workplace communications are done in writing, and more people have used that method for me as they've seen how it works.
I have been able to stay working with three children thanks to the company. I currently work reduced hours, but because my husband's company is far away, I do tasks such as taking my children to daycare on my own.
It isn't easy to have limited work time and be unable to stay extra hours, but my coworkers are very cooperative and the arrangement seems to be working out well.

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Work-life Balance Support: a "Two-Story House" Requiring a Solid Foundation and First Floor

ShioiriWe would now like to hear from Dr. Sato regarding what we have discussed to this point.

Dr. SatoI specialize in personnel management, and study corporate human resources utilization. One of my several research themes is work-life balance.
Seeing information about your company's efforts for the first time, I think that the company is doing some very good work in this area. Work-life balance and helping women to succeed are considered to be two wheels on the same car, and Taisei has worked on them as a set. One measurement often used to determine how easily women can work at a company is whether they can continue to work after marrying and having children?in other words, how many continuous years they can work. At first glance, companies with low turnover rates appear to be easy places for women to work, but on the other hand, those rates do not show whether women are experiencing success. Visiting companies, I often see cases in which women have indeed worked many years, but in sales, for example, they are relegated to clerical work while men handle core tasks. In addition, many companies have no women at all in management positions. Work-life balance questions aside, this shows that such companies do not intend to help women succeed or achieve equality.
In such companies, women work hard but can't get recognition from their superiors, or see other women run into barriers to career advancement and can't see if their hard work will be rewarded. However, when some women have no choice but to continue working even under these conditions, they often settle for simply being able to continue working, since they cannot expect promotion or advancement. This ultimately makes women more likely to ask for as much child-care leave as possible, or to work shorter hours, creating a vicious cycle in which women cannot have success, and which I think is undesirable.
Many companies have wonderful systems, but their female employees still do not see success. I think the great thing about your company is that a support system work-life balance exists simultaneously alongside a system in which women can have success.
Another case I want to illustrate involves a company where women are enjoying success. The management ranks include many women, and women are excelling at many kinds of work. However, when I ask about personnel, I hear that "We have issues. Women get married, have children, and leave the company. We have a low retention rate." In these kinds of companies, the women who do continue working are having success, but many also quit before doing so. The women who remain are highly capable "superwomen." In other words, they are able to maintain marriages and perform housework and child-rearing, all while working as managers. One other arrangement is where a woman's parents or husband handle housework and child-rearing, creating a home environment that lets them focus on work without having to take much time for such activities. Still another type is the woman who wants to work, and gives up on marriage rather than giving up on her career. None of the above arrangements is necessarily good or bad, but the majority of women tend to feel that it wouldn't be right for them to work in that manner. This is the opposite of the cases I've just cited, but from the perspective of women having success, I think this is also a problem.
In the end, it is most important to make work-life balance and equality efforts in tandem, as two wheels of the same car. In order to achieve this, the traditional idea needs to be changed in which wives do housework and raise children while husbands can work as many extra hours as they like, and can transfer whenever needed. Promoting gender equality and supporting work-life balance are two sides of the same coin.
I would like to talk a little bit about what work-life balance is. Your company's handbook "To Work Energetically" is great, but even people in charge of personnel and managers are often mistaken as to the meaning of work-life balance. One misconception is summarized this way: "Japanese people have had work-centered lives in the past, so work-life balance means to moderate work hours and enhance other aspects of life." Messages to employees also often include illustrations of balancing scales. They say "Stop giving 100% focus to work, and begin balancing work and other aspects of life." Such messages are mistaken. Work-life balance is absolutely not a matter of moderating work and enhancing other parts of life. It is to create an environment in which people of various lifestyles can have a strong motivation to do their work. Its purpose is not necessarily to shorten work hours or to rush through work, nor does it preclude working overtime.
I often say that work-life balance support is like a three story house?a foundation, a first floor, and a second floor. Companies that think the second floor, which consists of organizational systems, simply needs to be enhanced in order to support work-life balance, are mistaken. These companies introduce child-care leave or shorter work hours systems. This way of thinking holds that companies which introduce systems that exceed legal obligations are automatically good companies. I believe that systems are fine exactly as the law stipulates, because if the foundation and first floor are built properly, the second floor (systems) will be sufficient if created according to the law.

The foundation in our analogy is a workplace that can accept people who have various work styles and values. This is related to diversity, and in the case of many companies today, when a female employee says "I want to take child-care leave," the management responds by saying "Congratulations. We'll prepare things so you can have a restful leave, and we'll provide support so you can continue working when you return." Twenty years ago, they may have said "Why would you want return to work so badly that you'll take child-care leave?" In the case of male subordinates asking for child-care leave, the same management might have simply said "Why are you taking child-care leave at all?" They might also ask "Oh, your wife is working?", or "Why doesn't your wife take time off?" They might again go so far as to say "I was thinking about giving you a big job. I'm worried about your future career," even though they would never ask a female in the same situation why she was taking leave. They would have asked that question because they didn't understand why a man would be involved in child-rearing to the point that he would take child-care leave.
What I am trying to say is that it's fine to ask, but I want such superiors to notice that their level of awareness doesn't allow them to understand that their subordinates are changing. That's why I tell management to ask their female employees "Why doesn't your husband take child-care leave?" I think that's a better question.
In contrast to the past, employees who can work full time, overtime, through transfers, and up to retirement without taking time off are soon going to be in the minority. Regardless of gender, employees will take child-care leave or other time off to provide medical care, or they will work full time but be unable to work overtime while spending two days a week on child care or other medical care. People who take the same kind of time off for schooling are also bound to appear, and management and coworkers will need to create a foundation, in the form of a workplace environment that is accepting toward such decisions.
The first floor of the house in my analogy is to be able to provide time and task management systems that can handle the time constraints of employees. Each person is limited to 24 hours in a day. Each week has only seven days. In the past, if work wasn't done by evening, an employee would work overtime, and if work wasn't done by Friday an employee would work on Saturday. This behavior may have been partially due to the work being interesting, but employees may have also had nothing to do outside of work. This was true because even in the case of married males, their wives handled housework and child-rearing. Men who lack an awareness of time constraints in relation to work are currently the department and section heads in many companies today. There is therefore a high possibility that these men manage their subordinates based on their own experiences, which lack awareness of time constraints.
However, as I just mentioned, both male and female employees will undergo a change. For example, out of six subordinates, one might be on child-care leave. Two of the remaining five might say that they can't work overtime two days of the week. One other might be working shorter hours. In short, not everyone will be in a position to work overtime. I call this "time constraints." In this situation, the management and each employee will be limited in the amount of time they can spend on work. There will be work that must be done, but the amount of time a given employee will be able to use for work will be limited. If the old ways of working are used in this situation, important tasks will be left undone. Therefore, priorities become necessary to ensure that the most important tasks get done while less important tasks are abandoned. Another important item is raising hourly productivity. This means that management and employees must have acute "time awareness," changing methods of working to conform to the premise of time constraints. This is the first floor of the house in our analogy, and means to perform tasks with urgency.
If the first floor and foundation of our house are soundly constructed, systems for supporting work-life balance will not need to be terribly draconian, as I mentioned previously. Ideally, work can be balanced with child-rearing or schooling by working normally, and without the need for a system. I think this is very important.
Otherwise, we will continue to have the current tendency in which women use such systems for child-rearing and the management conclude that, as they suspected, women are difficult to utilize. This will prevent the expansion of opportunities for women to have success. That is why I say that changing the foundation and first floor is actually extremely important to expanding such opportunities.

