Building a Better Workplace

The Fuyo Lease Group believes that creating a work environment in which employees can be healthy, safe and can work with energy and enthusiasm leads to a more vital, productive organization. We are striving to build a better working environment where all employees can find their own optimal work-life balance and enhance the quality of both life and work by maintaining and improving their health, gaining new knowledge and experiences and attaining personal growth. In addition, we believe that investing in the health of our employees—efforts to maintain and improve their health—is an investment in human capital on par with investing in education.

In addition to providing support for childcare and nursing care, since fiscal 2014 we have been implementing work-style reforms across our corporate group and in fiscal 2020, we introduced hourly-based annual leave and established rules for telecommuting to allow for even more flexible work styles. In fiscal 2022, we took initiatives in response to the demands of the times, promoting measures such as the introduction of a flexible hours program.

In fiscal 2017, we formulated Next-Generation Training Support Action Plan: Stage 7 (April 2017-March 2022) with the aim of enabling each employee to independently and actively review workstyles tailored to their individual lifestyles, and with the aim of creating a work environment and corporate culture that enables employees to balance work and family while maintaining job satisfaction and a spirit of taking on challenges. Now that this action plan has finished, we will further advance its initiatives with the aim of achieving our numerical targets and promoting a variety of work-styles to employees through the active use of various programs, leading to the realization of a self-sustained work-life balance.

As programs to support childcare and nursing care for our employees, etc., we have established the following to promote understanding in the workplace and the active utilization of these programs.

Since the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children went into effect in 2005, we have been working to create a better job environment for working parents by developing a “general employer action plan” as required by the law.

As a result, we achieved our action plan based on the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children. In addition, following fiscal 2007, fiscal 2009, fiscal 2011, fiscal 2013, and fiscal 2015, in fiscal 2017, we received our sixth “general business owner conforming to standards” certification from the Tokyo Labour Bureau, and obtained the six-star mark of the Next-Generation Certification (the Kurumin mark) from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as a company working to support balancing work and family life.

Also, in fiscal 2017, we received the special Platinum Kurumin certification, an accreditation that is given to companies that have achieved a higher level of commitment among other Kurumin-certified companies.

In fiscal 2018, we worked to transform mindsets by holding an Ikuboss Seminar, having management-level staff take part in the Ikuboss Declaration, and participating in the Ikuboss Corporate Alliance. In fiscal 2019, we revised a number of regulations to make it easier for male employees to take childcare leave, and in fiscal 2020, we made it mandatory for male employees to take childcare leave (in fiscal 2022, the rate of paid paternity leave was 100%). Going forward, we will continue to make efforts to actively promote the participation of male employees in childcare while also aiming to further increase the rate of paid paternity leave.

Platinum Kurumin mark

Employee's comment: Mitsuhiro Uekusa, DX and Marketing Strategy Division

"I used childcare-related programs, and now I’m putting a lot of effort into raising my child."

I took two special leaves of absence vacations, first taking spousal childbirth leave when my wife gave birth, and then taking childcare leave when she returned home after giving birth in her hometown. The company encourages male employees to take childcare leave, and thanks to the understanding of my superiors and colleagues, I was able to devote myself to childcare with peace of mind while on leave. There is also a program to receive childcare products as a gift to celebrate the birth of a new child, and this makes me feel like the company supports employees raising children. In the future, I would like to continue to take advantage of programs such as flexible hours to work efficiently while also valuing the time that I spend with my family.

I am doing my best to care for my firstchild with my wife.

In January 2018, we held a Nursing care seminar to dispel concerns about nursing care, which is expected to affect many employees in the future. At the seminar, over 170 employees learned about balancing work and nursing care. We also provide various types of information on nursing care and support employees who are being confronted with nursing care.

In fiscal 2022, we continued to hold Refresh Day (no overtime day) once a week. Employees are free to choose any day of the week as their Refresh Day.

To encourage each individual employee to review their workstyle, from February 2017 we introduced the +Friday program, where employees can select one Friday of each month to work only for the morning then go home early. Users in fiscal 2022 increased to 89.0% of our employees, as the system made it easier to work. At the same time, we also aim to create an environment where employees’ diverse identities are reflected in operations by increasing their knowledge and experience outside the workplace.

Employee's comment: Yuko Hoshino, ICT Solution Business Division

"It's a good opportunity to separate work and private life."

I use the time freed up by +Friday as an opportunity to go and see a movie, a favorite pastime of mine, and to go out with my husband, who has days off on weekdays. In the past, I struggled with balancing work and housekeeping, but by being able to secure free time even once a month, I feel I can have some downtime and it also increases my motivation to work from the next week. In the future, I would like to take advantage of this program, not only for my hobbies but also for lessons on cultural activities.

I'm using the afternoon to refresh myself.

We have established a new program that encourages a shift to an autonomous and active work-style by allowing employees to use their own discretion in managing time and work. Depending on their lifestyle, and not only for reasons such as childcare and nursing care, the Staggered Hours Program lets us select from among four work patterns that advance or postpone when we start and end work outside of the normal working hours. This, along with the Discretionary Labor Program, was introduced and implemented from May 2017. Starting from fiscal 2022, the staggered hours program was changed to the flexible hours program. Under this program, employees start work between the hours of 7:00 and 11:00, then work for seven hours and 20 minutes, offering even greater flexibility.

In April 2021, we introduced a telework program with the aim of enabling autonomous and active work styles. Employees who want to use teleworking may do so if they receive permission from their supervisor, enabling them to work autonomously and actively in a way that can be expected to raise productivity and make operations more efficient.

We have been working to improve the paid leave take-up rate through measures such as establishing a system in fiscal 2011 that encourages taking consecutive days of leave in summer and winter and introducing the Five-day Consecutive Annual Leave system in fiscal 2016 with the aim of improving the rate at which career-track employees take leave. Furthermore, in fiscal year 2021, we started promoting 'bridge holidays' that increase the chances of taking four to five consecutive days off by taking leave on the one or two business days bracketed between a weekend and a national holiday, in order to achieve a balanced approach to work and time off.

As a result, we achieved a paid leave take-up rate of 93.5% in fiscal 2022 (Fuyo General Lease non-consolidated).

In our Medium-Term Management Plan Fuyo Shared Value 2026, are targeting a paid leave take-up rate of at least 90% (Fuyo General Lease non-consolidated) by fiscal 2026. We will work to achieve this target by continuing to raise awareness of taking annual paid leave in a planned manner.

The Fuyo Lease Group defines engagement as “a relationship in which each employee links the growth of the company with his or her own growth, and contributes to their mutual growth.” The Group measures indicators of engagement through employee opinion surveys and monitors trends in those indicators.

In fiscal 2022, the surveys were administered to 2,753 employees in total at 13 companies in Japan, and the response rate was 93.5%. The questions were divided into several sections, including workplace and job satisfaction, perceiving the significance of work, and work-life balance, and evaluations were given on a scale of one to five. After conducting the survey, we aggregate and analyze the responses by department and by gender, and use the results to expand our systems for improving on comfortable working environments and for personnel measures.