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Improving the working environment

Improving the working environment

In line with our corporate philosophy 'Benesse=Well-Being', we are committed to creating a workplace where employees can work in a healthy and lively manner, so that they can maximise their full potential.

We also believe that a workplace where there is openness, where people can say anything to each other and where each individual's opinion can always be received with confidence, leads to free and innovative ideas.

We aim to continue to improve the performance of each and every employee and to continue to grow both as a company and as individuals.

Work-life management

An environment where diverse human resources can unleash their abilities is a prerequisite for nurturing a corporate culture where each employee tries to improve by learning from others for their respective growth. The Benesse Group Principles state that “We believe that before we become good businesspeople, we must live as responsible members of society…”. True to this sentiment, we have practiced the concept of work-life management for over ten years, respecting work as well as other areas of our employees' lives.
In addition, we continue to promote productivity improvement through the elimination of long working hours and the realization of a healthy work-life balance. Specifically, we manage appropriate working hours while also striving to pay employees more than the legally mandated minimum wage. In determining compensation, the personnel department offers payments on a standard that is above the legal standard while also observing laws and regulations.

Promoting Diverse Work Styles

The environment and systems are designed to enable employees, including contract workers, to work in a variety of different ways.

(Benesse Corporation)

● Promotion of Remote Work and Improvements in the Office Environment

Benesse Corporation offers a combination of working from home and working in the office system that is tailored to the individual's work situation. Benesse Corporation also carried out a full renovation of their Tokyo headquarters in May 2021, aiming to create an office suitable for new work styles. They also abolished assigned seats based on an activity-based working (ABW) concept, where workers select the optimal location based on the work they are doing as a place to create value (joint creation) with the team. Spaces for team building and collaboration were also improved. This enables a hybrid working style, combining telecommuting and coming to the office. In FY 2022, over 70% of employees at the Benesse Corporation worked from home.

● Super Flex Work
We set the standard working hours per day to 7 hours and each employee can decide when to begin and end work, between 7 am and 9 pm. We did not establish core time, and required work hours are given per month, with each employee determining how many hours they will work on a given day.
● Reduced Working Hours
Employees can reduce their working hours to 5 or 6 hours per day until the end of March in the third year of elementary school for any child that is living with and being cared for by that employee. If the employee has a family member who requires caregiving, they can reduce their working hours to 5 or 6 hours per day generally for three years per family member.

Prevention of overwork

We strive to improve productivity by eradicating long working hours and achieving a healthy work-life balance within reasonable working hours.

(Benesse Corporation)

● Encouraging paid leave
A company-wide target of +5% year-on-year has been set for each department, with each department furthermore setting its own targets for taking annual leave. In order to promote the use of annual leave, a time-based annual leave system was introduced from fiscal year 2023.
● Controlling overtime
We are committed to legal compliance. Furthermore, we have a pre-application system for estimated overtime hours, so that employees and managers are aware of working conditions and can manage working hours together. In addition, the logs of the computers used for work are recorded and checked against attendance.

Paid Vacation and Temporary Leave System

Various leave and holiday schemes have been set up, including for contract employees, to ensure that employees are aware of these schemes and to actively encourage them to take them.

(Benesse Corporation)

● Childcare Leave
A system for leave is applied before childbirth, after childbirth, and for childcare. In addition to the legally required time (until the child turns 1), we allow the leave period to be extended to either April 14 or September 14 after the child's first birthday (including the previous day and on that very day), whichever comes first. In addition to childcare leave payments, we supplement that with 33% of the normal pay for the first month after starting childcare leave.
Furthermore, in FY2022, we introduced a childcare leave at birth (postnatal father's leave). In addition to four weeks of leave within eight weeks of the child's birth, financial support is provided in the form of 33% of basic pay for 23 working days (for a five-day working week) and 100% of basic pay for five of those days.
● Nursing Care Leave
Employees with family members (conditions apply) who require nursing care can take leave generally for up to a year for each family member that requires nursing care whenever that family member is in a state where nursing care is required.
● Reskilling Leave
To support learning opportunities that accelerate self-improvement, we grant employees three days of leave per year for learning that is both voluntary and related to the employee’s medium- to long-term career development. In FY2022, the first year of introduction, 522 people obtained the certificate and the average number of days obtained was 2.2.
● Volunteer Leave
Employees can take 5 days of vacation time each year to participate in volunteer activities.