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Focus on the Husbands of Female Employees

Let's consider what happens when we find this balance. When they first join the company, women are frequently the most prioritized workers. But in normal companies, after four or five years, an idea that women do not grow occupationally begins to emerge, and some women decide to quit. They quit before ever using the systems created to help them balance child-rearing and work. The natural result of this is that the denominator of women does not increase, and therefore neither can the number of female managers.
ed the same as men for the first three or so years from joining the company, but in the fourth or fifth year a discrepancy begins to emerge in how many tasks each gender is assigned. From that point on, the management tend to naturally give more work to men, which means a loss of opportunities for women to increase their ability. When this occurs, women begin to doubt the value of staying in that particular company and quit.
In the case of many companies, it is doubtful that opportunities to engage in competency development and other jobs that lead to growth are given equally to men and women. Simply creating work-life balance systems does not ensure that women can remain working. If the work itself is fulfilling, women will want to continue working by using work-life balance systems after marriage and childbirth. If, after taking child care leave, a woman does not feel that there is a way of working that will allow balance between child-rearing and work while also offering career advancement in exchange for hard work, she will not continue to work there. In reality, many companies offer work-life balance systems but do not reward a woman's hard work with career advancement. I mentioned a wheels-and-car analogy earlier; I think it's important to build work-life balance systems, change workplace culture, adjust work styles, and then use those things to create a workplace environment in which women have success.
It is hard for a woman to continue working while raising children. It is hard for her, but also only even possible if she has the support of her coworkers in the workplace. In such a situation, it is certainly hard to accept that outside persons such as coworkers must offer support while her husband does nothing. How a family raises its children is of course a private matter to be decided by each household, but the reality is that third-party coworkers end up providing support at their workplace. When we take this into consideration, we realize that it's important for husbands to provide support as well. Therefore, the key to achieving work-life balance to expand opportunities for success by women in the workplace is not changing the men at the company; it is changing the husbands of female employees themselves.
It's not that a woman must even necessarily get married and have children, but I think that if she makes the decision to get married and have kids while remaining in the workplace, the Taisei Corporation alone cannot give her the necessary support to allow her to find balance between child-rearing and work without her husband's participation in child-rearing as well. For example, I think it would be difficult for her to become a management-level employee. The key is her husband.
Therefore, one suggestion I have is to gather the husbands of married women who are currently in position to become section heads, etc., and train them regarding this support. The training would essentially tell them "We have high expectations for your wives. They may become section heads, department heads, or executives. But our support won't be enough. They need your support, too."
Conversely, if a husband is usually working overtime and his spouse is also working, but also managing to handle child-rearing simultaneously, the husband's company may be depending on the work-life balance support his spouse's company provides to allow his overtime. This is unfair. I think this example illustrates why the husband's company should encourage his participation in child-rearing. What do you think?

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Caregiver Support Evaluation and Cultivation

The second aspect is one I mentioned previously, support for caregivers, which I think will become increasingly important. Caregiver support and child-rearing support are actually very different things. Leave or shortened hours for care-giving ought to be avoided. Some personnel managers harbor misconceptions about care-giving leave. This may invite misunderstanding, but a person must not take leave in order to personally give the care, because if they simply give the care, they will be unable to return to work. Of course, since care-giving is a need that arises suddenly, there are going to be times where an employee must initially provide that care. However, what they really ought to be doing during leave is procuring care through existing social programs, or taking the time to gain the help of parents or other family so they can arrange to return to work while continuously providing parents with needed care in a sustainable manner.
The third thing that is very important is the evaluation of work performance while working shorter hours, as well as things like the distribution of work. In the past, personnel development systems gave an employee various work experiences through transfers, but development through transfers is a career-building system based on the assumption that employees are men who can transfer at any time and don't need to do housework or child-rearing. This results in people having to transfer during child-rearing periods. I think that mid- to long-term personnel development should be revamped to take into account when transfers ought to be made and what work experiences ought to be had. That is all.

ShioiriThank you. We'd now like to move into an exchange of opinions, and turn the time over to Ms. Kawaguchi.

