Basic Policy on Employment and Compensation
Building systems and environments in which diverse human resources can demonstrate their abilities
The Brother Group delivers products and services to customers all over the world with manufacturing and sales facilities in more than 40 countries and regions, and all employees are active as members of the Brother global team on the world stage, where business environments differ by ethnicity, language, culture, custom, and other factors.
The foundation for achieving this is laid out in the Basic Policies of the Brother Group Global Charter (Global Charter), which stipulate that "the Brother Group respects diversity and provides a working environment that enables our associates to utilize their talents and abilities to the fullest, and also gives them great opportunity through challenging work assignments and provides them with fair, attractive financial rewards." The Codes of Practice in the Global Charter set forth that "we must always honor individuals and diversity, and act with trust and respect." In addition to the Global Charter, the Brother Group set the Brother Group Principles of Social Responsibility (the Principles) to respond to societal demands and fulfilling its responsibilities as a company. In accordance with the Principles, Brother Group companies aim to eliminate all forms of discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, belief, gender, educational background, age, disability, or anything else, in hiring, evaluation and promotion and also prohibit child or forced labor. As for employment, the Brother Group guarantees pay higher than local minimum wages. In addition, the group respects employees' rights to form and join, or not join, a union (the rights to organize) as a means to conduct negotiations between labor and management about working conditions and environments, pay levels, and so forth. It also upholds employees' collective bargaining rights and engages in sincere negotiations and dialogues with them. In addition to the signing of labor agreements between labor and management with Brother Industries Labor Union, regular information exchange is also carried out—such as through labor-management gatherings and the Working Environment Improvement Committee—to build good labor-management relations. The management and employees of the Brother Group will continue to make constant concerted efforts to comply with related regulations and rules, respect different cultures and customs, evolve the group's personnel system in line with the Global Charter and the Principles, and continue to create a better working environment, thereby improving employee engagement*.
- Relationships in which employees and management are equal to each other and provide value to each other
Introducing a Target Management System to Provide Fair Evaluation and Compensation
The Brother Group has a system that fairly and impartially evaluates employees based on their motivation, abilities and achievements and reflects the evaluation results to their compensation. BIL, for example, assesses its employees in a way that highly satisfies them, using a target management system with clear criteria. Each employee receives the results of the evaluation of his/her performance and is subsequently informed of the reasons in a meeting with the supervisor. This approach, which helps employees review their own performance and raise their motivation to advance toward new challenges, has been contributing to talent development.
Promoting Autonomous Work Styles
BIL believes that by enabling a diverse group of talent to thrive in a rewarding environment where they can work autonomously, BIL can continue to provide new value to its customers and contribute to the development of a sustainable society.
Work styles to suit each job and lifestyle
Flextime system
BIL introduced the flextime system in 1995 and has been working to create an environment that lays the foundation for diverse work styles. From FY2023, the "core time*"of 9:30 to 14:00 has been discontinued, and working hours were made more flexible by allowing temporary suspension and resumption of work after clocking in.
- A time period during which all employees must work
Homeworking
BIL introduced a homeworking system in FY2015 for employees who are raising children or providing nursing care for family members. Subsequently, in response to the impact of COVID-19, BIL expanded the number of eligible employees, and homeworking became more established. The system will be continued beyond FY2023, when the restrictions from COVID-19 are relaxed, allowing employees to combine remote and in-office work.
Reemployment system for accompanying spouses
BIL established the "reemployment system for accompanying spouses" in FY2012, and in FY2023, the system was revised to also allow for the application for reemployment of employees accompanying their spouses, who are employed by other companies, to overseas transfers.
The reemployment system for accompanying spouses is a system to rehire spouses of employees who have been assigned to overseas or domestic transfers and have to leave their jobs, allowing them to make the most of their own careers. Under this system, BIL provides an environment where a more diverse range of talent can continue to be active in the company over the long term.
Side jobs and concurrent work
In response to the recent increase in work style diversity, since FY2021, BIL has allowed its employees to have side jobs or to work concurrently under certain conditions, offering them more work style options so that they can acquire skills and experience beyond the confines of the company through new challenges.
