Establishment of Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Philosophy and the Promotion Structure
Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Philosophy
The Brother Group aims to create superior value through manufacturing and deliver products and services to customers around the world. With this purpose in mind, all group employees are working every day on a global stage.
As stipulated in the Brother Group Global Charter, the basis of such activities, the Brother Group values taking care of the health of every employee so that they can strive to achieve their goals, and ultimately, contribute to the group's success.
In September 2016, Brother Industries, Ltd. (BIL) established the Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Philosophy. Under this philosophy and the leadership of the Chief Health Officer (CHO), the Brother Group has been strategically undertaking various activities.
Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Philosophy
The Brother Group considers the physical and mental health of every employee as an important "asset," and thinks demonstrating various capabilities "positively, pleasantly and powerfully" leads to the Group's growth.
Every employee's health is the basis of the Brother Group's continued development and responds to the needs of society, such as extension of healthy life expectancy. To realize health and productivity management, the Company, labor union, and health insurance association collaborate and strategically strive to maintain and promote employees' health.
Ichiro Sasaki
Representative Director & President
Chief Health Officer
Brother Industries, Ltd.
Health & productivity management promotion structure
BIL has established the Health Management Center, which manages the health of the Brother Group employees, develops mental health measures, and promotes good health. It has been offering effective and efficient approaches to maintaining and promoting the health of employees while implementing the PDCA cycle and cooperating with the Brother Health Insurance Society and the Brother Industries Labor Union. Meanwhile, the Brother Group facilities in respective countries and regions have been employing industrial doctors or working with medical institutions to maintain and improve the physical and mental health of employees.
Brother Group health & productivity management promotion structure
Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Promotion Council
The Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Promotion Council, composed of the safety and health managers at BIL and the group companies in Japan, holds an annual meeting* to identify issues about employee health and decide on action policies and targets for the next fiscal year and beyond. At the meeting, activities by the Brother Health Insurance Society and excellent activities by the group companies are reported. In this way, the meeting serves as an opportunity to share information on effective and efficient activities.
In FY2018, the council launched an awards program to perform a comprehensive evaluation of efforts in health and productivity management and honor group companies that have achieved excellence in such efforts as "healthy companies" with the CHO awards. Since then, the council has recognized outstanding group companies through this program.
- In FY2020 and FY2021, except for certain participants, the meeting was held online to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Health support meeting
The Health Support Meeting is jointly organized by BIL's Health Management Center, the Health Promotion Center of the Brother Health Insurance Society, and Brother Memorial Hospital. It decides specific activities to achieve numerical targets, discusses implementation methods, and evaluates the results based on the policies set by the Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Promotion Council, and also organizes collaborative events with the Brother Industries Labor Union.
Data Related to Health
"Healthy Brother 2025" -a set of long-term targets for employee health
The Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Promotion Council formulated the "Healthy Brother 2025," a set of long-term targets to be achieved by FY2025, based on the Health & Productivity Management Philosophy and with the aim of allowing employees to actively demonstrate their abilities in a wide variety of areas.
To achieve the "Healthy Brother 2025," the Brother Group is promoting activities focused on enabling employees to live every day positively, pleasantly and powerfully, to engage in self-directed health promotion, and to balance work and health in compliance with safety and health laws and regulations.
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Employee health management data
Main Efforts
Creation of the health & productivity management strategy map
BIL has created a strategy map to visualize continuous flow including issues to be solved through health & productivity management and efforts to solve them.
Approaches for maintaining and improving health
Cancer control
BIL has been conducting the "Cancer Prevention Stamp Rally" since FY2020 under the theme of "Let's Learn About Cancer!" The stamp rally is a program in which employees can collect stamps on the stamp cards on their smartphones by reading original materials on cancer prevention provided by the Health Management Center and participating in events such as "Survivor Talk" where employees who have experienced cancer talk about their experiences. In FY2021, approximately 1,600 employees participated in the stamp rally, and approximately 1,700 employees viewed educational materials on cancer. In addition, this initiative was recognized by the Corporate Action Program for Promoting Cancer Prevention*1 and received the "Cancer Control Promotion Partner Award," to which five companies were selected from approximately 3,500 organizations.
The annual health seminar hosted by public health nurses was also held as a stamp rally event under the theme of "Cancer Prevention through Diet - Excessive Salt Consumption is a Cause of Cancer." A total of 29 sessions were held online, with a total of 1,538 employees participating. In a questionnaire, 96% of employees responded that the event "led to an increase in health awareness".
Mental health measures
BIL has been continuously providing mental health education to its employees since 2007 with the aim of helping them become aware of their own stress and take appropriate measures against it (primary prevention) and helping superiors identify and support their subordinates suffering from incipient mental disorders (secondary prevention). The company also helps employees who have developed mental disorders continue to work in their own ways, assisting such employees to return to work (tertiary prevention) in collaboration with their workplaces.
All employees are required to take self-care training, which is designed for primary prevention, every five years. The training gives participants an opportunity to learn from actual case examples and think about how to control their health and cope with their stress. In FY2021, online training continued to be conducted as a measure against COVID-19. In addition to the self-care training, four series of "Mental Care Videos" were distributed to all employees. The videos, in which a public health nurse explains practical skills for coping with stress, were viewed by a total of more than 3,500 employees.