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Social Change and Changing Paradigms

KawaguchiHaving just heard from Dr. Sato and listened to your introductions, I would first like to express a few thoughts before opening the floor up for discussion.
First, it was mentioned in relation to work-life balance and work styles that there has been a work style based on an assumption of long work hours. While I have some sense of this, I think there are two ways of working at a corporation. One way is to put forth an image of loyalty and usefulness as an employee by being at the company for long hours. The other is to leave right at five o'clock, but emphasize that one nevertheless produces desired results. I sense that the former has tended to be the most well-received in Japan in the past. In other words, it has been a competition comparing employees' ability to endure long hours. I think there are quite a few people who have achieved some level of status not only through ability, but also as a reward for sacrificing their time for the company.
Why has that changed so much? External factors of course include the end of Japan's rapid economic growth. That era was one in which simply making a product was enough to get it sold, and resources were abundantly available. There weren't enough people to accomplish necessary work. That era continued into around 1990, when environmental concerns?the realization that there's only one earth, that we must reduce CO2 emissions, that selling unlimited products leads to saturation, and that growth cannot continue indefinitely?led to a change, in my opinion.
What is required now is not for people to work as much as possible, but instead to embrace ideas such as work sharing and shorter hours, while doing enough work to survive. It is now impossible to improve materially more than we already have in Japan on a macroeconomic level, so we must change our paradigm.
Companies that espouse a business model of waiting around 24 hours a day at work for extra work in order to beat out the competition probably won't succeed going forward. Good people won't work for such companies. Companies need to change along with the rest of the world. I feel that this is the historical background that led to and foreshadowed the current calls for work-life balance.
Regarding Dr. Sato's emphasis on the importance of the foundation: In the past, when an employee asked their superior for a day off, they drew unpleasant looks. The work style dictated that employees stayed at the office for long hours. But companies now seek employees who can produce an efficient output. If an employee can do that, it doesn't matter who they are. The new values hold that a person can be non-Japanese, or a person who works from home while child-rearing and sends materials from their computer. As this thinking expands, work styles will change further.
As Ms. Miyawaki mentioned, what were previously handwritten communications can be handled through e-mail as IT progresses, making such communications much easier.
Dr. Sato mentioned that having only a second floor on the three story house creates a bad situation. Many companies do exactly that, and the reason they focus on the second floor is that personnel departments can create those systems without outside help. However, the foundation and first floor require a change in awareness by everyone in the company, from top to bottom, and this is not as easy to achieve. That's why the second floor gets so much focus. However, the situation is changing as companies see the second floors they have created not functioning as hoped, and begin to realize that they need foundations and first floors too.
Listening to your stories of maintaining diverse work styles, I get the impression that you have all battled in your workplaces to get to where you are. While those around you have been slow to understand, you have created a foundation, a situation in which those people now cooperate. Of course, the company enables this process by accepting such styles, but I think it is only when the individual workplace efforts of each employee?things like eliminating prejudice toward non-Japanese people, or learning how to interact with people that have disabilities?build up that the foundation and first floor truly begin to take shape. Non-Japanese people can work in this style. People with hearing impairment can still do this work while raising children. As this information gets around, won't others begin to say "Maybe I can work this way, too"?
Today's focus is on work-life balance, and the diversity aspect is focusing on women, but we also have in attendance other diverse employees, and we'd like to touch on their situations as well.
One last point I would like to make is that though in the past there have been too few women in management positions, and not enough women have aspired to pursue such jobs, I have felt through my own experience as a department head that women are actually quite suited to those positions. Management positions require simultaneous handling of multiple matters, and the many tasks that housewives expertly manage at once have a lot in common with management work. When women take on management work, they tend to be quite good at it. It would be nice for these kinds of messages to get more exposure.

SatoThe fact that men and women have unique characteristics is one that overlaps with the diversity discussion, isn't it?

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Work-life Balance Involving Birth and Child-rearing

KawaguchiI am interested in the stories of Ms. Miyawaki and Mr. Omote. One point of interest is that you say as you have delivered a child, returned to work, delivered again, returned again, and so on, there has been cooperation in the workplace. I am interested in how, specifically, you maintain work-life balance. Also, Mr. Omote, you asked your superior for a transfer to the Yamanashi site office and then took leave. I would like to know how those around you handled this situation.

OmoteMy wife and I divided the household chores. I handle laundry and prepare breakfast and lunches in the morning, while my wife takes our child to daycare. For a time I wondered whether I could continue to work, but I say to my boss "I'll be a little late today" or "I'll be going home early today, but I'll take my work home and get it done." People often ask why my wife and I both continue to work, but my wife works as a museum curator, which is a tough field to enter, and so she doesn't want to just let that opportunity go. As for me, I was ready to quit the company and work locally if necessary, so didn't hesitate to ask for child-care leave and a transfer.
Society and the company have both gradually changed, but at the time I really needed to be ready to walk away if necessary.

KawaguchiDo other male employees ask you about getting child-care leave? Or is it still something people don't really know about?

ShioiriHis was the first case, so we proactively distributed information on the intranet. Perhaps due to that publicity, more men have taken child-care leave.

KawaguchiHow about you, Ms. Miyawaki?

MiyawakiI make meals, but after my husband gets home he takes care of the children and I have some time for myself. Since my husband makes the food in the morning, I help the kids get dressed and ready for school. If we didn't cooperate as a couple, I wouldn't have been able to get this far.

KawaguchiSo you have taken leave to deliver a baby and care for it, then returned, then taken leave again, and so on. On each of those occasions, have you been able to return to work, or take your next leave, without any problems? I can see how the first would be no problem, but was it not difficult to do the same for your second and third children?

MiyawakiIf I'd been told "We really need you to quit," I think I would have, but no one said that. I emphasized that I wanted to continue working, but the company system also improved, allowing me to take leave to take care of my third child.

KawaguchiWere there any problems with work after returning?

MiyawakiMy workplace after returning was the same as before, so the content of my work hadn't changed much. Since I'd been gone for two years, things had changed somewhat, but I believe I can find solutions through hard work.

KawaguchiFrom an outside perspective, I really think your company is a good one. It is so difficult to work with a disability, but to add to that child-rearing?to balance two things that are both tough on their own and return to work illustrates the value of creating the system.

ShioiriEight employees have taken three child-care leaves. The periods of time vary from person to person, but I think it's been pretty hard for people who return to work after two years. IT and other work systems progress a lot over two years, adding to the changes. But the data from the past several years indicate that employees don't quit during their leave periods or within a few years of returning, and I think the company's support and the better understanding of coworkers and others is why.

HorinouchiThe loss of competitiveness during leaves of absence that Dr. Sato mentioned is an issue for the company as well. In the past, the company usually had one individual handle a certain job, but we now feel the need to create a support system in which people work in teams for those who have constraints.

