Work & Life
Support of Employees in Balancing Work and Life
To support its employees in balancing work and life, Sumitomo Electric is committed to promoting a work style that makes a clear distinction between work and life by adjusting working hours and improving productivity. For example, the Company attained the goals set under its five action plans, which were formulated on the basis of the Law for Measures to Support the Development of the Next Generation. Consequently, Sumitomo Electric has been certified by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare as a business that helps its employees balance work and childcare.
These efforts have been generating positive results, as exemplified by the fact that many female employees who have given birth take childcare leave and return to work. We have been expanding systems to make it easier for male employees to participate in childrearing. Specifically, male employees can now also take childcare leave as well as a day off when their spouse gives birth.
Other efforts to enhance understanding about balancing work and life include the distribution of handbooks to all employees and the development of a website with further information.
Reviewing Ways of Working to Create Energetic Workplaces and Implement Diversity Management
Sumitomo Electric has promoted company-wide campaigns with the aim of ensuring that employees can achieve the proper balance between work and life.
To create a workplace that attracts diverse human resources and allows them to work lively, which is essential to compete globally, it is necessary to further promote the review of working styles. We set targets for the reduction of total annual working hours and strive to achieve them, and encourage employees to take paid holidays.
The measures are taken based on the issues of individual workplaces and persons identified in the Survey to Create a Lively Working Environment, a questionnaire to investigate the awareness of employees, in order to make the workplaces more attractive.
Introduction of Teleworking Systems
To enhance the flexibility of working styles and develop an environment where all employees can perform at their potential, Sumitomo Electric introduced a teleworking system in July 2016 to increase job opportunities for employees subject to constraints on their work at various life stages (pregnancy /childbirth, childrearing and nursing care).
Expansion of the Holiday Program
As part of its efforts to review ways of working, in 2017 Sumitomo Electric introduced a “systematic paid holiday program,” whereby each department must schedule two paid holidays and each individual must schedule five. The program has been introduced as a means of encouraging personnel to obtain paid leave. In addition, Sumitomo Electric has adopted five consecutive paid holidays after having completed a certain length of service with the Company so as to support creating a working environment in which employees can take days off more easily. We also introduced a voluntary holiday system, which allows employees to use the expired paid holidays for performing voluntary activities, in order to help them to participate in social activities.
Operations of Childcare Centers
As a measure to foster a supportive environment for employees working full-time while raising children, Sumitomo Electric opened childcare centers at its Yokohama and Osaka Works in March and April 2008 respectively, and added a third center in Itami Works in March 2009 (jointly operated with Sumitomo Chemical Company, Limited). All these three childcare centers are run in such a way as to meet the needs of employees. For example, to make it easy for employees to drop their children off and pick them up during their commutes, they are located either within or very close to the factories. Their opening days are also harmonized with the Company’s calendar and they offer extended childcare when parents are working overtime.
Furthermore, in October 2014, we introduced Childcare Concierge, a service that provides assistance with finding childcare facilities to employees who are unable to use our childcare centers.
Reemployment System
In April 2008, Sumitomo Electric introduced a scheme to reemploy employees resigning due to circumstances beyond their control such as childbirth, childcare and nursing care. We organize interviews and reemploy eligible persons when they are able to return to work (within three years from their resignation and five years in the cases of the resignation due to their spouses’ working overseas) and, as a general rule, assign them to their former workplaces.