Other Support Measures

● Childcare
  • Distribution of maternity and parental leave guidebooks
  • Sharing company information and delivering messages online for employees on childcare leave
  • Return-to-work childcare support
  • Babysitting corporate contracts, etc.
● Nursing Care
  • Distribution of handbooks on keeping a job while providing nursing care

Benesse Corporation
Work-life Management Data (full-time employees)

Fiscal year ended March 31 of each year

* Prescribed working hours: 7 hours/day

Mental and physical health development

The Benesse Group considers the health of its employees and their families to be an important asset of the company and their health management to be an important management issue.
We do not see the issue of health only as a compliance issue concerning occupational health, nor do we see it only as a risk management issue such as the loss of labor through employees’ illnesses and injuries. Under our corporate philosophy of “Benesse = Well-being”, we believe that creating a work environment that enables our employees to work in a vigorous, enthusiastic way and making best use of their talent will ultimately make us an indispensable group of companies that seek to deliver services that enrich people’s lives and that our customers, regions, and society as a whole can support. To attain this goal, our companies, employees, and health insurance cooperatives are all working as one to pursue better health.

● Benesse Group Health Declaration

Driven by its corporate philosophy of “Benesse = Well-being”, the Benesse Group declares its commitment to working to maintain and promote the health of our employees and their families.

  • We will work to maintain and promote the health of each and every employee in both mind and body and create environments that enable employees to work in an active, enthusiastic way.
  • We will provide not only employees but also their families with support for improving their mental and physical health.
  • We will strive to live up to the expectations of communities and society as a whole through a variety of measures, such as innovating workstyles and reducing medical expenses, as we promote the health of employees and their families.
  • We will pursue better health through a far-reaching, collaborative effort, spanning our companies, employees, and health insurance cooperatives, in order to fulfill our aims of delivering services that enrich people’s lives and embody an indispensable group of companies that customers, communities, and society as a whole can support.

Points of Contact for Consultations

Various consultation services have been established within the Benesse Group to support employees so that they can work in good health, both mentally and physically. We offer support in problem resolution through coordinating with industrial physicians, human affairs, and various supervising departments within the company and through introducing outside specialists and organizations.

Examples:
  • ・Outside consultation services (EAP=Employee Assistance Program)
  • ・Harassment consultation services
  • ・24-hour medical and health consultation services
  • ・Private consultation services for work and nursing care
  • ・Consultation services for Benesse Group employees with disabilities
  • ・LGBTQ external consultation service
Benesse Holdings, Inc., Benesse Holdings, Inc. Sustainability Promotion, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Department, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Administrative Division, Benesse Corporation, Benesse Foundation for Children, Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, Berlitz Corporation, SIMUL INTERNATIONAL, INC., Tokyo Individualized Educational Institute, INC.,, Ochanomizu Seminar Co., Ltd., UP Inc., Benesse Style Care Co., Ltd., Benesse Business-mate, Inc., Benesse Socius, Inc., Fukutake Foundation, FUKUTAKE EDUCATION AND CULTURE FOUNDATION, CLASSICO Inc.

Creating an Open Workplace

The Benesse Group’s businesses, such as education and nursing care, require us to have a particularly strong sense of ethics. We work to create an open workplace so that each employee of the Group can understand compliance and the Group can conduct its corporate activities honestly and sincerely.
We also have a structure that communicates this awareness of our employees to companies to improve our daily operations and workplaces.

Employee Engagement

The Benesse Group has been conducting organizational assessments for more than 20 years to realize "people-oriented" management. Based on the results of organizational "health checkups," the PDCA cycle is incorporated into the group and individual company management systems to improve issues, such as sharing and reporting current status awareness at board meetings and reflecting the results in business plans.

From FY2021, we switched from GAMBA, its proprietary organizational assessment tool (conducted once a year), to Motivation Cloud (Link and Motivation Co., Ltd.), Japan's largest organizational assessment tool (conducted twice a year). Results and issues can now be immediately identified. We will increase employee engagement by speedily visualizing the state of the organization, identifying organizational issues, and making improvements.