SatoI think it needs to be assumed that more people will naturally begin to take child-care leave or work shorter hours in workplaces. It is important to prepare for this in advance. I also think companies have no choice but to make efforts to change leaves of absence and similar situations into positives in such ways as creating opportunities to develop skills in other employees when another is away.
From a risk-management perspective, child-care leave is known in advance, and therefore does not pose a significant problem. But care giving, for example, is not known in advance. To prepare a workplace for child-care leave is to successfully manage risk. I think this is good from a crisis management perspective as well.

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Benefits of Trusting and Being Trusted

HorinouchiWe hear that the cell method of production is far more efficient than work flow by conveyor belt. Wouldn't personal and organizational efficiency increase if R&D or sales were also organized to work in teams? We would like to create that kind of system.

KawaguchiFrom a human relations standpoint, this is a matter not only for the company but one of social capital. We hear that when a community has high levels of trust the children have less accidents, or crime rates are lower. I think that similarly, when teams have mutual trust in a workplace, their ultimate output or productivity is higher.
On the other hand, as benefits of people taking child-care leave, there are arguments that time and risk management, as well as personnel skills, improve in spite of the negatives that might exist, such as sudden absenteeism due to a child's sickness. What do we see in the actual workplaces that sheds light on this?

SatoDuring child-rearing, people certainly do manage their time well. As for work skills increasing, that is half true and half untrue. What matters is that a person needs to be a motivated worker. Of course, many people want to do good work. Even amid time constraints such as taking children to daycare or caring for a child when she gets a fever, if they know when a meeting is scheduled, for example, they can prepare for it a little while in advance, or on a day when they cannot work overtime, they can prepare ahead of time so they don't have to, and so on. This is very important. Without those time constraints and with an idea that one can work overtime whenever needed, people don't tend to rethink their ways of working. On the other hand, there are certainly also people who think work can be done "just well enough." This is a difficult matter, because the fact that such people also exist is partly the responsibility of the company. Companies need employees to be willing to work as hard as they can as a precondition to providing work-life balance support. It goes back to what we were just saying?that there must be not only work-life balance support, but also a work environment in which employees can make motivated efforts.

ShioiriRecently, I feel that people with shorter work hours or those who have returned from child-care leave and have time constraints just seem to work with greater time awareness. I think we should all learn from that. I think many men work in places where long hours are expected, and respond by taking their time a little bit as they watch the situation. But unfortunately, there are also cases in which people use company support systems while working at a deliberately slower pace.

KawaguchiHow is overall evaluation actually done in those situations, where a subordinate returns from leave and a superior wonders whether their productivity has really increased? As a member of management, what is the internal consensus regarding subordinates like that in the workplace?

ShioiriIt has been decided that evaluations are not carried out during leave periods, but there are some superiors who are not aware of this. During three-party interviews at the subordinate's time of return from leave, we let superiors know about the system and tell them not to evaluate based on time, but based on results. However, I do feel that there isn't much that can be done when output is below the levels we require and a superior judges that a person isn't meeting productivity levels because of their time constraints.

SatoThis is a difficult point. If a superior says "Since they are working short hours" or "Since they are raising a child" as reasons for giving an employee a reduced workload, this too is a problem. In order to have a person work efficiently in spite of child-care leave or child-rearing after their return, they should be given a message that "We expect great work from you in the future, regardless of your shorter hours or child-rearing after returning," and the employee must also have a desire to work hard. Then things go well. Handling by management is extremely important, and what appears to be considerate is sometimes counterproductive.

KawaguchiSo for the company, spending the money to promote work-life balance support means that the company feels it is an overall positive to keep employing these workers who have returned from leave, right? We hear that in the long run, even after returning from an absence, employees do not lose productivity. Don't we need to get that message out to the employees, that it is an overall positive?

SatoConditions need to be such that when employees take child-care leave, they think "I want to get back as soon as possible." The company won't benefit unless employees have a desire to work hard after returning and as they raise children.

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What Personnel Policies are Best?

KawaguchiI would like to ask Ms. Koga about this, since she works overseas. Working in Dubai, then Vietnam, then China?three countries in one year?is quite the pace, isn't it?

KogaI think things have changed a lot from when I joined the company to now. To be honest, I doubt there would have been this sort of dialogue 16 years ago. In those days, the feeling was that a work site is no place for a woman, but now I feel lucky because everyone around me, including my superior, is very understanding.
Mr. Omote and I were on the same work site in the Chiba Branch for about a year. There were six of us who were there at the same time, and our site office manager placed each of us in charge of one building in the project. He placed me in charge of one just like everyone else. At the time I was in a general position but I was allowed to do the same work.
On the other hand, because I was in a general position, there were trainings I wanted to receive but couldn't, and I was unable to pass the tests to be promoted. To be honest, my motivation got quite low, but since my goal in joining the company was to build a big building that would show up on a map, I worked with the simple determination to build the best buildings I could. As I did this, systems began to change and I was able to become a full-time position, then get a career-track position. I had always wanted to work overseas, but couldn't because I was a general position. Once I received a career-track position I made my request to be transferred to the International Operations Headquarters. Now I work overseas.

KawaguchiIn my workplace as well, there is a resignation to the fact that people sometimes just don't get the transfer they want, but listening to you Taisei employees, I get the sense that your requests have generally been granted.

MatsudaOur company values results. If results are likely to be good, the company has a philosophy of going ahead and trying it. I don't think there are a lot of rigid systems here to prevent that flexibility.

SatoIf the company only gives general posisions general work, transfers become difficult. Unless general positions are given work that goes beyond their usual duties, they won't ever be able to transfer. Work that goes beyond the usual tasks should be given to employees who have the desire to advance, while the separation of levels is maintained by the company. On the other hand, there are employees who do not want to do work that exceeds their job description. These might say "I just hold a general position," while others say "I don't want my boss assigning me that kind of work," so it's a difficult issue that requires care.

MatsudaThat is similar to the gender issue, too, in that some women have decided what they can or can't do because they are a woman, and don't expand their skills further. But there are also women who excel when given work that has been traditionally given to men.

KawaguchiSo the system has been changed to allow general positions and career-track positions alike to transfer, but was it indeed the case that they weren't previously able to transfer?

