1. Philosophy

At JSR, since 2017 we have been focused on work-style innovation activities to improve competitiveness and realize sustainable growth for both the company and our employees.
The company must encourage the success of diverse employees by developing and maintaining work environments, systems and IT infrastructure that allow for flexibility of work style and respect employee autonomy, thereby contributing to engagement and productivity improvement. Each department must develop systems capable of achieving their organizations’ “ideal form,” and employees must work vigorously and in good health while balancing their work and home life (work-life management). With this in mind, we analyze our operations and fundamentally review how we work while applying cutting-edge digital technology capabilities. And we promote initiatives for realizing diverse work styles while dramatically improving productivity.

2. Advancement Structure

Each department discusses the “ideal form” for its organization, identifies challenges, and executes concrete measures with the participation of each employee. Dedicated teams report on those to management, and the intranet is used to share case study examples in the context of advancing company-wide activities.
Since 2020, this structure has been changed, from the company-wide uniform measures, to support dedicated teams in implementing independent initiatives, at the discretion of each department, and to facilitate awareness-raising in-house via communications from the corporate officers in charge in order to foster achievement of a common ideal.

3. Main Activities

Each department considers and executes “work styles” that bring it closer to the “ideal form” it prepared for its organization.
We promote discussion among management, as well as across the entire company, of not only schemes for fostering diverse work styles and the advancement of IT, but also of what constitutes the best “work style” for each person, which includes mental aspects. In 2020, the “New Work Style Project” was launched in response to the spread of COVID-19. This project involved surveying employees and interviewing department heads at JSR offices and sites and, from this, determined that the ideal work style conditions would “provide a flexible work format with various tools to facilitate work activity achieving targets and expected results.” Towards this end, we have been working step-by-step to (1) revise the image of the ideal office (particularly in terms of headquarters functions), (2) strengthen IT support contributing to greater convenience and work productivity, and (3) develop human resources systems and measures that will improve productivity and competitiveness and maximize engagement.

FY 2020 Topics

WSI Management Seminar

COVID-19 was a catalyst for rapid change in our work styles.
For JSR headquarters, the long duration of the work-from-home situation strongly reinforced the need for evolution in how managers and subordinates, as well as members within teams, communicate, as well as how management operates. Add to this the inability to freely visit plants and laboratories, or to meet with customers, due to the restrictions in place, and it became apparent that real work style innovation was needed to find out how job implementation could be changed in order to ensure results can still be achieved.
It was in this context that around 150 team leaders from various workplaces took part in the WSI Management Seminar which was carried out with the following aims.

• •To be aware and supportive of the mental and emotional wellbeing of teams.
• •To dialog with other leaders about management, reflect on one's own management approach, and apply what is learned to further improving organizational management.

Although the seminar was completely online, it utilized a format that put small numbers of participants together into workshop groups to facilitate ample dialog. It has contributed to stronger lateral connections among the leaders, as well as to greater organizational strength.

Smart Work Design Book

With the rapid transformation in work style taking place, it became obvious that online meetings would be a given company-wide. Also, in order to maintain work style flexibility even after the end of the pandemic, such as with hybrid work-from-home and in-office arrangements, it was essential that readily accessible IT tools be available.
In FY2020, particularly for the sake of making online communications more efficient, a “Smart Work Design Book” was created to encourage use of the greatly underutilized chat functionality, as well as to compile various simple, easy-to-understand tips and ideas, such as for holding online meetings. This publication was posted on the intranet, distributed via POP displays in cafeterias and promoted via other means company-wide.
This initiative, by improving efficiency in the large volume of daily communications which take place, even by just a little, enables more to be communicated with less, thereby speeding up the decision-making process and improving productivity as well as, by extension, JSR’s competitiveness.

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  The “Smart Work Design Book” itself is also available online.

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  Awareness-raising via a POP display in a cafeteria (North Gate Cafeteria at the Yokkaichi Plant)