We strive to create employee-friendly workplaces mindful of the balance between work and personal lives where a diverse workforce can fully demonstrate their capabilities.

As part of our efforts to create a corporate culture in which employees can work in the best of physical and mental health, labor and management are working together to reduce long working hours. We ensure that rules on when to turn out all lights are enforced throughout the company, we have abolished unpaid overtime, and we are further revising our business procedures to create more leeway and improve productivity. We also ensure that everyone is familiar with the Working Hours Handbook which summarizes measures and information about reasonable working hours. Additionally, we use a system that monitors when computers are being used and take measures when necessary, such as providing guidance on areas for improvement. In 2009, we introduced a Planned Annual Vacation Program to allow employees to take more annual paid vacation. Labor and management have begun working together on the issue. The proportion of planned annual vacation taken in 2010 was 56.5%.

In 2010, we launched our Suntory-Style (S-Style) Work Practices initiative. Its goal is to revolutionize work styles through the use of information technology, by helping employees to achieve a balance between work and life while achieving further growth in our business activities. Reassessing conventional ways of performing jobs, we have been promoting the use of flexi-time and telecommuting^* with the aim of producing the greatest performance possible in a fixed period of time.

We have long worked toward expanding our programs that help employees to maintain the balance between work and personal life while being responsive to individual circumstances, such as through the creation of the abovementioned benefit programs and providing beyond that which is legally required. We also fully recognize our corporate social responsibilities when it comes to addressing Japan's low rates of childbirth and aging population, and we are providing support in accordance with workplace environments and employee needs.

Supporting Working with Child and Nursing Care

We have instituted programs that exceed the legal requirements for childcare leave and shortened and staggered working hours. In 2010, 44 employees took childcare leave (100% of those eligible took it, with a return-to-work rate of 98%), while 77 employees newly took advantage of the Shortened and Staggered Working Hour Program. Mindful that childcare leave rates for men remain low, we are looking into ways to provide partial compensation for childcare leave. Additionally, 294 employees used our Telecommuting Program.

Supporting a Return to Work after Childcare and Nursing Leave

We have developed measures designed to reduce anxiety about returning to work, such as arranging for face-to-face talks with the supervisor of the returnee before their leave and return to work, and providing access to the company's intranet from the individual's computer at home while they are on leave.
We have also introduced a Job Return Program for rehiring employees who resigned for reasons of pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, and nursing and wish to return to the workplace. Since the introduction of the program in 2007 up until 2010, 14 people had signed up for the program and, as of April 2011, one person had returned to work.