ShioiriCertain employees were singled out as suited to promotion to career-track positions from time to time, but in the case of women, there was probably some doubt as to whether they could truly function as construction managers or work site foremen the same way as men. In the case of Ms. Koga, I think she was able to become a career-track position because she worked to become one.

SatoShe was also probably able to do it because her division head provided an environment for it, too.

KawaguchiAre increasing numbers of employees desiring to advance to career-track positions from general labor?

ShioiriYes, they are increasing. From 2006 to 2009, the number of career-track female employees increased from 26 to 56, though 26 of these were already in such positions. Among the new 30, there are some who were promoted and some who entered the company in their positions.

HorinouchiWomen are outshining others in company hiring interviews. The company's philosophy of actively hiring women for career-track positions really emerged in 2006 and 2007.

SatoThe question is whether this proportion can be sustained 15 years into the future, when this generation will become section heads.

KawaguchiIt is becoming harder to retain good male workers. The labor market is going to be such that companies must select people on their abilities, and no company will be able to be picky about whether the candidate is a man, woman, non-Japanese, or Japanese.

SatoHowever, looking at the past 25 years, there was fairly little change, because those who were hired left the company prematurely.

KawaguchiIn the past, there were issues with child-rearing and husbands getting transferred. Things have reached a point where people won't quit so easily as things continue to change.

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Diversity Beyond Appearances

KawaguchiMr. Hassan's history is quite unique, and reminds me that there are many employees with interesting backgrounds. Mr. Hassan, you mentioned that you entered the company as a contract employee and went through a lot of struggles to change the awareness of those around you. Could you elaborate a little more on that experience?

HassanWhat I have felt working for a long time in Japan is that it is quite easy to achieve 'diversity' per say. If the top management simply says "We will begin hiring non-Japanese employees," it will be done. Diversity has already been achieved to some extent in our company through systems. However, real diversity needs to lead to a greater goal, or it will just be a hollow action.
This is my own opinion, but the most important mission of the company is to promote projects and produce profit. To return a portion of that profit to society is CSR. CSR includes such elements as diversity and work-life balance, but if the company neglects its most important mission, the meaning of its efforts disappears. Therefore there is no meaning in diversity unless it too results in profit.
Many companies today are endeavoring to hire non-Japanese, new graduates of Japanese universities. The reason for this might be, for example, that a Japanese manufacturer wants to implement Japanese quality control in its overseas plants but needs someone to communicate more with the local staff. However, I don't think that such non-Japanese hires are likely to differ from Japanese hires in their impact. This is because they have come to Japan as 17- or 18-year-olds, studied for six to eight years, then worked in Japan, and have never experienced real working life overseas, even in their countries of origin. Their citizenship may not be Japanese, but I doubt whether this is true diversity.
Such hires may be beneficial to manufacturers, but in other fields, including ours, the Japanese way of doing things does not hold ground in the rest of the world. When this happens, I doubt the benefit of hiring non-Japanese graduates simply for their nationality.
However, non-Japanese employees hired in mid-career have experience and knowledge of how things work overseas, so they are able to use their skills to contribute to the company. Of course, it's extremely important to create an environment that will utilize their contributions...

KawaguchiSo you're saying that it isn't true diversity to hire non-Japanese people simply for statistical purposes, when those hires are mind-set-wisely and culturally similar to Japanese hires. Then in the case of a Syrian person, for example, you are saying that hiring someone with Syrian thinking, values, and business methods would bring the benefit of business going more smoothly. However, if a Syrian person is brought to Japan as a high school student to be here thereafter, their thinking will become Japanese and they won't be able to help when it comes to thinking and business practices in Syria, is that right?
If this were the gender side of diversity, we would be able to see the state of things in the numbers to some degree, but from what you point out, Mr. Hassan, it isn't as simple as hiring a person of foreign citizenship when it comes to diversity considerations such as internally held values, cultural background, work styles, and other aspects.

HassanThat's right. On the other hand, unless an employee adopts a work style that conforms with company methods, they can't be accepted by the company, so it becomes important for that employee to find out how he or she can utilize those different methods of working and thinking without coming into conflict with the company. This is a problem I also experienced, and corporations hoping to achieve diversity with non-Japanese employees will have to think carefully about this issue, otherwise the hires will result in little change. That's what I think.

KawaguchiI believe there are some non-Japanese employees in the International Operations Headquarters where you work, Mr. Hassan, and I also assume that their superiors have experienced working overseas. Are their diverse experiences being sufficiently utilized?

HassanFirst, they need to have an understanding of our company and the unique Japanese corporate culture, or otherwise they can't gain acceptance. There have been many non-Japanese employees, but they have either had all their experience working at overseas work sites or have studied and graduated from schools in Japan but never experienced working overseas. The former group is difficult to integrate in the company, and while the latter group is easier to integrate, it isn't particularly useful. It has been one of these two patterns.
I think a balance between the two can be achieved, but I feel the most important, yet difficult, thing is for such employees to first understand the company culture and then help projects by offering their opinions and methodologies.

KawaguchiIt would be great if the company culture were such that an employee could say "In Japan, it's traditionally done this way, but things are done this other way in Syria, so for a project in the Middle East it might be better to use the Syrian way," and that idea or new way of seeing and thinking could be incorporated or at least studied flexibly to some degree. If we say "No, that's not our style," and reject new ideas outright, diversity is a rather meaningless effort. The thing we want most out of diversity is to carefully scrutinize differences and accept them.

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Differences are the Norm

KawaguchiMs. Koga, you have also worked overseas; how do you feel after having worked in various countries and on various work sites, with people of other nationalities?

KogaSince the ways of going about work, mentalities and customs differ for each country, we have to manage sites and perform operations after gaining an understanding of these differences. That is the hard part of international projects.
Unlike Mr. Hassan, I spent a long time working at sites in Japan before going overseas. I am working overseas while looking for ways to utilize what I've learned in my Japan experience.
No matter what foreign country, what really interests me is that when I am introduced as the site foreman, the people working with me are initially surprised. However, they immediately look at me with a feeling that says "It's not a big deal to have a woman as the foreman." However, in China, when my superior introduced me to Japanese clients as the foreman from Taisei Corporation and I spoke in Japanese, people there asked "Are you from China?" To me, this question revealed an ingrained Japanese idea that women do not serve as foremen.

