Basic approach to labor practices (NAGASE personnel policy)
In order to realize the spirit of "honesty and justice" set forth in the NAGASE Group management philosophy and a "safe, secure and comfortable society in which people can live comfortably" set forth in the Vision, the Company has established personnel policies consisting of respect for diversity (acceptance and utilization), labor and work environment, human resource development, and evaluation and treatment. In addition, we have established clear policies regarding compliance with local laws regarding working hours and overtime work and reduction of excessive working hours in the Minimum Wage and Living Wage Payment Policy and the Policy for Reducing Long Working Hours.
NAGASE personnel policy
Spreading diversity (acceptance and utilization)
・Promoting diversity to achieve global growth
Labor and work environment
・Providing a healthy work environment from the company and providing high-quality labor from employees
Human resource development
・Respect the desire of each employee to grow independently and support the development of their abilities Evaluation and treatment
Evaluation and treatment
・Promotion of appropriate evaluation and treatment based on credit, reward and punishment
Strengthening human resources to drive change
The mid-term management plan ACE 2.0 indicates that we will improve the engagement of employees and the Company and achieve sustainable growth and development of employees and the Company by implementing each measure in human resources, the environment and culture in a virtuous cycle.
| Item | Direction and measures to be taken |
|---|---|
| Human resources | ・Acquisition and development of superior human resources ・Place the right people in the right place (talent management) ・Healthful management |
| Environment | ・Creating an office where employees can demonstrate their creativity ・Working style reform |
| Culture | ・Promoting diversity and inclusion ・Fostering a culture and climate where diverse individuals can shine and continue to take on challenges |
Policy for reducing long working hours
NAGASE & CO., LTD. has established a clear policy for reducing long working hours in its Policy and Guidelines for Safety and Health, and Health Promotion. To prevent health problems caused by long working hours, the Company requires employees who work long hours to see an industrial physician, who provides advice and guidance to employees and the Company. Employees and the Company shall observe this and endeavor to avoid long working hours.
Interrelationship of personnel systems
In the human resources system, various systems are regulated according to management policies and plans, performance and job level. Each system is interrelated.
Minimum wage and living wage payment policy
NAGASE & CO., LTD. conducts labor management in compliance with the labor laws and regulations of each country. In terms of wages, the basic policy is not only to comply with the minimum wage regulations in each country, but also to pay wages in excess of the minimum wage. The average annual salary in our Company in FY2022 was 10.90 million yen.
Policy on labor-management relations and labor issues
In labor-management consultations, we have set up a forum for labor-management consultations to share information between the labor side and management side on issues such as working conditions and the working environment to resolve these issues. In accordance with the labor laws of each country, we also strive to strictly adhere to minimum wages and total working hours, provide safe and hygienic workplaces, and build good labor-management relations with labor unions at our overseas sites.As of April 1, 2023, all employees are members except those who are considered non-union members based on an agreement between the employees' union and the company (e.g., those in positions equivalent to management, those who have individually agreed that they should be non-union members due to the nature of their duties).
Diversity
Basic Stance on Diversity
The NAGASE Group believes that diversity is an important part of overall corporate strategy. To nimbly respond to changes in the environment, we need to ensure we have human resources with a wide variety of ideas and perspectives, both in Japan and overseas. Having a diverse range of employees encourages more dynamic discussions and leads to new ideas that become the source of competitive advantage in the market. This in turn leads to the growth of both the NAGASE Group and each individual employee.
Hiring People with Disabilities
The NAGASE Group strives to create a work environment where everyone can thrive together, regardless of whether they have a disability or not. We respect the capabilities of each employee, and foster an environment where they can excel with reasonable accommodation for disabilities.
Please click here for the employment rate of persons with disabilities in our Company for the fiscal year ended March 2021.
Realization of a wide range of employment based on the special qualities of people with disabilities
NAGASE
On August 1, 2022, Nagase & Co., Ltd. hired six people with disabilities and two managers to work at the Work Happiness Farm Plus Yokohama (Yokohama City), an indoor farm operated by S-Pool Plus, Inc. The vegetables harvested from the indoor farm will be donated to facilities such as the Children's Dining Hall, and will be distributed to employees to promote understanding of employment for people with disabilities.
In addition, massage rooms staffed by massage therapists hired as employment for persons with disabilities have been set up at the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya offices. We contribute to the improvement of employee welfare by making it freely available to employees. In addition, we have realized employment tailored to the characteristics of each individual's disability, such as cleaning and inputting data from home.
