SocialLabor Practices
The Sawai Group strives to create a safe and comfortable working environment that is good for the physical and mental health of our employees so that they can work with creativity and productivity.
Employee engagement
We value the individuality and creativity of each employee under our human resources philosophy of “fostering and leveraging the individual”, and strive to enhance employee engagement. We will conduct an employee engagement survey in 2022, which is conducted every few years, and report the results of the survey to management, discuss improvement efforts, and use them in future measures.
* For turnover trends, see the section ‘Status of Employee’ of the “ESG Data” page.
Employee benefits
The Sawai Group's employee benefits programs provides various support so that every employee can live a healthy and stable life with peace of mind.
Cafeteria Plan (Selective Employee Benefit System)
Employees may need support in various situations depending on their stage in life and their family situation, such as childcare, home ownership, children's education and retirement savings.
In order to meet the different needs of each employee, we not only provide a benefit program for each purpose, but also offer a wide range of support through our selective employee benefits system “Cafeteria Plan”. We offer a wide range of options such as “Life Support” and “Refreshment” to suit each individual's lifestyle.
Rented Dormitories and Rented Company Housing
We provide rented dormitories for single employees who have difficulty commuting from their home (parents' home). In addition, we provide rented company housing to transferees who need to relocate as housing assistance for transferees.
Defined Contribution Pension Plan
The Sawai Group provides a defined contribution pension plan (DC) to help employees build assets. We provide regular education to members regarding the selection and management of financial products, and receive reports on the management status from the management institution every six months. When selecting investment products, we broaden the range of choices for members by selecting multiple products with different return characteristics from those specified in the Defined Contribution Pension Law, and when adding or changing investment products, we notify and consult with the labor union in advance.
Employee Stock Ownership Plan
We support asset building by enabling employees to purchase our company's stock on a regular basis. When purchasing stock through the stock ownership plan, we provide incentives equal to a certain percentage of the purchase price.
Group term life insurance / Group long-term disability income compensation insurance
We take a great interest in the daily life events of our employees, and implement assistance systems tailored to each situation to give them peace of mind.
If an employee dies in an accident or becomes severely disabled, we will pay an insurance benefit. Employees can also increase their cover by paying additional premiums.
If an employee is unable to work due to injury or illness, we will pay a certain amount of salary through insurance. Employees can also top up their premiums to increase their cover.
Support for club and leisure activities
It is important to be fit and healthy in order to perform at your best at work. We support employees' leisure activities by subsidizing their club activities and recreational events held at the workplace, so that they can improve their health and cultivate a rich spirit.
Work-life balance
The Sawai Group places great emphasis on work-life balance and strives to create a comfortable working environment that suits each employee's stage in life. We want to be the best supporter of our employees' success, so we have established and improved systems that enable employees to work in different ways during life events such as childcare and nursing care.
Preventing overwork
The Sawai Group is committed to properly monitoring working hours and preventing excessive work. Managers and supervisors check objective records of arrival and departure times to manage working hours. In addition to complying with laws and regulations regarding working hours, we have concluded agreement with the labor union, and have established management standards and procedures for overtime and holiday work to prevent the occurrence of excessive work.
There were no cases of violation of the Labor Standards Act in the Sawai Group in fiscal 2023.
Support programs for balancing work with childcare and nursing care
When an employee reports his spouse’s / her pregnancy to the company, we confirm the employee's intention to take parental leave, the entire workplace provides support for those planning to take parental leave to ensure a planned handover of duties and to alleviate concerns about taking leave.