Supporting work-life balance
BIL has established various systems to provide a work environment where employees can perform to the best of their abilities while balancing work with their lives, including childcare, nursing care, and medical treatment.
Efforts to encourage male employees to take childcare leave
BIL has set a goal of increasing the percentage of male employees taking two or more weeks of childcare leave to at least 60% and the percentage of male employees taking a total of four or more weeks of childcare leave to at least 30% by FY2025. To achieve this goal, BIL organized "career communities" between FY2018 to FY2021, for roundtable discussions with male employees on the subject of balancing work and childcare with those who have experience taking childcare leave, in which a total of 61 employees participated.
In FY2022, BIL implemented an e-learning program for all employees to inform them of the revisions to the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law. In addition, BIL conducted a questionnaire survey of male employees who had taken childcare leave to ascertain the actual situation regarding the use of childcare leave. The results of the survey showed that many employees who took childcare leave expressed constructive opinions about taking childcare leave, such as that they were able to focus on childcare during the difficult period of having a newborn baby, that their spouses were able to return to work earlier, and that taking childcare leave provided an opportunity to optimize and automate their assigned tasks. On the other hand, the survey also revealed some challenges in taking childcare leave, such as difficulty in coordinating work and burden and anxiety about returning to work, which provided insights into how to encourage employees to take childcare leave.
BIL will continue to encourage employees to take childcare leave and create a work environment where employees can work with a sense of reassurance.
Data Regarding Users of Systems for Supporting Work-Life Balance (BIL)*1
| FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Childcare leave*2,3 | 72 (34) | 74 (41) | 96 (60) | 94 (65) | 92 (63) |
| Family-care leave*2 | 5 (1) | 3 (2) | 2 (1) | 2 (2) | 2 (1) |
| Short-time working for childcare | 177 (9) | 176 (7) | 184 (10) | 184 (8) | 175 (9) |
| Short-time working for family-care | 3 (0) | 6 (1) | 5 (2) | 5 (1) | 4 (1) |
| Nursing care leave | 33 (7) | 28 (7) | 13 (3) | 16 (6) | 32 (12) |
- The numbers in the parentheses indicate those of male employees
- The number of those who started using the system in each fiscal year
- The figures for the number of employees on childcare leave and the percentage of employees on childcare leave have been recalculated and updated based on the standards set by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Voice of an employee who utilized the childcare leave system:
Appreciation and growth experienced through childcare leave
Sales & Marketing Dept., Personal & Home Business Division,
Brother Industries, Ltd.
Jimbo Kamada
With the birth of my second child, I took a month of childcare leave. Before the leave, my superior gave me a heartwarming send-off saying, "Leave it to me to support you during your absence," and my colleagues were also very supportive, which helped ease my worries about taking the leave. The childcare leave period coincided with my oldest son's summer vacation, so it was a very valuable time for the whole family to try various activities and grow together.
After returning to work, I am very grateful to the office that made my return to work a smooth one, as they took over all my duties during my absence.
In the future, I would like to actively share my experience of childcare leave with those around me and provide support to other members who are considering taking childcare leave, so that more people at my workplace will take childcare leave.
Reduction of Long Working Hours
Under its policy of reducing long working hours, BIL has put systems in place and promoted operational efficiency.
Revision of systems
Overtime application system
In July 2016, BIL introduced an overtime application system, which requires overtime work after 20:00 to be approved in advance, and basically prohibited overtime work after 22:00. In this way and by improving operational efficiency, the company has been striving to reduce long working hours.
Gradual lowering of the upper limit of non-statutory working hours in non-product sections
Based on an agreement with the Brother Industries Labor Union, BIL gradually reduced the non-statutory working hours by FY2020, and they have been maintained.
| FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly target | 75 hours | 70 hours | 65 hours | 65 hours | 65 hours |
| Annual target | 520 hours | 480 hours | 450 hours | 450 hours | 450 hours |
Operational efficiency
BIL is promoting operational efficiency improvements, such as launching operational efficiency projects in 2018, reviewing its operational processes, and utilizing digital tools.