Nagase ChemteX Corporation
Nagase ChemteX Corporation established NAGASE MIRAI Corporation to provide safe, stable, and secure work opportunities for people with disabilities and the elderly who wish to continue working and to deepen their connection to the local community.
NAGASE MIRAI provides contracted services such as general affairs and cleaning within Nagase ChemteX Harima Plant. It aims to expand further work opportunities such as production, processing, and sales of agricultural products in alignment with local challenges.
Posting Non-Japanese Employees to Core Positions
The Group is expanding its business in various countries and regions around the globe. Based on the basic approach of respecting the diversity of employees’ ideas and perspectives, we are posting outstanding non-Japanese employees to core positions in accordance with the needs of each country, region, and company.
Empowering Women in the Workplace
The NAGASE Group regards the success of female employees as one of its important initiatives to promote diversity. To date, we have made efforts to proactively utilize women's strengths in our business by hiring women in career-track positions, appointing them to management positions, and expanding opportunities for them to play active roles. Although the number of female managers is increasing, it is not high, and we recognize that this is an issue for the future. In addition, the ratio of women to all employees is small, and we will aim to increase the ratio of women in regular employment. We also hold town meetings for female directors and mid-level female employees to create an environment where female employees can demonstrate their abilities and work comfortably.
Expectations for female employees
We look forward to the success of female employees of the NAGASE Group who are positive and have a strong awareness of issues
Town meetings have been a valuable learning experience for me as well, as I have met unexpected female employees of various generations. Each of them is positive and cheerful, and they all have a positive outlook on working for the NAGASE Group. However, since there are still only a few female employees, they seem to be making efforts and devising ways to maintain an overall balance by sometimes forcing themselves to conform to the traditional NAGASE Group way of doing things, and it was confirmed during the dialogue that they are finding it somewhat difficult to do so.
I was also impressed by the high awareness of each female employee of the issues involved, as there are still so few of them. Female employees of all generations face, worry about, think deeply about, and work toward solutions to a variety of problems so that junior employees, including those who follow in their footsteps, can play an active role.
As the NAGASE Group focuses on sustainability, female employees will play a central role in promoting it. I hope that the NAGASE Group will provide them with a stage where they can participate freely, and that they will grow up to show their leadership. Because there are only a few of them, they can have a great impact on drastic change, and they also enable people to think and act without being bound by stereotypes. I look forward to the success of the female employees of the NAGASE Group.
Outside Director
Ritsuko Nonomiya
Targets
Nagase & Co., Ltd. has set the following goals for the promotion of Empowering Women in the Workplace.
| Target item | Boundary | FY2021 | FY2022 | Targets for FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ratio of female employees in career-track positions | Nagase & Co., Ltd. (Non-consolidated) |
19% | 16% | 30% or more |
| Ratio of female maneger | Nagase & Co., Ltd. (Non-consolidated) |
4.6% | 4.3% | 6% or more |
Action Plan based on the Law for the Promotion of Women’s Activities
To increase the ratio of female employees in the total number of career-track employees to at least 30%.
<Contents of Efforts>
May 2023 - March 31, 2026
・Increase the number of seminars in which career-track employees speak.
・Enhancement of planning by expanding information related to women’s activities through the company’s website, etc.
Increase the ratio of managers with families to at least 6%.
<Contents of Efforts>
May 2023 - March 31, 2026
・Training for candidates for next-generation leaders (including sending them to external training programs)
・Conduct diversity-related training for managers.
Increase the annual paid leave utilization rate to 70% or more.
<Contents of Efforts>
May 2023 - March 31, 2026
・Regularly promote the acquisition of certificates to employees with low acquisition rates.
・Fostering an atmosphere conducive to acquisition by implementing measures to improve engagement based on the engagement survey.
Compliance with international standards on labor
The NAGASE Group supports the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the four labor principles of the United Nations Global Compact, and guarantees basic labor rights to its employees. It also supports freedom of association and the union's ownership of the three rights of labor: the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to collective action.
Efforts on labor issues
Preventing child labor and forced labor
The NAGASE Group has not used any child labor or forced labor to date. In addition, in order to prevent the occurrence of child labor and forced labor in the future, we are thoroughly observing laws and regulations in each country and conducting regular monitoring.
Mechanism for involving employee representatives in corporate management
As a mechanism for dialogue between employee representatives and the Company, NAGASE & CO., LTD. aims to achieve an appropriate working environment and working conditions between the labor side and management side through dialogue several times a year.