KawaguchiSo you saw first-hand the ingrained assumptions many Japanese people harbor. Am I right in assuming that the clients' being overseas and then being introduced to a female foreman were probably two major hurdles for their imagination?

KogaActually, in this case, my direct superior had me attend the meeting, saying "It's important for you to attend this kind of meeting." Through these opportunities, I'd like to change people's assumptions a little at a time.

KawaguchiI certainly think that when a client thinks "Not only is our foreman a woman, she's also working overseas," that changes the company image. I think that is related to the fact that most people don't normally see the inner workings of construction sites, and tend to have a stereotype that sites are an exclusively male realm. People outside the company are definitely surprised, and I think it has a positive effect on the company's image when they see that there is no discrimination against women. What a wonderful example, that you are living your dream of working on projects that will appear in maps.

HorinouchiI think most private-sector Japanese companies still espouse the culture that main breadwinners can generally work overtime at any time, can transfer whenever necessary, and are overwhelmingly male. In Human Resources, we have previously handled interviews with new student recruits with only men as interviewers, but we would like to have female interviewers as well. This is not because we think there is some gender difference in performing that task, but because we want to look at recruits with different views.

SatoThat's great.

KawaguchiWith regard to diversity, I have studied about how many people of foreign citizenship are in management positions, but I had never considered the essential, diverse values they bring to the company and whether they utilize those in their work. I often hear about "Including a woman's point of view," but while you can usually see that a person is a woman by her face, it is impossible to ascertain a person's all-important internal values by their outward appearance.

MatsudaI feel that I have learned a great idea today, that when we think about what measures to take, maintaining a constant awareness of their effectiveness, as opposed to simply pursuing statistics, will lead to results.

KawaguchiMs. Koga, have you experienced any struggles working overseas? When we try to do everything the Japanese way, do conflicts arise due to differences with how locals work, and with their values?

KogaI have learned from superiors and others with experience that differences are the norm. The workers are local to the country where a given project is being performed. Doing things entirely the Japanese way would ensure trouble, so we are always thinking to find ways to make work easier.

SatoSo when you go overseas, you have different experiences than you had in Japan. I think taking those experiences and utilizing them in a useful way in Japan would be another way to promote corporate diversity.

KogaI was the first woman to go to an overseas work site, but there are a lot of female construction managers and foremen coming up the ranks who are younger than me. I think their going overseas and having various experiences will directly lead to profits for the company in the future.

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Diversification in Hiring

KawaguchiAre cases increasing in which non-Japanese employees of backgrounds like Mr. Hassan are hired mid-career in Japan?

HassanThe policy is toward hiring many non-Japanese, both mid-career and newly graduates. Many non-Japanese have worked in the International Operations Headquarters to this point as well, but most of them were contract employees. Since they will mostly be hired as full company employees from now on, the keyword "awareness" will take on great importance. The prevailing awareness that work cannot be entrusted to a non-Japanese employee will need to change.
What I consider to be the biggest problem is that people who do not work under the Japanese assumption of lifetime employment are not trusted. I was interviewed three times: when I was hired, when I was promoted to full-time position, and then again when I became a career-track position. The most important question I received was always "Can you work at this company until retirement?" Outside of Japan, large companies are doing fine despite the fact that employees often only work there for five or six years. I think Japanese companies?and especially their tops managers?need to change this way of thinking. As long as employees produce results in the work they are given while employed at a firm, why is it necessary to worry about lifetime employment? I also have doubts about the practice of giving responsibility only to career-track or full company employees.

SatoFrom a personnel management perspective, the core personnel of a particular company are usually long-term employees. It is the same in the United States. So long-term personnel development is necessary. However, I think the practice of only giving important work to such personnel is something that needs to be changed.
Non-Japanese employees especially tend to expect to work at the company for three to five years. As time goes by, they decide to stay longer. So it's fine to hire non-Japanese people as career-track positions from the start, but I think the option of hiring them as three- or five-year contract employees is also an important one to have. Such contracts can be renewed, and they also leave the option of moving on to other positions or firms. I think these options are also needed.
I also think that it will be necessary going forward to be able to entrust work that requires skill to contract employees as well. We need to change the idea that a person must be a career-track employee to be entrusted with responsibility. However, I am pessimistic that the company could survive without career-track positions, but only limited contract workers. On the other hand, I feel it is a good idea to entrust work to limited contract employees who are capable.

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Suggestions from Trailblazers

KawaguchiWe have now heard many stories and experiences, and learned a lot about the current situation. We'd now like to discuss what we should do going forward by hearing productive suggestions from those in attendance, and including what you hope to see happen, what things are troubling, what can be done to improve, what struggles you are having at work sites, and so on. We would then like to hear responses from the company side regarding what can be considered going forward, as well as comments from Dr. Sato. Mr. Omote, could you begin?

OmoteAs a foreman, I deal with an array of scales and types of projects, so I have begun studying not only construction, but also the equipment field. I started because of child-care leave. My job includes general remodeling construction and after service, so construction employees are also required to look at equipment-related issues. In order to handle these needs, I obtained all the certifications usually obtained by employees of those fields. I have gained the trust of my superiors?they say "You can ask this guy anything"?and work has become more efficient. I have taken one or two steps to satisfy specific customer needs and thereby create profit for the company.
Regarding the topic of replacing employees who have taken leave, I want to mention that in the Tokyo Branch West Tokyo area, they implemented a system last year in which proper follow-through is possible no matter who is away.
However, since task-specific employees ― such as those who specialize in construction, equipment, design, and other tasks ― leave an irreplaceable vacancy when they take time off,, I think it would be a good idea if the company undertook a program similar to my own, in which employees obtain certifications in a wide array of fields, as a way of improving employee abilities in a broad range of tasks.

KawaguchiMr. Omote, did you decide to get an equipment certification when you were on child-care leave because you had the time for it? Or did you do it because you had previously wanted to and now had the chance?