Review of operational processes and utilization of digital tools
BIL shares concrete measures or departmental efforts taken to resolve challenges in internal meeting management, meeting material preparation, and e-mail correspondence with employees on the intranet. In addition, BIL promotes the automation and efficiency of routine work by means of IT across the company.
For internal training regarding AI, a newly recruited employee who specialized in AI at graduate school (as of 2018) was selected as the leader. Targeting all employees, curricula was developed in-house according to the needs of different job types—such as newly recruited employees, software developers, and the management—and the leader acts as lecturer and operates the training. By FY2022 in internal training regarding AI, a total of 511 employees have attended lessons by a lecturer while 5,890 employees have attended online lessons using textbooks.
BIL also promotes the use of BPMN*1, an international standard for business process charting method. It is a method to visualize business processes in an easy-to-understand manner, including how work starts, role assignments, job descriptions of each person in charge, and interactions with related parties, etc. By visualizing business processes using BPMN, all related parties can review the business processes to efficiently grasp the current status and identify issues. BIL provides e-learning, instructional videos, and practical guidance on BPMN creation in order to foster human resources who can utilize BPMN, which is highly effective for business improvement. With employees with different job types, such as sales and development, acquiring the skills to handle BPMN, they are able to examine the business processes from various perspectives, leading to efficiency improvement.
Also, BIL provides an extensive environment for learning RPA*2, which automates and streamlines routine tasks using robotics technology of AI-powered software. BIL holds a number of its own in-house training sessions on RPA, and in some cases, employees who have attended in-house training sessions voluntarily become lecturers. Furthermore, a question-and-answer section on RPA technology has been set up in the chat tool, where employees can actively exchange opinions with each other. In addition to making it easier to ask and answer questions, the chat tool has also provided an opportunity to interact with employees in other departments, thereby expanding the circle of RPA utilization.
As another example of work efficiency improvement, a daily business report tool developed by an employee has a significant impact on reducing work hours. The daily business report tool allows employees to easily send work reports to a chat tool at the press of a button and report to relevant parties, things such as "I will start work," "I will finish work," and "I did XXX today," which were previously done via e-mail. With the increased amount of work reporting due to more employees working from home, the introduction of the tool has successfully reduced the number of work hours by approximately 59,500 hours*3 per year in FY2022.
Work Efficiency Tool Content held
As an initiative to promote business efficiency, the Brother Group has been holding Work Efficiency Tool Contest utilizing the online environment since FY2020. The contest is an opportunity for employees to present the automation tools they have created using RPA and other technologies and their achievements. The contest winners are selected and awarded from first to third place based on the number of "likes" received from employees after their presentations, and the President himself selects the President's Award recipient. In FY2022, the New Talent Award was also established for employees who have recently begun learning RPA and programming. In parallel with the contest, related seminars and events are also held.
In FY2022, 43 groups, including those from facilities outside of Japan, participated in the contest, and the manufacturing facility in China that created a tool that reduced annual work hours by 18,720 hours was awarded the President's Award. In a lecture and conversation given by the Vice President as part of the event, he shared his passion for DX*4 with the employees. A total of 2,060 employees participated and voted in the contest, which is a steady increase since FY2020, when the contest was first held.
The employees who presented at the contest commented that they would like to continue to create work efficiency tools that can be useful to others. The attendees expressed that they wanted to be the one to create automation, and that it would improve themselves if they could automate things. The event provided a meaningful opportunity for the entire Brother Group to improve their awareness and skills in work efficiency.
- Business Process Model and Notation
- Robotic Process Automation
- Time saved by using the business report tool (FY2022)
Formula: Number of reports x 40 seconds (assuming 40 seconds of time saved per business report) / 3,600 - Abbreviation for digital transformation. Transformation of business and life through information technology (IT) such as high-speed Internet, cloud services, and artificial intelligence (AI).