Childcare support
| Maternity leave | 6 weeks before childbirth (14 weeks for multiple pregnancies) and 8 weeks after childbirth can be taken. |
|---|---|
| Parental leave | Can be taken in separate installments up to two times per child, up to the day the child reaches two years of age (the day before the child's second birthday). |
| Parental leave for father | Can be taken in separate installments up to two times per child, up to four weeks out of the eight weeks after the child's birth. |
| Flexible working hours |
Employees can choose to work a minimum of four hours a day (no core time) until the end of the month in which the child reaches three years of age (the day before the child's third birthday). Employees can choose flextime work that allows them to work at least 5 hours and 40 minutes a day until the end of the fiscal year when their child finishes the third grade of elementary school (March 31st). |
| Short-time childcare work | Employees can choose short-time work that allows them to work at least 5 hours and 40 minutes a day by changing their start and finish times until the end of the fiscal year when their child finishes the third grade of elementary school (March 31st). |
| Child care leave | Employees who are raising children before elementary school can take up to five days of special leave per year to care for their children. |
| Others | Other exemptions from overtime work and restrictions on late-night work. |
Nursing care support
| Nursing care leave | Employees who are caring for family members who require nursing care can take leave in any number of installments up to one year in total for each family member. |
|---|---|
| Short-time nursing care work | Employees who are caring for family members who require nursing care can reduce their regular working hours by up to one hour a day by changing their start and finish times for each family member up to a total of three years. |
| Flexible working hours for caregivers | Employees who care for a family member who requires care can request a change in their working hours, even if they are in a department where flextime working does not apply. |
| Short-term flextime working hours for caregivers | Employees who care for a family member who requires care can select flextime working (no core time), which allows them to work a minimum of four hours a day. |
| Others | Other options include a shortened working day system for caregivers, restrictions on overtime and late-night work, leave for caregiving, and a system for re-employment after leaving a caregiving position. |
* For information on the status of access to support programs for childcare or nursing care, see the section ‘Work environment’ of the “ESG Data” page.
Regional employment system
We have a limited regional employment system to provide a workplace in which motivated and capable people can fully demonstrate their abilities for sustainable future growth, and to support the diverse working styles of each individual employee.
Accumulating expired paid leave system
The Sawai Group has an accumulated leave system that allows employees to accumulate up to 60 days of previously accrued annual leave that has expired, up to a maximum of five days per year. Accumulated leave can be used on a paid basis for unexpected illness, caring for relatives, childcare, flu shots or fertility treatment for the employee.
Promotion of Work-Style Reforms
In today's world, there are many different environments and a wide range of values surrounding employees, but we have created a working environment where all employees can be productive and work in their own way, even in their own environment.
Work-from-home system
In response to the spread of COVID-19 infection in 2020, the Sawai Group introduced a special work-from-home system as an emergency measure to reduce the risk of infection. As a result, we have expanded our IT tools and accumulated IT literacy, and the range of work that can be performed from home has expanded. In line with this, we conducted a verification test of working from home not only from the perspective of safety and hygiene such as infection prevention, but also from the perspective of ease of work and maximizing results, and confirmed the effectiveness of improving productivity and time awareness. Therefore, in April 2023, we officially introduced the work-from-home system as a permanent system. Through this, we aim to maximize the results of employees and organizations by combining attendance and work-from-home, and to improve productivity by promoting employees' autonomous work style.
In-house recruitment and in-house dual job system
We introduced an internal open recruitment system and an internal dual job system in April 2024, with the aim of enabling employees to transfer at their own request, promoting autonomous career development, stimulating the organisation and strengthening inter-departmental cooperation through the transfer of highly motivated human resources.
Labor union
In the Sawai Group, each company has a labor union to which employees belong, and the Sawai Group Labor Union Federation is organized as a federation of these unions. We have stable labor-management relationships with each company's labor union and federation, and in order to improve the working conditions and other economic status of union members, we have concluded labor agreements and regularly discuss various issues.
The labor agreement stipulates that the company will recognize the freedom of union members to engage in legitimate union activities and will not treat them unfavorably on this basis, and that the company and the union will establish and regularly hold labor-management councils to discuss matters on an equal footing.
The Sawai Group has adopted a union shop system, and at labor-management councils we report on the business situation and exchange opinions on the working environment. We will continue to maintain healthy labor-management relations and work together with labor and management to enhance our corporate value.