OmoteI took the test because the company just happened to tell me to get certified. Now that I am certified in equipment, I am considering getting a bookkeeping certification this year. In doing so I'll learn about accounting, which I think will help me to understand how the company works and therefore how a site office ought to be. When I was taking time off, I decided to study after doing housework and taking care of my child, as a way of paying back the company for the time off while improving my marketability.

KawaguchiSo the time off became both a chance to rethink things as well as a motivation. Your feeling of debt to the company for the time off was a motivation, and you discovered a new awareness of time.

OmoteYes, I still have time constraints since my wife and I both still work, but I find myself thinking daily about how to produce good results within this situation.

KawaguchiMs. Miyawaki, what do you think? As a person with a disability, and as a working mother, if you have any suggestions or things you want to see the company undertake, we would love to hear them.

MiyawakiEven if someone informs me of the results of a discussion, it's hard for me to grasp the content without knowing about the entire process. I ask for people to tell me how discussions have progressed, but in the end I have to rely on my own efforts. If I want to accomplish a certain job, I can't do it on my own because of time constraints. This is because my children are still small and often get sick, making me unable to know when I'll need to take time off. I report to my group each day on how much I accomplished and what the work was. I believe that as my children get older I'll be able to accomplish as much as my coworkers. I believe the company needs to encourage better understanding of child-rearing, since people around me assume I can't do things because I have children.

KawaguchiThis is certainly an awareness problem. Depending on the understanding someone has toward people with disabilities, they might mean to ask kindly if a person with a disability is physically capable of doing a given task in certain cases, or might wish to avoid placing an undue burden on the person. From the person's perspective, though, there is probably often a feeling of dissatisfaction. The question then becomes "How do we share this awareness with people in workplaces?"
Mr. Hassan, please.

HassanThis applies not only to our company, but to all companies in Japan: I would like you to rethink the definition of "company employee." For example, I think the meaning of a "company employee" should be loosened so that even a person who takes a ten-day contract job for example and works as part of a team is treated as a 100% part of that team for their tenure at the company, with the shared awareness of working together to produce good results. Any person who produces good results for Taisei Corporation should be thought of as a "Taisei employee." I don't think our company can survive the coming era by simply judging persons based on their work period at Taisei.

KawaguchiI gather that you mean people who work hard for the company are praised for their work but not treated well when budget problems arise. Contract employees are certainly under great pressure to produce results and profits. Though the United States and Europe are contract societies in which such workers are constantly asked "What is your output," Japan is a little less focused on the output issue and more likely to say "You're working hard, so you're alright." This of course leads to a loss in productivity for the company.
Next, Ms. Koga, please.

KogaI joined the company because I wanted to build a big building, but as a Taisei employee I feel the need to produce profits. This is especially true because I work on-site at the front lines managing construction, which places me in a position to greatly affect profitability, so I think about this issue a lot.
The number of women working in construction management is increasing rapidly, but I think they should be given all kinds of new experiences. Listening to the younger generation, I get the feeling they are treated perhaps too gently. For example, I took care of three or four jobs at a time on-site in the past, and learned a great deal that way, having to do it all on my own. But when I was working with my hands, I didn't have time, and began to study about management methods. Men and women each have certain characteristics, and as my superior once told me, "When the foreman is a woman, there ought to be a woman's way of being a foreman." I feel that as I work as a female foreman, I should look for ways of realizing profit for the company that only I can accomplish.
I want the company to perform personnel development along those lines.

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Management Utilizing Diversity

HorinouchiThe Personnel Department believes in expanding diversity in the workplace as well as respecting and assisting employees with special time restrictions. We would like to use these two perspectives as a starting point going foward.
First, with regards to point one, diversity, a company cannot improve its productivity or profits if all its employees are simply from the same cookie cutter, so we need to push forward with promoting diversity in the workplace. On the flip side, the ideal is to create a company that does not pay attention to gender or nationality, but rather provides all employees with equal opportunities to be transferred or receive career training. And, we also need to cultivate employees with diverse mindsets and values. Going a step further, simply having a diverse pool of employees will change the perspectives and time management of those around them, which will link to better organizational-wide profit margins, and improve productivity. I would like work toward making our hiring practices and internal educational programs respect and value this type of diversity in the workplace.
As for the latter, employees with speical time restrictions, I think company wide we need to have a better awareness that time is a limited commodity. On top of this, I would like to make company policies that respect and support employees with time restrictions.Although the Personnel Department makes an array of tools ? such as leave of absence and diversity-based program available to its company employees, it seems they rarely take advantage of them.. Well, what should we do to rectify this siuation? Naturally, sometimes change our attitudes, and also sometimes we need to build a better environment. More important, though, I think is to establish a consistent track record, so I hope to get the ball rolling on this soon.

KawaguchiOkay, now I would like to have Mr. Shiori respond, followed by Dr. Sato. Also, as this is the final question, I would like to ask board member Mr. Matsuda for his comments at the end.

ShioriRegarding the issue of awareness, for one, actually the other day, Mr. Sato, who is sign-language interpreting for us today, was the teacher in a sign language class. I, too, was in the class and thought to myself, and noticed, that I tend to withdraw from communicating with the disabled because every time I try to it doesn’t go smoothly. I fell into the trap of thinking that I could not communicate with the hearing impaired if I did not practice correct sign language. Participating in the class taught me that this is not the case at all. So the first thing I want to emphasize is that I want to use this enlightening experience as a tool to actively teach others about true communication.
Additionally, the number of younger females assigned to work at site offices is on the rise. Amid the growing need to develop female employees in the same way as males, I think one hurdle for females is the concern of not being able to continue working as they once did prior to getting married or having a baby. The solution, I think, is to have female employees experience many different work environments before reaching this hurdle, so that they feel "I can do this. I’m suited to this job." That is, I feel we need to make them choose what they want to do after having a baby. Simply doing the same thing would mean that once they are unable to do that same thing, they will quit. Therefore, I would like to address this as well.

