Jump to section
View Sumitomo Corporation's Sustainability : Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
The Sumitomo Corporation Group recognizes Diversity, Equity & Inclusion as "the core enabler for value creation, innovation and competitiveness" in its Global HR Management Policy.
The business environment surrounding the Group has been rapidly changing and the regions and business fields where we operate, as well as business models have also rapidly diversified. To address such changes and continue to develop in a sustainable way, it is essential to make DE&I one of the core aspects of our management strategy.
To that end, we are working to create an environment in which diverse individuals fulfill their potentials and continue to generate new value and innovation without any bias based on nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or any other individual attributes and without being restricted by any conventional values, and to foster a culture and awareness that makes the most of diversity.
In advancing our growth strategy, it is essential to effectively utilize the mixture of diverse wisdom of diverse individuals to enhance our competitiveness. In other words, we need to focus on the diversity of our global talent, especially on each individual’s strengths, and combine our forces together. In order to further accelerate our growth strategy, we collaborate with overseas organizations and pursue DE&I in the Group on a global consolidated basis.
Every March, we hold a company-wide DE&I awareness-building event called” Diversity Weeks”.
”Diversity Weeks” is a set period during which we focus on the conduction of DE&I programs. The aim is to remind all our global officers and employees that DE&I is the source of competitiveness, and help trigger specific changes in their behavior to further drive DE&I. We deliver management messages and hold participatory events and seminars where employees can think about DE&I from various perspectives. Each year, many employees from all over the world participate. We will continue to hold “Diversity Weeks” on a regular basis in order to further cultivate DE&I awareness.
Sumitomo Corporation regards women’s empowerment as an important pillar of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion especially in Japan, and we have formulated action plans with the aim of advancing this further, and set the following goals to be achieved by 2030.
To achieve these goals, we are reinforcing talent development and allocation/appointment centered on the new HR system introduced in FY2021 and are working to create an environment where each individual can fulfill their potential, as well as actively appointing experienced personnel to positions such as executive officer positions, and women and younger employees to executive management and general managerial positions.
In addition, in order to support our employees to balance life events and career development, we have reinforced tangible aspects including the establishment of internal policies that go beyond regulatory requirements and have addressed the intangible elements such as correcting long working hours, encouraging employees to take paid leave, and reforming employee awareness with the aim of creating an environment that facilitates active participation in the company after childbirth and childcare.
Sumitomo Corporation offers various options that are available employees regardless of gender with the aim of creating a work environment where diversified employees who have entered the life stage of child-rearing can exert their maximum performance. When an employee files a notice of pregnancy or childbirth for themselves or their spouse, we provide information on the systems for childcare leave and confirm if they want to use those systems through a survey. If they want to use the system, we assist them (men and women) with HR's support as needed, etc., through the process of using childcare leave.
We have a system to reemploy, under certain conditions, employees who had to quit their jobs with the company due to the transfer of their spouse, with a view to providing them with an opportunity to once again put their abilities to work for the company.
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of applicants for reemployment under the system for those who had to quit due to the transfer of their spouse | 7 | 9 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 4 | 14 | 11 | 16 |
Sumitomo Corporation offers various programs to help its caregiving employees to continue work with a sense of security. Through activities such as seminars on basic long-term care knowledge mandatory for managers and individual consultation sessions (once a month) on caregiving, introduction of subsidies for purchase of long-term care services and supplies and long-term care diagnostic tools, and creation of “Handbook for Managing Work-Caregiving Balance,” we are working to create a work environment where employees who have entered the life stage of caregiving can maximize their performance.
Providing a “Great Place to Work” where diverse talent maximize their performance with passion and a sense of security.
As per our Global HR Management Policy, we aim to build a “Great Place to Work” where diverse individuals continuously and passionately create new value. In this context, we offer a range of work style options so that each individual, with their diverse values and lifestyles, can maximize their performance both at work and in private to enrich their overall quality of life. By cultivating an environment that enables our people to work autonomously and flexibly, we promote an output-oriented approach to work to generate high added value.
