Work-Life Balance
Policy
The Sanwa Group strives to create a work environment that motivates employees and allows them to lead fulfilling lives. We are also working to reduce excessively long working hours and encourage employees to take annual paid leave from the standpoint of maintaining and improving their health and ensuring a favorable work-life balance.
Revision of Long Working Hours
The Sanwa Group is working to create an environment that strikes a good balance between work and personal life. We are aiming to reduce working hours understanding that eliminating long working hours is vital both to ensure diverse human resources, including women, play an active role and to secure outstanding talent.
The Sanwa Group Compliance Code of Conduct requires that the Group obey all local laws and the provisions of Article 36 of Japan’s Labor Standards Act as well as address cases of prolonged working hours. Under the supervision of the president of Sanwa Holdings Corporation, the Human Resources and General Affairs Department of Sanwa Shutter Corporation and the Risk Management Section of the Corporate Communication Department of Sanwa Holdings Corporation take the lead in providing monthly instructions for investigating working hours and preventing excessive work at Sanwa Shutter Corporation and domestic Group companies. In addition, at meetings of the Quality, Environment and CSR Promotion Council, which take place semiannually, the presidents of major domestic Group companies report on working hours and issues as well as discuss ways to make improvements.
Initiatives at Group Companies in Japan
Showa Front Co., Ltd. introduced a new attendance system in fiscal 2018 to help manage working hours appropriately.
By enabling the detailed management of working hours, for example in weekly units, the company can prevent employees from working excessive hours by sending a timely message to the employee concerned and his or her superior.
Recommendations are made when checks uncover any difference or deviation from logged hours. Sanwa Holdings Corporation and Sanwa Shutter Corporation carefully manage working hours using an attendance management system that automatically shuts down employees’ PCs. Other domestic Group companies have introduced attendance management systems to effectively manage working hours and to address cases of prolonged working hours.
Promotion of Telecommuting
Sanwa Shutter Corporation introduced a telecommuting scheme on a trial basis in fiscal 2018 to promote a better work-life balance. Female employees raising children stated how happy they were to have more time with their children due to not needing to commute and that the risk of their children catching a cold or contracting an infectious illness is expected to be lower thanks to less time spent in day care. Managers and colleagues also noted that there are no concerns over a lack of communication due to the use of cameras and chat functions to keep in touch. The scheme is expected to be increasingly popular going forward.
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 2,200 employees in Japan now telework. Looking ahead, we will create a diverse working environment by promoting telework by improving security and the digital infrastructure. This will improve productivity as well as retain and prevent turnover of talented employees.
Use of laptop PCs
Sanwa Shutter Corporation has provided approx. 2,000 laptop PCs to employees to both increase operational efficiency and reduce working hours. These PCs are used effectively not only to reply to emails or to prepare estimates when away from the office, but also to confirm and provide details of delivery and products during business meetings, which ensures a quick response to customer inquiries and improves customer satisfaction. Laptop PCs are also used during internal meetings to cut the use of paper and to make meetings more efficient.
Participation in external initiatives for labor standards
As a member of the Shinjuku Labor Standards Association and the Ikebukuro Labor Standards Association, the Sanwa Group participates in lectures to learn about labor insurance, revisions to the labor standards and the Industrial Safety and Health Act, as well as to gain insight into the practical application of administrative and legal requirements.
Promotion of Diversity
Policy
The Sanwa Group creates new value that contributes to the resolution of customer and social issues generated by our organizational culture that respects and embraces the diversity of each employee. -including gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, language, skin color, beliefs, religion, social status, disability, property, place of birth or other individual characteristics.
Target
In May 2022, we set KPIs that are linked to our ESG material issues. For diversity, we set the following targets.
| Targets(KPI) | Target Year | Achievements and progress in fiscal 2022 |
Future challenges |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female employees ratio: 20% | FY2030 | 19.8% | ・Implementation of women’s development planning and training ・Raising awareness of and promoting the use of childcare leave by male employees |
| Female managerial employees ratio: 15% | 13.9% | ||
| Ratio of male employees taking childcare leave: 50% | 17.3% |
Promotion of the Active Role of Women
Sanwa Shutter Corporation is committed to enhancing and expanding systems to provide a working environment that embraces diversity, including efforts to employ more women, and stimulate active participation. Such systems include paid sick/injured child care leave, the introduction of a system for taking paid vacation in hourly units and the extended application of the reduced working hour system (for employees raising children up to the sixth year of elementary school). To promote diversity and understanding, the company introduced a partial paid leave scheme during child care leave based on the idea that it is important for men to take an active role in raising their children.