Dr. SatoTaisei is doing a really good job, so basically my response would be to keep up the good work, but on top of this I feel there are three important points.
First, managers with junior staff will be the key figures taking on the task of supporting employee work-life balance, diversity and management. However, managers with junior staff, really do not need to do anything special. That is, they need to properly fulfill their inherent role of managing those underneath them.
The essence of managing junior staff is not for the manager to work independently, but rather to have those under them work with a postive attitude and ambition, which as a result will help the manager achieve their own goals and targets. However, today managers are having trouble properly fulfilling this role. There are several factors for this, such as simply "acting the part" of manager and spending too much time on their own work rather than managing their junior staff, or the very substance of management practices is changing. As mentioned earlier, there is a need to better manage time and work so that employees with time restrictions can work with enthusiasm and ambition. Managers need to change and do things differently than their own generation.
Next is the development of junior staff. The organization as a whole needs to boost its competencies, so the development of junior staff represents an important task.
Finally, communication. The communication I am talking about is different from the past, that is, its not necessarily good just to communicate about work matters anymore, today more than ever it is important to share, at least to a certain extent, and understand the personal situations of junior staff outside of work. This is harder than it sounds. Most people do not want to discuss their private life at work. Managers also feel like they can’t ask about or discuss the private life of their junior staff. However, if both managers and junior staff are not understanding of this need, then supporting employee work-life will become impossible.
But you know, I guess managers today are just too busy today to lend their attention to the need to talk about developing junior staff or improving communication. In other words, managers themselves do not practice a work-life balance, so they do not know what they are supposed to do to ensure those under them have a work-life balance. That’s why I feel developing the proper environment for managers to properly fulfill their fundamental role of managing junior staff is really quite critical to the whole process.
The second important point I want to touch upon is regarding support for work-life balance.
The role the company can play here is to assist employees with making time. However, those reponsible for thinking about what work-life balance means to them and for achieving a work-life balance will be each and every employee. For a company to tell its employees how to plan their life, such as "study this" or "spend time with your kids," is, simply put, meddling at the highest level. The role of the company is simply to help employees make the time. It ends there. Each individual employee is responsible for what they do with their time outside of work. Emphasizing this mindset, I think, will be a key challenge. This is my second point.
And, the third point, is regarding the goal of supporting diversity in the work place and work-life balance. Before we heard that supporting diversity and work-life balance will link to better company peformance. Actually, this is really difficult, if you ask me. The idea that if employees practice a work-life balance and diversity is valued by management, then a company can be profitable, is kind of extreme and even a lie. That’s because if the management strategy of the company is in error, then there is nothing employees can do about it. Of course, its beneficial to take these initiatives, but just because a company does so, does not mean it will link to better peformance and higher profits. Sometimes companies are not profitable, despite employees giving their absolute best efforts. Actually, the reason for this is bad management. This is what I felt from the discussion. Thank you.

KawaguchiThere are a lot of strategies companies need to consider, right. Personnel strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy, and so forth. Each of these represent a so-called coefficient or element of CSR. If there is a some type of vision of productivity in the personnel strategy, then having diversity or some other key concept, will improve the situation, I think. CSR is a coefficient, so not matter how you multiply the coefficient, if there is no other strategy in place, then I think all is for not. So, only when a company has a clear strategy can it increase its CSR coefficient, which rather than refer to being profitable, I think refers to generating improved corporate value. Therefore, there may be a simplified way of saying that companies that value diversity in the workplace improve performance, but rather than this, I think it refers to having an appealing work environment for stakeholders, or the employees. Traditionally, Japanese companies were able essentially to grow by simply working hard at the strategy covering their core business, but going forward paying more attention to the coeffecient of CSR will inevitably lead to both benefits and detriments. That’s how I feel.
Now I would like to ask board member Mr. Matsuda for his comments.

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Determination to take the Next Step Forward

MatsudaHaving this opportunity to sit in on your discussion, that is to learn more about the current condition of our company, I know understand the current situation our comany better and I was also moved by the stories of hard work and challenges shared by our four employees with us.
Today’s discussion in the end focused on ephasizing the diverse nature of people and diversity in values found in the world. Looking back at myself, I am someone who has always thought time was limitless, but with diverse and diversity-minded people in the workplace, like here with us today, then our teams will be more aware that time is, indeed, limited. In reality, there are many kinds of employees, so I feel we need to make efforts to achieve a workplace where all employees can work with enthusiasm and ambition.
The Taisei Corporation has a philosphy,"making people better,"but I feel there is a need to first and foremost make our employees better. Actually our Charter of Conduct already covers this, specifically saying, "We endeavor to secure a safe and comfortable workplace," and "respect the diversity, personality, and individuality of workers." However, to look at it from a different angle, our Charter of Conduct is limited to the action "respecting" only. I feel today we need to take this another step further, we need to take action.
My current role with the company is compliance promotion. I am also involved with compliance training programs for our business partners. I know people in these progams understand clearly what I am talking about. That is, they have the knowledge, but lack the awareness. I tell them this is why company scandals or misconduct happens, or this is why accidents or incidents happen. As evident from today’s dicussion, we have the policies but are not practicing them, so we need to have the awareness to practice what we preach better, I felt.
Going forward, when we review and rethink our work processes and work methods, we are going to find that the things we considered to be common sense, are no longer common sense. Today’s dicussion has made me keenly aware that we need to consider that times are constantly evolving and respond accordingly.

KawaguchiThank you very much for your comments, Mr. Matsuda. I feel our dicussions today brought up a lot of very interesting perspectives. I am always involved with, and learning a great deal from, our Stakeholder Dialogue series, but this is the first company I know of that actually brings together employees of diversity in a forum such as this. I was thinking it would be to the company’s benefit to leverage these human resources, such as yourselves, in the field or in your brand strategy.
I hope that you can continue to improve your initiatives so that you can achieve best practices in diversity as a company. Thank you everyone for your time and thoughts today.

Concluding Remarks Only four years have passed since we launched the full-scale promotion of our diversity and work-life balance initiatives. Although these initiatives are still in their infancy, I am grateful to hear that we have received positive marks for our efforts thus far. As mentioned during the discussion, however, creating company policy is the easy part. The next, more important, step is to enhance awareness internally of Group Behavior Guidelines that state, "respect diverse perspectives and beliefs." Only once we have accomplished this can we truly receive a score of high marks for our efforts in diversity and work-life balance. In order to achieve this, we need to continue to reiterate our steadfast company-wide commitment and create a corporate culture where diversity in the workplace and diverse work methods are both valued and respected.