Work-Life Management

Our Policy on Work-Life Management

We promote work-life management, the practice of organizing one's life to achieve a balance between work and other life activities, to help employees not only develop work-related skills but also become actively involved in areas outside the company (e.g., social and community groups, family, volunteering, self-development, and hobbies) and become well-rounded individuals, achieve higher self-fulfillment and satisfaction, and tap into such resources in their work.
To do so, we encourage all employees to closely manage their personal time and maintain a regular work schedule. We also have in place various system to support flexible work styles and measures to assist them in balancing work with having and raising children and caring for elderly family members. Because work-life management shares certain commonalities with diversity-management in the sense that it seeks to create an organization with a diverse workforce, we will promote work-life management alongside activities to promote diversity with the aim to develop an organizational atmosphere that is open to diverse values and various styles of working.

In August 2007 and April 2012, JSR acquired the Next Generation Accreditation Mark (nicknamed "Kurumin") issued by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare. This accreditation is granted when an enterprise successfully provides a working environment that helps employees to raise a family, as well as balance work and home needs. The guidelines are in accordance with the "Act on Advancement of Measures to support Raising Next-Generation children."

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Maternity leave (before/after delivery)

Employees can take six weeks of leave prior to childbirth and eight weeks after birth. The Mutual Aid Association provides 50% of the employee's base salary for the first five days of leave.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	14	23	25	23	14

Child-care leave

Employees can take leave until children are 18 months old.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	15 (15 women, 0 men)	24 (19 women, 5 men)	28 (24 women, 4 men)	25 (22 women, 3 men)	21 (15 women, 6 men)

Interviewing employees taking child-care leave

Upon request by employees taking child-care leave, an interview is conducted between the employee and his or her supervisor to allay concerns and resolve issues between them as well as to facilitate the employee's return to work.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	12	10	14	19	17

Shorter working hours

Working hours can be shortened by up to two hours per day.
Eligible employees: pregnant employees, employees with children up to three years of age, employees in dual-earner households with a child in third grade or below, and employees providing nursing care to a family member.
*1 Nursing-care shorter working hours system was revised in FY2013 to allow employees to reduce their working hours by up to four hours a day (up to 44 hours a month).

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	40 （child-care 39, nursing-care 1）	62 （child-care 59, nursing-care 3）	69 （child-care 67, nursing-care 2）	74 （child-care 73, nursing-care 1）	79 （child-care 79, nursing-care 0）

Working from home

Employees can work from home one day per week.
Eligible employees: pregnant employees, employees in dual-earner households with a child of elementary school age or younger and employees providing nursing care to a family member.
*2 Nursing-care working from home system started in FY2010

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people (Number of employees who utilized the system each fiscal year)	7 （child-care 7, nursing-care 0）	10 （child-care 9, nursing-care 1）	12 （child-care 9, nursing-care 3）	12 （child-care 9, nursing-care 3）	12 （child-care 12, nursing-care 0）

Child-care leave allowance (established in FY2011)

Employees on child-care leave receive 50% of their base salary and a salary adjustment for the first five days of leave.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	—	23	27	27	21

Child-care leave re-instatement allowance

Employees who return to work following maternity leave or child-care leave of at least one month receive a grant of 200,000 yen per child following the completion of six months' continuous service.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	22	24	10	19	19

Baby sitting allowance

Employees are reimbursed half the cost of daycare on working days in cases where both parents work.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	2	2	3	5	6

Nursing-care leave and extended leave

Employees can take nursing-care leave two times per year (for a total leave time of up to two years). Up to 20 days of nursing-care leave can be obtained for taking care of a family member, and this may be extended to up to 24 months using extended leave.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	3 （leave 3, extended leave 0）	4 （leave 4, extended leave 0）	4 （leave 4, extended leave 0）	1 （leave 1, extended leave 0）	2 （leave 2, extended leave 0）

Loan of mobile devices capable of accessing the JSR internal network

Employees on maternity leave, child-care leave, or nursing-care leave may borrow a mobile device that enables them to access the internal network from home.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	4	8	9	7	4

Volunteer leave (established in FY2010)

Employees can take up to five days of paid leave a year if social contribution activities require taking time off from work.
*3 The leave taken by earthquake disaster recovery volunteers is included in the FY2012 figure.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	2 （8 total days taken）	4 （7 total days taken）	134 （470 total days taken）	3 （8 total days taken）	4 （10 total days taken）

Discretionary work (As of April 1, each year)

Applies to employees in research positions.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	436	446	464	104	107

Flex-time

There have been no core times at JSR since 1996. This program applies to employees not in shift-work positions.

