Employee Relations
The azbil Group’s health and well-being management revolves around encouraging both work style reform and diverse personnel. In addition, we strive to transform human resources into human capital through training spearheaded by our specialized personnel training institution, Azbil Academy. Through these efforts we seek to become a corporation where all employees can display their abilities to the fullest. Through “people-focused” management based on the principle of “social conduct based on respect for human dignity” encapsulated in the azbil Group Code of Conduct, we are working on initiatives to utilize our human capital to produce sustained growth in corporate value.
Promoting Health and Well-being Management
In July 2019, we released the azbil Group Health and Well-being Declaration. It defined our overall direction as “health and well-being management,” and referred to initiatives such as new ways of working and diversity promotion that are intended to help employees stay healthy and actively engaged in their work. All azbil Group companies are transitioning from policies that merely seek to reduce risk to policies that increase job satisfaction.
The azbil Group Health and Well-being Declaration
Work Style Reform
To create highly satisfying work environments, we endeavor to reduce total employee working hours, create harassment-free workplace from the viewpoint of respect for fundamental human rights while also undertaking initiatives to ensure emplyee safety and health,maintain and increase physical and mental health,and encourage work-life improve. We conduct annual employee satisfaction surveys to learn about problems, and then incorporate the results into plans for the following year in order to improve. This helps to increase employee job satisfaction.
Since FY2020, we have focused on expanding our options for flexible ways of working, such as telecommuting and staggered work hours, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This has led to further changes in the way we work through the creation and enhancement of business infrastructure and DX functions related to remote working.
Reducing Total Working Hours of Employees
We worked to reduce the total working hours of every employee and implement proper time management through such efforts as designating time management levels for each workplace.
We established our Working Style Reform Headquarters led by the company president, with the goal of ensuring that no employee’s monthly overtime ever exceeds 45 hours per month. This effort is spearheaded by management in each business division and department heads in view of improving productivity, balancing manpower, and upgrading personnel system. We have implemented a wide range of initiatives aimed at overall improvements. We conducted a review of our working system to improve back office functionality at facility sites, improve various systems to improve administrative efficiency, introduce new tools and enable flexible working conditions tailored to customer and site hours, offer support to busy departments and help with staff reinforcement. This allowed us to successfully reduce the number of employees exceeding 45 hours of overtime a month in fiscal year 2019 by 90% over 2016.
In order to make reduced overtime and enhanced worklife balance a part of the corporate culture, Wednesdays and Fridays have been designated “leisure-making days ”when employees leave their workplaces at the designated quitting time, and we have established paid vacation incentive days. We also give awards for workplace administrative efficiency improvements, where employees can nominate themselves or others. In addition, we send out Group-wide messages, conduct surveys, and conduct individual follow-up through the Human Resources Department to prevent incorrect overtime reports, and we have a system in place to encourage proper reporting of working hours by logging entry and exit times at all worksites, as well as the amount of time employee computers are turned on.
Promoting Mentally and Physically Healthy Living
（1）Employee health management
As our Health and Well-being Declaration states, we believe that the health of all our employees is an important part of our corporate operational foundation, and our general industrial physician works with industrial physicians at each operational base, with workplace management, and with our Human Resources Department to promote physical and mental health programs.
In our physical health program, we work with the azbil Group’s Health Insurance Union to promote better health among our employees by analyzing data on exercise, diet, smoking status, health checkups, workplace environment surveys, and more to clarify issues that need to be addressed. With regards to lifestyle-related disease prevention, to combat conditions such as hypertension and hyperglycemia, employees who exceed certain levels are actively encouraged to go for treatment through automatically assigned work restrictions. We are also developing seminars and improvement programs to help employees learn what lifestyle habits need revision. We are working to combat cancer primarily by raising the number of employees who have gynecological exams. In addition, we have systems in place to help employees to have peace of mind when affected by an illness. This includes allowing them to work as they are being treated and supporting their return to the workplace.