VOICE
Technical Development Group
Building Construction Materials Department
Arisa Kozai
I am currently in charge of making technical drawings for sales staff to use in their proposals and in work to transfer the drawings to the design team.
I have two sons, one in sixth grade, the other still just 4-years-old. I have been using the shortened working hour system, starting at 9:30am and finishing at 4:30pm, so I am always conscious of working as efficiently as I can.
I have to pick them up from their nursery school and after-school program, also participate in PTA activities. So I’m really grateful that the shortened working hour system has been extended until he finishes elementary school,which goes beyond the statutory requirements, and also for the consideration from my workplace for my situation.
I’m going to keep doing my best to maintain a good balance between my work and personal life.
Residential Development Engineering Group, Solution Business Department
Junpei Iteya
I took about a year of parental leave for the birth of our twins, which followed the birth of my now 4-year-old son. Since we had two babies at the same time, we had to take care of them, and do housework during the day, as well as feed them and deal with crying at night. This was a drain on our energy and stamina 24 hours a day. However, we managed to get through it together as a couple. And now, as my eldest son has grown up, I sometimes see the three of them playing happily together.
The year that I spent being close to my children was a very precious time that will only happen once. I am very grateful to the workplace for sending me off so warmly.
Returning to my work developing window shutters for prefabricated house manufacturers, although I often get help from my supervisors and colleagues, I will do my best to achieve good results and contribute on time.
Global Recruitment
In the Sanwa Group, we want to maintain a positive cycle in which companies and employees grow and develop together. Therefore, we have introduced human resource systems based on our growth strategy, and are focusing on developing people who can promote and drive growth by quickly and flexibly adapting to changes in the business environment.
As a measure to strengthen employee retention, interactions with senior global employees and interviews between employees and their departments occur regularly.
VOICE
(Joined Sanwa Shutter Corporation in April 2014, engaged in production management; has received practical training at Novoferm (Shanghai) since April 2017 and is currently on secondment)
I am responsible for manufacturing cost accounting and business process improvement in China, my home country, where I make use of the production control knowledge and language skills I acquired in Japan. I would like to use my experience and open-mindedness to contribute to the Sanwa Group as a global employee.
Click here for the STORY on Global Human Resources
ODC ~Diversity Festival~
ODC holds an annual Diversity Festival based on its philosophy that fostering mutual respect through sharing of backgrounds and interaction among fellow employees is essential for promoting diversity. At the festival, employees from various parts of the world introduce the foods and cultures of their native countries. About 200 employees, both presenters and attendees, participated in the Diversity Festival in October 2017.
Use of Senior Employees
Employees who wish to continue working after retirement age are in principle re-employed as “senior employees”. We provide such employees with the opportunity to put their accumulated skills and expertise to practical use.
We take a flexible approach that may even see a “senior employee” appointed to a managerial position when deemed necessary.
Installers are important business partners. Despite the aging workforce caused by Japan’s declining population, we are working to ensure consistent installations and to pass on techniques by using senior installers with a wealth of experience to accompany workers on installation and repair jobs and to provide training and coaching for up-and-coming installers.
Supporting AthletesSANWA Sports Sponsoorship
The Sanwa Group contributes to the promotion of sports and the prosperity of society through its support of athletes in various kinds of sports.
Miho Otsu
Born in Aichi Prefecture on November 29, 1990.
Started her wheelchair basketball career in the second grade of middle school and joined the club team named "Brilliant Cats." Joined Sanwa Shutter Corporation in July 2017. Joined to club teams SCRATCH and GIFU SHINE in 2022.
FOCUS
Miho Otsu leads talks, from her perspective as a para-athlete, at elementary and junior high schools near our business locations to convey to the next generation the importance of having dreams and working toward attaining them
During tournaments, a group of supporters from the Sanwa Group invigorates teams with powerful cheering. This helps to foster a sense of solidarity within the Group and promotes understanding about wheelchair basketball and the diversity of employees.
FOCUS
ReBit, a certified NPO, held a lecture meeting as part of the FY 2023 new employee training program
In April 2023, a lecture by ReBit was held as part of the training for new employees by the representative director of ReBit, a certified nonprofit organization promoting LGBTQ awareness and career support. ReBit is helping to create a society where all children, including those in the LGBTQ community, can be true to themselves as they become adults. They take part in LGBTQ awareness-raising and career support activities in educational settings. Through the roughly one-hour lecture, attendees learned basic information on the LGBTQ community, the importance of workplace