Comfortable Working Environment

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 (hereinafter referred to as the "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. The Brother Group gives them great opportunity through challenging work assignments and provides them with fair, attractive financial rewards." In addition, the Codes of Practice in the Global Charter state 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

The Brother Group has a system that fairly and impartially evaluates employees based on their abilities and achievements and reflects the evaluation results in 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.

For more information on the evaluation system of BIL, please visit the following website.

• Talent Development — Introduction of New Human Resource System

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

Super flextime system

BIL introduced a flextime system in 1995, and since then it has been striving to create an environment that lays the foundation for diverse work styles. In FY2023, the system was upgraded to a super flextime system to further promote employees' autonomous work styles. Under this new system, the "core time,^*" which was mandatory in the previous system, has been discontinued, and temporary suspension and resumption of work after clocking in have been allowed.
This system allows employees to adjust their working hours according to their individual circumstances, such as caregiving, childcare, medical appointments, and events, making it easier to achieve more flexible work styles. Furthermore, this system can be combined with homeworking, which BIL believes will further promote employees' autonomous work styles.

• 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. Even after the relaxation of restrictions from COVID-19 in FY2023, this system has been continued, allowing employees to work more flexibly by combining remote and in-office work.

Reemployment system for accompanying spouses

In FY2012, BIL introduced a "reemployment system for accompanying spouses." The reemployment system for accompanying spouses is designed to rehire employees who have had to leave their jobs due to their spouses' overseas or domestic transfers, allowing them to continue their careers upon return. In FY2023, the system was revised to allow for the reemployment of not only employees who accompanied their spouses employed by BIL but also those who accompanied their spouses employed by other companies on overseas assignments. 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.

Internal concurrent job system

In FY2023, BIL introduced an internal concurrent job system. This system allows employees to work in other departments for a set period of time, up to approximately 20% of their working hours, while continuing their duties in their current department. The term "concurrent job" is used instead of "side job" to emphasize the parallel engagement in multiple roles without prioritizing one over the other. In its first year, FY2023, twelve employees utilized this system.
Under this system, by allowing employees to gain new work experience without transferring them to a different department, BIL aims to enhance diversity and revitalize the organization. This initiative also seeks to encourage employees to take on challenges, as outlined in the company's medium-term business strategy "CS B2024", and to develop talent that will drive the transformation of its business portfolio.

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 concerns about returning to work, which provided insights into how to encourage employees to take childcare leave.

Babysitter support system

In FY2023, BIL introduced a babysitter support system^* to support employees in balancing work and childcare. This system provides discount coupons for babysitting services to employees with childcare responsibilities. Employees can receive discounts when using babysitters for work purposes, and in FY2023, the first year of the system, 140 discount coupons were used by both male and female employees.

• Utilizing the Children and Families Agency's corporate-led babysitter dispatch program

Infertility treatment leave system

BIL has established various systems to ensure that employees can continue to actively work even when facing challenges in their life stages. As part of these systems, the company introduced the Infertility Treatment Leave System in FY2024. Under this system, employees undergoing infertility treatment, both male and female, are eligible for up to 10 days of paid leave per year and up to 18 months of unpaid leave. The introduction of this system aims to alleviate the burden on employees struggling to balance work and infertility treatment and thereby improve their work-life balance, productivity, and engagement.

Caregiving understanding promotion program

Since FY2011, BIL has been conducting caregiving seminars to support employees in balancing work and caregiving responsibilities. These seminars aim to deepen employees' understanding of caregiving and introduce the company's internal support systems and the state-run nursing-care insurance system so that they can continue working without having to resign even when faced with caregiving responsibilities. In addition, to create a work environment that supports employees with caregiving responsibilities, since FY2016, the company has been holding seminars for management staff on how to foster a workplace that enables balancing work and caregiving. In FY2023, a total of 237 management staff and general employees participated in the seminars.

Data Regarding Users of Systems for Supporting Work-Life Balance (BIL)^*1

1. The numbers in the parentheses indicate those of male employees
2. The number of those who started using the system in each fiscal year
3. 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.

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.

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 FY2023, a total of 648 employees had participated in internal training sessions on AI. In addition, e-learning courses on AI have also been conducted.

Promotion of BPMN^*1 and RPA^*2 utilization

BIL promotes the use of BPMN, an international standard for business process diagram notation. 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, 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.

Reduction of work hours through the use of a daily business report tool

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 172,310 hours^*3 per year in FY2023.

Utilization of the in-house ChatGPT "LangAccel"

BIL established an in-house ChatGPT system, "LangAccel," in July 2023 to improve operational efficiency and promote operational reform.
LangAccel can be used primarily for text-related tasks, such as summarizing documents and creating templates, thereby reducing the time required for creating and comprehending text. The system was named "LangAccel" to reflect its ability to accelerate various language-related tasks, with "Lang" representing language and "Accel" representing acceleration.
Since LangAccel is built exclusively for internal use, it involves a low risk of information leakage. In addition, the risks of using LangAccel, such as the possibility of incorrect information being provided, are explained on the intranet to ensure an environment where employees can use the system safely.
LangAccel is undergoing regular updates, including transition from a Q&A format to a chat-based interface, integration with internal information systems such as the intranet, and improvements in response speed, to enhance its usability and promote further utilization within the company. BIL will continue to upgrade LangAccel in line with advancements in AI technology, thereby promoting operational efficiency improvement and operational reform.

Work Efficiency Tool Contest held

As an initiative to promote business efficiency, the Brother Group has been holding Work Efficiency Tool Contest utilizing the online environment since FY2020. This contest provides an opportunity for employees to present automation tools they created using RPA and other technologies, along with the achievements of these tools. After the presentations, winners are selected and awarded from first to third place based on the number of "likes" received from fellow employees. There are also a President's Award chosen by the President himself and a New Talent Award for employees who have just started learning RPA and programming. In FY2023, 52 teams, including those from overseas locations, participated in the contest, and a team that succeeded in reducing approximately 20,000 hours of work in just 5 hours using generative AI was awarded the President's Award.
In addition to the contest, related seminars and events were held simultaneously. At these events, external speakers were invited to present case studies on operational efficiency improvements from other companies. A total of 1,217 employees participated or voted in the contest, an increase of over 300 from FY2022.
The employees who made presentations at the contest commented that they would like to continue creating work efficiency tools that can be useful to others. Participants made such comments as "I want to improve efficiency by automating my tasks" and "I felt that achieving automation would lead to my growth." The event provided a meaningful opportunity for all members of the Brother Group to improve their awareness of work efficiency and skills.

1. Business Process Model and Notation
2. Robotic Process Automation
3. 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