Family-care leave

In FY2010, the scope of family-care leave was extended from infants to family members sharing the same residence. Employees can take up to 10 days of leave annually to provide nursing care and accompany family members to the hospital, medical examinations, vaccinations, etc.

Shorter working hours for fertility treatments (established in FY2014)

Employees can reduce their working hours by up to four hours a day, or by up to 44 hours a month, to receive fertility treatments while they perform their work duties.

FY	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
No. of people	―	―	―	―	0

Work-Family Balance Guidebook

JSR distributes a guidebook that describes the various internal and external programs that support working parents.

Healthy Mind and Body

The JSR Group has taken various measures to help its employees work in good health, both mentally and physically.

As measures to assist employees’ physical health, JSR carries out general physical examinations, special physical examinations, lifestyle-related disease checkups and gynecological examinations. We also provide corporate sports facilities and fitness club memberships to support employees in improving their health. Since FY2009 the JSR Health Insurance Society has led the implementation of metabolic syndrome checkups and individual health guidance for employees who require active support, which has achieved positive results in helping to prevent lifestyle-related diseases. Additionally, to improve health through physical activities and facilitate communication among employees, each of JSR’s business sites hosts sporting events such as softball games and bowling, and has received positive feedback, even from employees who normally have few chances to exercise, in appreciation of the opportunity to partake in such physical activities.

At the same time, JSR has taken measures to improve employees’ mental health since the issue of workers’ mental health first began drawing attention. Since FY1999, JSR has been conducting a biennial JMI Health Survey on mental health not only to help individual employees understand their own mental stress condition but also to understand the stress conditions of employees across the company, and uses the data to implement various measures. In FY2005, JSR launched counseling for employees at a location of their choice from the external agency, Human Frontier Counseling. Over a ten year period since then, this counseling service has been introduced to Group companies in Japan and established as a contact for mental counseling.

In FY2013, prior to the revision of the Industrial Safety and Health Act, JSR together with Group companies in Japan introduced a Web-based annual stress diagnosis, the e-Stress Diagnosis System, to replace the JMI survey.

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JSR Micro N.V. (Belgium): Introduction of the Health Index

The Health Index program was introduced to ensure continuous improvement of the work environment and maintain and enhance employees’ health condition. Under this program, the company encourages all of its employees to undergo health checkups that cover important health indexes, provide advice on their health, and depending on the results of the examinations, send employees to a hospital, health promotion center, or other external medical institution to receive individual guidance. The introduction of the Health Index allows each employee to actively maintain and improve their health and take preventive measures against any health risks.

Communicating with Employees

Corporate Culture Enhancement

As part of efforts to promote the "4Cs" (Challenge, Communication, Collaboration and Cultivation) of our Course of Action, JSR since FY2012 has worked to enhance its corporate culture into a free and disciplined one. The "Cultivation" support program aims to help managers and subordinates develop together as individuals and as members of productive, supportive teams by promoting communication between them, and encouraging managers to provide their subordinates with more opportunities to think on their own through work and responsibility. The program includes an "OJT promotion activity" to communicate to employees the basic idea and attitude toward OJT through diagnosis tools and training, and a “communication enhancement activity” to create opportunities to talk directly with one another.
In FY2012, we introduced a biannual employee awards program. The "Nice Support Award" is granted to employees who have played a significant role in the smooth performance of organizational work by steadily carrying out their tasks and working behind the scenes, and the "Nice Try Award" is given to those who have contributed to creating a corporate culture in which employees are willing to take on new challenges without fear of failure.

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Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Every three years since FY2005 we have conducted surveys on employee awareness to monitor employee satisfaction with the company and the workplace as well as motivation towards work. We then provide all employees with feedback on the survey results and use the results when implementing policies and designing programs. In FY2011, we added corporate mission, diversity, and work-life management to the list of items for assessing employee understanding and awareness, and are now using the results to better promote these areas. The FY2014 survey also included inquiries on measures for changing the corporate culture, and the survey results were used to check the level of employees’ awareness and to identify issues.

Employee Membership in the JSR Workers Union

The JSR Workers Union is an organization formed by JSR employees. All permanent employees are members of the union (including regular employees and seconded employees) based on a union-ship contract.

Communicating with the JSR Workers Union

JSR holds a labor agreement with the JSR Workers Union based on the principles of trust and integrity.
In negotiations between management and employee representatives, the president and directors in charge of individual business segments carry out repeated discussions with the labor union to exchange opinions with and direct questions toward each employee level and each business site regarding the operating environment, business conditions, major company policies, and labor union activities. In doing so we strive to maintain healthy relations with employees through a deepening of mutual understanding and trust regarding workplace environments, safety, important company policies, and labor union activities.

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