Human Resources Management

SUN MEDICAL Co., Ltd., which specializes in the manufacturing, sales, import, and export of dental materials and other medical devices, places great emphasis on improving communication between the president and employees, supervisors and subordinates, and across departments. In FY2022, the company held 1) Eight one-on-one meetings and social gatherings between the president and employees and 2) Eight meetings between department heads and their teams. In FY2023, the company divided the entire workforce into four groups and hosted lunch gatherings. These initiatives provided opportunities for top management to demonstrate their genuine interest in each employee, fostering a sense of engagement across the organization. Moving forward, alongside efforts to strengthen the company’s foundation—such as enhancing quality assurance and regulatory systems, updating HR policies, and renewing core systems—SUN MEDICAL aims to connect individual employee contributions to the resolution of social issues and business growth. Ultimately, the goal is to help employees experience a greater sense of accomplishment in their work.

PAC (Mitsui Prime Advanced Composites do Brasil Indústria e Comércio de Compostos Plásticos S.A.), a Brazilian subsidiary specializing in the manufacturing and sales of polypropylene compounds, set a goal to improve its “Self-Development and Career” scores based on its previous survey results through discussions with leaders in each department. In collaboration with the leaders, the company focused on enhancing existing internal and external training programs, clarifying job descriptions, introducing performance feedback mechanisms, and establishing an internal job rotation system. PAC also introduced a “Knowledge and Skills Week,” where employees take turns acting as both teachers and students, aiming to promote talent development and strengthen teamwork within the organization. In line with VISION 2030, PAC held discussions with the Mitsui Chemicals PP Composites Division to align site strategies with group-wide objectives. This alignment clarified key challenges and action plans, encouraging employees to propose forward-thinking improvements to achieve these goals.

In 2016, we formulated and distributed the Global Evaluation Guidelines, which outline the evaluation schemes, approaches, design, etc., across the group companies. These guidelines consist of two concepts: (1) management by objectives (MBO) and (2) global core competencies. These guidelines enable the HR sections of four regional headquarters (the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and China) to support the development, revision, and operation of evaluation systems for companies in their respective regions.
Specifically, global core competences are used as a shared index within the Mitsui Chemicals Group’s HR management, and they are used as the basis for the 360-Degree feedback and assessments provided in the leadership development program.

Mitsui Chemicals introduced a teleworking program in April 2019. However, the number of days allowed was limited, with very few employees using the program. However, in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we temporarily eliminated the maximum limit for the number of teleworking days as an emergency measure to prevent infection and ensure safety, which in turn resulted in a rapid increase in the number of employees utilizing this program. This has resulted in the expansion of IT tools and the accumulation of IT literacy, etc., expanding the range of work that can be performed during telework. Telework has spread not only in terms of health and safety, such as infection prevention, but also in terms of new working styles that make it easier to work and maximize results. Based on such findings, we revised the teleworking rules as of July 1, 2021, dramatically expanding the number of days allowed for teleworking, provided that employees come to the office at least four days a month. This revision has greatly increased the flexibility of combining telework with attendance, and we encourage employees and the organization to think more independently about their own work styles in order to maximize results.

In December 2021, we conducted a survey of employees regarding work styles such as telework, and found that telework users are using the telework system to their advantage in both their daily lives and work, such as increased non-work time and the ability to hold meetings without worrying about location, and that team management is functioning well even under telework. On the other hand, it was also confirmed that there are still issues to be addressed in terms of current digital tools, office environment, and human resource development.

In March 2023, the Head Office will be relocated to Tokyo Midtown Yaesu (Chuo-ku, Tokyo) and equipped with high-speed communication facilities to support DX promotion measures and other office environment. The use of an office environment that promotes good communication inside and outside the company and supports new challenges for VISION 2030 will allow even greater freedom and respect for diverse work styles when combined with telework, supporting the growth of employees and the company in the next stage of its development from the office environment as well.