In our mental health program, we work hard to detect and prevent mental illness among employees at an early stage through continued training of supervisors to ensure they are aware of any changes among their subordinates as early as possible, and by conducting stress checks, after which employees who have high indicators for stress are contacting by an industrial physician for one-on-one care. As part of our effort to prevent recurrences, we require that reinstatement planning meetings be held before any return to work after leave has been taken, we review the timing of the return and check how work progresses afterward, and we continue to follow up on employee health afterwards.
In order to respond to cases that may be difficult to treat within the corporate structure, we have strengthened our ability to help those dealing with mental illness by utilizing the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which can be used as an external mental health consultation service for both employees and supervisors. It provides careful support for employees on mental health leave.
(2) Occupational safety management
Improving azbil Group Health and Safety Standards
The azbil Group’s goal of achieving zero occupational accidents is based in our Basic Health and Safety Policy, and we continue to work to improve the health and safety standards in each Group company through the use of the occupational health and safety management system, health and safety education, hazard prediction training, safety drills, and more.
Occupational Health and Safety Management System
We switched our occupational health and safety management system standard from OHSAS to ISO 45001 in fiscal year 2019. By acquiring ISO certification, we have created a work environment with high health and safety awareness, and we are implementing continuous health and safety standard improvements using the Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA) cycle.
Percentage of workplaces certified as ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety): 39% in fiscal year 2020
Promoting Health and Safety Education
A unique range of courses are offered throughout the azbil Group, including naturally legal education, in addition to courses on how to conduct effective safety patrols and emergency drills. In addition, we always offer health and safety education through e-learning.
In order to prevent occupational accidents, we are working to improve health and safety standards by giving all workers, including temporary staff, the opportunity to take part in e-learning courses.
Creating Harassment-Free Workplaces
An annual compliance awareness survey is conducted among all employees, as are employee satisfaction surveys and stress checks. The results are all analyzed and evaluated, and countermeasures are taken by workplace management and Human Resources Department to help improve the working environment.
Based on the results of these surveys, we have implemented management education programs to reduce the risk of harassment. During company-wide CSR training conducted in fiscal year, we drew attention to the issues of power harassment, sexual harassment, and second harassment after filing harassment complaints, and reminded attendees of the CSR Hotline, which can be contacted from the workplace or outside of it if an employee experiences harassment. With an understanding of the various labor laws revised to combat harassment, we are conducting various harassment prevention training related to sexual and gender identities in fiscal year 2020.
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion
In the azbil Group, we believe that having employees from different backgrounds who respect each other’s individuality and who utilize their talents to grow is the driving force for corporate growth. We are therefore committed to promoting initiatives with diversity and inclusion as the keywords. In FY2017 we launched our diversity promotion task force, the Azbil Diversity Network (ADN), and we are working on a variety of measures.
Promoting Female Participation
To create a workplace where women play more important roles and assume positions of responsibility, we have established a rating system to evaluate our progress. It assigns points based on the number of female employees in positions of authority and their duties. Our goal is to double the FY2017 points by FY2024.
Helping Foreign Employees Succeed
As our business activities become increasingly global, we actively hire new personnel from within Japan and from overseas, including people of various nationalities and graduates of universities in other countries., We are producing employees who can succeed as core personnel by allowing them to gain work experience in other countries and interact with employees from a variety of backgrounds.
Continued Mid-Career Recruiting
Each azbil Group company recruits a certain number of mid-career employees every year. These employees can fully utilize their practical skills in a corporate culture where diversity is respected, and many of these mid-career hires are appointed to management positions in their organizations.
Promoting disability inclusion
We are continuously working to create employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities, and employees with disabilities are already active in engineering, manufacturing, administration, and various other fields.
Azbil Yamatake Friendly Co., Ltd., is a special azbil Group subsidiary that employs individuals with learning disabilities, and it celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018. Employees are in charge of a wide range of tasks such as organizing offices, cleaning, auxiliary work and precision processing on production lines, supporting experimental data entry, and preparing azbil Group public relations magazines and invoices for delivery. Our goal is to help build a society in which people with disabilities can play an active role, and we are actively working to increase job opportunities for Azbil Yamatake Friendly employees by featuring them in posters and other materials hung in our company offices.