The Benesse Group Internal Reporting System (The Speak Up Line)

The Benesse Group has established the Speak Up Line as an internal reporting system for quick consultations and communications when an employee discovers an illegal or unfair action or an action that violates the Group's articles of incorporation or internal rules.

We are working to prevent a variety of problems as a company and to solve problems quickly through making appropriate use of this system.

Employee Representation System

Benesse Corporation has introduced an employee representation system that seeks employee opinions when drafting and revising labor-management agreements and work rules. Benesse Corporation recruits employee representatives at each workplace through candidacy or recommendation and asks for their opinions on labor-management agreements and employment regulations.

B-STAGE, a new suggestion scheme

In the past, the Benesse Group has promoted initiatives that widely incorporate suggestions from employees, and we began to implement a new suggestion scheme targeting all Benesse Group employees known as B-STAGE in FY2021.

It is our on-site employees that can more easily sense customer dissatisfaction and/or business problems and inconsistencies. To continue being a necessary presence in the world, Benesse has positioned the fact that each employee is readily aware that these problems are an opportunity for management and the workplace to come together to solve these challenges.

We have a New Business Proposal Department that can propose new business ideas and a Business Improvement Proposal Department that can suggest recommendations and points of improvement for the everyday work situation. Benesse Group employees and people from outside the company can join these teams.

In the first year, FY2021, 1,782 entries were received, and in the following year, FY2022, 3,427 entries were received. The excellent projects received in the New Business and Business Reform Proposal category were incorporated into business plan studies and are now being implemented. The project on comprehensive sex education that won the Grand Prize in FY2021 resulted in the official LINE account 'ponoel'. The project is progressing with the participation of partner companies.

B-STAGE Logo
Benesse Holdings, Inc., Benesse Holdings, Inc. Sustainability Promotion, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Department, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Administrative Division, Benesse Corporation, Benesse Foundation for Children, Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, Berlitz Corporation, SIMUL INTERNATIONAL, INC., Tokyo Individualized Educational Institute, INC.,, Ochanomizu Seminar Co., Ltd., UP Inc., Benesse Style Care Co., Ltd., Benesse Business-mate, Inc., Benesse Socius, Inc., Fukutake Foundation, FUKUTAKE EDUCATION AND CULTURE FOUNDATION, CLASSICO Inc.

External Evaluations

 ● Recognition as a Certified Health & Productivity Management Organization

Under the Certified Health & Productivity Management Organizations Recognition Program operated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, Benesse Group's Tokyo Individualized Educational Institute was recognized for their health management efforts in the large enterprise category, while Benesse Business Mate, Benesse BE studio and Benesse Basecom were recognized in the small to medium-sized enterprise category.

Health and productivity 2024 logo Health and productivity 2024 logo

【The Health & Productivity Management Organization Recognition Program】

The Health & Productivity Management Organization Recognition Program. The Certified Health & Productivity Management Organization Recognition Program honors large-scale and small- and medium-scale companies that are conducting excellent health management based on the initiatives for regional health problems and the health promotion initiatives noted by Nippon Kenko Kaigi. By increasing the visibility of companies that engage in good health management, the scheme aims to develop an environment in which companies can be positively assessed by other members of society, including employees, job seekers, related companies, and financial institutions as companies that consider employee health management from a business management perspective and are engaged in strategic efforts for improving it.

 ● Obtained Eruboshi
Eruboshi certification is a system based on the Act for Promoting Active Participation of Women in the Workforce and is given to companies with excellent situations related to the promotion of women's participation that meet a certain standard. This certification is awarded by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. In April 2016, Benesse Corporation achieved the third rank (highest rank) in the designation system of the the Act for Promoting Active Participation of Women in the Workforce.
えるぼしロゴ
Benesse Holdings, Inc., Benesse Holdings, Inc. Sustainability Promotion, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Department, Benesse Holdings, Inc. Administrative Division, Benesse Corporation, Benesse Foundation for Children, Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, Berlitz Corporation, SIMUL INTERNATIONAL, INC., Tokyo Individualized Educational Institute, INC.,, Ochanomizu Seminar Co., Ltd., UP Inc., Benesse Style Care Co., Ltd., Benesse Business-mate, Inc., Benesse Socius, Inc., Fukutake Foundation, FUKUTAKE EDUCATION AND CULTURE FOUNDATION, CLASSICO Inc.

Last updated : 2024/03/26