In August 2020, we revised the guidelines on the employee dress code for the Head Office and branch offices to clarify the dress code for work, regardless of where employees are working from (both for onsite work and remote work), and to scrap and replace gender-based bans with rules common to all genders to promote diversity. The revision allows employees to make their own decisions on the appropriate apparel, provided that they remain aware of the need for safety, workability, and cleanliness and that their dress is always appropriate to the occasion and corresponds with social practices, especially when meeting clients and external business partners. With this outline, we aim to further foster a culture that allows for change and encourages employees to think and act on their own initiative while increasing the number of options available to them.

To visualize overtime and hours worked on designated holidays, the managers share the monthly records of overtime and hours worked on designated holidays for each division and each employee. Each manager is working to establish a comfortable working environment by comparing the overtime and hours worked on designated holidays of other divisions and their own division, and by confirming that work is not concentrated on specific individuals. When an employee is found to have worked more than 80 hours of overtime each month, the Human Resources Division conducts an interview with the manager, and reviews and implements specific measures to identify the cause of the overtime and make improvements for the individual employee.

Mitsui Chemicals is striving to raise the rate of annual paid leave taken. We are taking the following actions to improve the acquisition of paid leave, to support the physical and mental health of employees. Over the past three years, the utilization rate has increased by nine percentage points, with the company-wide average reaching approximately 80%.

Please refer here for details of the usage status of other systems.

Mitsui Chemicals has introduced a program that supports employees returning to work. The principal goal is to create an environment that allows employees bringing up young children to return to work smoothly after giving birth to their child or taking childcare leave and to help maintain a high degree of motivation. The program clarifies the types and details of support for each period from the time before maternity leave through childcare leave to the return to work. Prior to taking leave, the employee and their manager engage in a one-on-one interview to discuss the handover of duties, contact while they are on leave, necessary procedures, and other important issues. Even before returning to work, meetings between employees and their managers are also conducted to share details of work styles that will ensure the work environment will accept the employee and details of their job description when they return to work, and to ensure mutual understanding. After returning to work, the Company provides an explanation of the procedures and support available from its various programs for employees. In this manner, every effort is being made to relieve employees’ anxieties with respect to taking maternity and childcare leave as well as returning to work. This in turn helps to alleviate the need to resign from the Company and allows employees to continue their careers.

The Mitsui Chemicals supports our employees who work while providing nursing care. In order to prevent employees who are nursing caregivers from leaving their jobs, we hold an online seminar every year on the theme of balancing nursing care and work with the aim of promoting the concept of managing nursing care using public and in-house systems. However, participants in seminars tend to be limited because it is difficult for them to become aware of when they may become involved in the caregiving process.

Therefore, since fiscal 2021, as an outreach measure, we have been posting useful information for caregivers on our internal portal bulletin board on a quarterly basis. Links to internal and external information are attached to the postings to provide easy access to the detailed information needed. Back numbers are also posted together on the portal, which helps to quickly convey the necessary information to employees who have to start providing nursing care at short notice. The topics we have dealt with include the difference between paid family care leave and family care leave, nursing care insurance certification system, dementia care, communication between parents and children, and cooperation with professionals. Reliable external YouTube videos related to the theme are presented to help them deepen their knowledge of what it takes to care for their loved ones. As concerns about caregiving continue to grow, especially issues that HR alone cannot resolve, we plan to establish an external caregiving consultation service in FY2024 to better support employees dealing with increasingly complex caregiving and work situations.

Mitsui Chemicals has adopted a union shop system; all employees that are eligible to join a labor union under the labor-management agreement agreed upon by labor and management join the labor union. The Mitsui Chemicals Labor Union represents all non-management staff, and the negotiation outcomes between labor and management are applied to all non-management staff without any conditions. According to the labor-management agreement, management staff and other employees at or above the management level are not eligible to join the union.
Overseas sites are operated in a way that allows labor unions to be formed under the labor-related laws of each country and under the freewill of the employees. We do not take any actions whatsoever to limit such moves.

In addition, we define important matters in the collective labor agreement (such as ensuring proper working conditions, human resources development, safety, environment, occupational health, health promotion, improvement of quality control, and disciplinary actions, including for discrimination and harassment) and make sure to obtain the agreement of both the employers and employees.