Furthermore, for employees whose stress checks indicated high stress levels, a new consultation service with a public health nurse was established in addition to the physician consultation. Self-care tailored to the stress factors of the employees was introduced, leading to individualized support.
Age management*2 measures
The "Brother Active Aging Model" was created with the aim of enabling employees to work lively for a long time and to become even healthier by working at Brother. In FY2021, a "Two-Month Active Challenge" was held, during which participants took part in a two-month exercise program. Three courses including "Telecommuting course," "Beginner course," and "Advanced course" were established, and a total of 474 participants took part in the program according to their exercise level. We plan to continue to conduct activities to prevent the decline in physical function in the future.
Measures against COVID-19
Following the government's request in early June 2021 for companies and educational institutions to conduct workplace vaccinations, BIL also began preparations for the vaccination of employees and their families who wished to be vaccinated. The Health Management Center, the Brother Health Insurance Society, Brother Memorial Hospital, and Group companies, led by the Human Resources Department, formulated a vaccination plan and proceeded with the workplace vaccination program in order to provide those who wished to be vaccinated with the opportunity to receive the vaccine without any concerns. We were able to provide two rounds of vaccinations to approximately 1,900 people, including employees and their families of 19 Brother Group companies in Japan over a total of 16 days from the end of August through October. Additionally, in May 2022, we vaccinated approximately 900 people for the third round of workplace vaccinations. Our ability to collaborate with medical professionals at the Group hospital has been a major strength.
Other health related efforts
To support the wellbeing of our employees, we are also implementing a variety of other efforts.
| Efforts | Details |
|---|---|
| Preventive measures against diabetes becoming severe | Individual guidance using a continuous glucose monitor for 24 hours (for employees with an HbA1c of 7.5 or higher) |
| Measures to prevent lifestyle diseases | Three-month group weight-loss program (for employees with a BMI of 30 or higher) |
| Quit-smoking support | Quit-smoking support in collaboration with Brother Health Insurance Society in preparation for the total ban on smoking on premises in April 2023. |
| Improving of health literacy | Provided information and introducing applications with the aim of practicing "Breslow's seven health habits*3." |
| Support for balancing work and health (medical treatment) | Launched peer support activities*4 by employees |
| Various studies | Employee satisfaction surveys and WFun*5 surveys in addition to stress checks |
- National project to promote cancer control through public-private partnership
- Efforts to create a system of occupational health activities for each age group that enable workers to work more productively in a healthy and energetic state throughout their lives, without being conscious of their age.
- Based on the research results by Professor Lester Breslow, the following seven healthy habits: 1. do not smoke, 2. do not drink excessively, 3. regular intense exercise, 4. maintain a proper weight, 5. get a proper amount of sleep, 6. eat breakfast every day, and 7. avoid unnecessary snacking. Whether or not they are practiced will affect subsequent lifespan.
- People who share the same goals support and help each other by sharing their own experiences, actions, and thoughts, and by talking to each other.
- Short for Work Functioning Impairment Scale. A questionnaire developed at University of Occupational and Environmental Health to measure the degree of work function impairment caused by health problems.
Global development of health and productivity management activities
The Brother Group operates globally with offices in more than 40 countries and regions. Industrial physicians and public health nurses from the BIL's Health Management Center visit Brother Group sites overseas to assess local medical conditions and the work and living conditions of employees. Although the Group has suspended visits to the sites since FY2020 due to COVID-19, it uses online tools to manage the status of health checkups and conduct web-based consultations, providing health support in the same way as for employees working in Japan.
At BIL, for employees who are going to travel from Japan to other countries, the industrial physicians implement health education based on health and infectious disease information of each region of the world that helps such employees prevent and raise their awareness of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other infections by providing their transmission routes, incubation periods, and symptoms. For employees on temporary assignments, the company provides the "leaflet on health management abroad," which covers information and cautions necessary for living outside Japan, and posts information about infection epidemics on the intranet to inform our employees.
When the risk of a global epidemic of infectious diseases increases, a countermeasures committee is established as a subordinate organization of the Risk Management Committee, with members including management, the Human Resources Dept., and industrial physicians, to gather the latest information and study countermeasures based on that information. In response to the lockdown in Shanghai that began in March 2022 due to COVID-19, individual web consultations were conducted with all employees in the Shanghai area by industrial physicians to confirm their physical, mental, and living conditions.
Contribution to the community and society
BIL cooperates in local practical training programs for medical and nursing students at universities, with the aim of nurturing people who will be responsible for the field of occupational health in the future. In addition to providing training on Brother's health and productivity management and the duties and roles of industrial physicians and public health nurses, the training also includes time to visit manufacturing sites and learn the basics of health and safety management.
Furthermore, BIL also contributes to the community and society through the promotional activities of health and productivity management by having industrial physicians and public health nurses give lectures at seminars on health and productivity management at the request of external organizations, and by holding meetings to exchange opinions with local companies on the regional promotion of health and productivity management.
Evaluation by External Entities
The Brother Group's proactive initiatives for health and productivity management are also highly recognized by external entities, receiving various certifications and awards.
For more details, please refer to the link: "Management with an Emphasis on Sustainability-Evaluation by External Entities- Evaluation Related to Health and Productivity Management".