We will continue to promote the employment of individuals with disabilities and help build a good working environment by offering job opportunities and a place for people to achieve self-growth through work.
Helping older employees flourish
Under our new personnel system, it is important for our employees over the age of 60 to remain healthy and motivated, and we believe it is important to offer older employees positions and roles that allow them to use their collected know-how and experience, and to demonstrate their abilities to the maximum extent.
When employees reach 55 years of age, we consider it the start of the second stage of their careers, and we have established a framework by which employees who are re-employed after official retirement can smoothly transition into this next career stage. We have introduced a bonus system and other renumeration for employees who continue to be active, to demonstrate their skills, and achieve good results.
A Personnel System that Supports Participation by a Diverse Workforce
Working with the three concepts of continuous personnel training, maximizing the abilities of personnel, and securing sufficient personnel while helping them to live fulfilling lives, we support the success of a diverse workforce regardless of age, nationality or gender, conducting fair treatment, evaluation, and appointment for all employees based on the level of ability they display.
We have also expanded our support system so that employees can balance work with childcare, familycare, or various major life events by working in a limited geographical area, working for fewer hours per day or days per week, or by receiving leave if a spouse has been transferred overseas. Our intent is to create an environment that allows employees to work comfortably at Azbil throughout their lives.
External Evaluation
The azbil Group’s health and well-being management has received the “Kurumin” certification mark from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and was included in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Certified Health & Productivity Management Organizations for four years in a row as of FY2020. We were also selected for “Bloomberg’s 2021 Gender-Equality Index,” and we won the Toyo Keizai Award at the 3rd Platinum Career Awards from Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. in 2021.
Recruiting and Developing Personnel
Tthe azbil Group focuses on recruiting and developing personel who seek to help solve problems through business activity that leads “in series” to a sustainable society. As an organization that never stops learning, we also provide training, mainly through Azbil Academy.
Basic Principles of Human Resource Development
1. Human resources are the source of the azbil Group's growth, so the azbil Group cannot grow unless the human resources grow.
2. Therefore, to optimize employee strength and organizational strength,
(1) Individuals: Take maximum responsibility for their own growth and development of capability
(2)Supervisors: Take responsibility for development of capabillity for subordinates in their organizations
(3) Companies: Support individuals and organizations by providing opportunities fairly.
Enhanced Recruitment of Development /DX Personnel
In the maturing Japanese market, we are enhancing our recruitment of personnel with product development and DX skills in response to changes in the market and in customer needs. Through the DX of our onsite engineering services, we will contribute to society and meet our customers’ expectations.
Developing Global Personnel
To increase our market share overseas, we are accelerating the development of personnel in Japan and overseas who can succeed regardless of the countries or regions they are in. We have an active exchange program in which Japanese employees receive training overseas, and also employees from overseas subsidiaries undergo training in Japan.
Developing Next-Generation Leaders
In order to develop the leaders that will lead the next generation of the company, the whole azbil Group is making an effort to enhance the skills of young employees, while also providing training at leadership, management, and executive stages for mid-career and long-term workers.
HR Development Rotation
We have developed mechanisms that allow employees to experience not only outside training and on-the-job training at workplaces, but also various career experiences in a range of tasks and regions. We also carry out strategic transfers and assignments to help employees build international business experience and experience with new business projects.
Creating an Environment for Developing Diverse Personnel
To help employees develop their careers, in addition to providing better career training for various age groups, we offer training for long-term workers on how to draw up a “100-year life” plan. Also, employees are interviewed by their supervisors every year for a career review and to check if they are interested in a career-building transfer. Opportunities such as the Open Challenge system for internal recruitment are also available to them.
Additionally, we are working on a unified platform with a portal where employees can learn efficiently through online lessons (e-learning) regardless of time or place.
We intend to continue providing a variety of training tools for a diverse group of personnel so that they can grow through various experiences in order to achieve the azbil Group’s SDG target of “doubling the points for promoting educational opportunities together with our various stakeholders by FY2024,and increasing the number of employees who feel a sense of growth to 65% or more by 2030.”