Reducing long working hours
NAGASE & CO., LTD. discloses the average number of overtime hours worked and the cumulative amount of overtime pay by division on its internal website to make overtime work more visible. The Human Resources and General Affairs Division supports the formulation of action plans for divisions where overtime work has become a chronic problem, and also works with the Health Committee to make company-wide efforts to reduce overtime work. Overtime hours in FY2022 averaged 16.2hours for the entire company, a decrease of 8.8% from FY2021.
Participation in Japan Foreign Trade Council committees and liaison meetings
Nagase participates in the Human Resources Committee and the Sustainability Promotion Committee of the Japan Foreign Trade Council.We will continue to promote the display of human capital information and actively participate in liaison meetings to promote the display of information.
Religious and cultural considerations in employment
In order to accommodate the increasing number of foreign employees and visitors, a multi-purpose room has been set up in the Tokyo head office, which can be used as a place of worship.
Supporting the Activities of Senior Citizens
To support the activities of senior employees, we have introduced a "part-time reemployment system" after retirement.
Report on violations of labor standards
There were no violations of the Labor Standards Act at NAGASE & CO., LTD. (non-consolidated) in FY2022.
Local employment and local procurement
The NAGASE Group believes that employment creation by hiring local employees and local procurement play an important role in building good relationships with various countries and regions where we operate and in contributing to local economies and communities. Based on this concept, we will promote local employment creation and local procurement to contribute to the development of various countries and regions where we operate.
Employee engagement improvement project
The NAGASE Group defines “employee engagement” as a state of mutual understanding and mutual encouragement between the company (organization) and employees.
Starting with the “Employee Engagement Improvement Project,” which is owned by management, we have set the promotion of “vertical dialogue” and “horizontal collaboration” as high-priority issues for the Company. We have renewed the sales liaison meeting among divisional managers, established a new liaison meeting among divisional managers in the management department for pro- and pro-company managers, and established a new liaison meeting among directors and supervisors in the management department.
As a result of implementing measures such as the establishment of dialogue meetings and the revitalization of inter-organizational communication through the introduction of ABW at the Tokyo Head Office, both of the two KPIs, which are non-financial targets, made progress as shown below.
| KPI | Actual results for FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Employee Engagement | NAGASE & Co., Ltd：Engagement Survey Total Score over 60 | Total score：56.5 (52.4 in FY2021) |
| Group：100% of respondents conducting regular engagement surveys | Percentage of surveyed regularly：81% (41% in FY2021) |
Conduct interviews and town meetings
In addition to regular interviews at each division, we conduct interviews and town meetings for new graduates and mid-career employees to identify issues. In FY2022, we implemented “N-Dialogue,” in which a director and four to five section managers conduct a dialogue on a specific theme in small groups. (Photo) N-Dialogue is positioned as one of the measures to improve vertical dialogue and horizontal collaboration, which are one of the issues derived from our Company’s Employee Engagement Survey. The objective of N-Dialogue is to have division supervisors and management engage in honest dialogue, and through this, to learn the experiences and values that each has cultivated and their differences, to generate empathy and new understanding and to trigger future behavioral changes.
Implementation of N-Dialogue
PROJECT BRIDGE
PROJECT BRIDGE is a project to update the office and work style in conjunction with the reconstruction of Nagase & Co., Ltd.'s Tokyo headquarters. Since August 2022, we have adopted an Activities-Based Workplace (ABW), which allows employees to temporarily relocate their offices during the rebuilding period and choose their own work locations according to the nature of their work and the situation on that day. Free dress code system (allowing employees to choose the most appropriate attire for the day's work throughout the year) was also introduced in January 2022. Make your office a more exciting place. The project reaffirms the importance of physical and mental health for employees and their families, who are the assets of NAGASE, and promotes discussions and initiatives to create a comfortable work environment for diverse employees.
Data on labor practices
- 【Consolidated】Employees by segment
- 【Non-consolidated】Gender, age structure and attributes of employees as of March 31, 2021
- 【Non-consolidated】Number of new graduates and mid-career hires
- 【Non-consolidated】Announcement of mid-career hiring ratio based on the Act on Comprehensively Advancing Labor Measures
- 【Non-consolidated】Retention rate after three years of hiring new graduates
- 【Non-consolidated】Voluntary turnover of full-time employees
- 【Non-consolidated】Average years of service
- 【Non-consolidated】Average annual salary
- 【Non-consolidated】Total annual working hours
- 【Non-consolidated】Annual paid leave
- 【Non-consolidated】Employment of persons with disabilities
- 【Non-consolidated】Childbirth and childcare support system