Sumitomo Corporation has been fostering the separation of professional and private life, aiming to increase the work efficiency of employees. In this age of diversification and sophistication of businesses, it is not appropriate to manage working hours simply to reduce the hours regardless of the specific business conditions, although longer working hours do not always lead to better business performance. In recognition of this fact, we need to pursue more value-added work styles also from the viewpoint of global competition.
The following is an example of our efforts to raise employees’ awareness and to provide them with useful information.
Sumitomo Corporation fosters the separation of work and private life to encourage our people to increase their productivity to achieve greater results within a limited time.
We promote a smart work style with the aim of improving productivity to achieve maximum results in a limited time. Efforts to achieve this goal include the setting of a company-wide target for the number of paid leaves to be taken in a single year through 2016 to 2019. The number of days of paid leave taken has steadily increased, and the targets were achieved. Starting in 2020, rather than setting a company-wide target that applies uniformly to all employees, we adopted a policy of allowing each organization and individual to exercise autonomous management.
The teleworking and super-flextime systems are designed to provide employees with an environment that enables them to work autonomously and flexibly beyond the conventional framework and thereby promote high-value-added, output-oriented work styles. By working autonomously and flexibly, employees will proactively make more effective use of time to foster their own mental and physical health and increase their own value, which will lead to the maximization of their performance.
As a part of our efforts to develop flexible work environments that promote the autonomy of employees, we focused on the “location” and the “time” of work and introduced the teleworking system and the Super flexible work hours system in 2018. To build on these systems, in 2020, we modified the dress code to further promote mindset shifts in the individual and the organization as well as autonomous work styles. After reviewing current rules on attire, we eliminated dress codes as long as it is within the scope of common sense and appropriate for work and the workplace based on TPO.
In 2018, we adopted a teleworking system and expanded flexibility around work location, with workers able to work at home or any of the hundreds of contracted satellite offices up to a certain number of days. In principle, there are no restrictions to the use., and employees with different circumstances, such as providing childcare and long-term care are provided an opportunity to work proactively and flexibly. Since 2021, we have been encouraging the best-mix of work style that allows employees to autonomously combine in-office and remote work in a well-balanced manner to maximize the performance of the organization. As a result, the average in-office attendance rate in FY2022 was approximately 60%.
In recognition of these efforts to promote teleworking, we received the Excellence Award of the FY2020 Telework Promotion Award (Kagayaku Telework Award) presented by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare. Please refer to the following link for more information.
In 2018, we abolished the flexible “work hours system”, under which employees were required to be present during the fixed core hours from 11:00 to 15:00, and newly adopted the “super flexible work hours system.” The new system has no core hours. Employees can start and end their work at any time during the flexible time band from 5:00-22:00. This system allows employees to design and manage their own work style, leading to further improvement of both the organization’s and the individual’s performance.
Sumitomo Corporation regards all issues related to harassment, including sexual harassment, power abuse, and discrimination against pregnant women and minorities including LGBTQ+ people, as a serious infringement of human rights and deals with these issues sincerely and strictly.
Specifically, we have implemented the following measures:
The Sumitomo Corporation Group Compliance Policy and the Employment Rules codify that no fear or discomfort shall be caused through sexualized speech or conduct, harassment, slander or defamation, intimidation, violent behavior, or the like on the basis on sexual orientation or gender identity. We also work on awareness-raising activities such as in-house training, with the aim to create a work environment where each employee provides support for LGBTQ+ community with correct understanding on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. In addition, we are also continuously working to improve our systems and environment, so that all employees including LGBTQ+ can feel safe and be their true selves at work. In recognition of our comprehensive LGBTQ+-related measures in Japan, we received the highest “Gold rating” in the “PRIDE Index” in 2023 and 2024. This index was developed by the Japanese voluntary association “work with Pride” to evaluate workplace initiatives related to LGBTQ+.
In April 2024, we sponsored “Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2024” for the first time and in addition to exhibiting a booth, our employees, their families, and friends also participated in the pride parade.
We will continue to work to create an environment in which each individual can fulfill their potential and continue to generate new value, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
| Evaluation indicators that comprise the PRIDE Index | Initiatives |
|---|---|
1．Policy： |
|
2．Representation： |
|
3．Inspiration： |
|
4．Development： |
|
5．Engagement/Empowerment: |
|
We are developing working environments where every individual can work with intrinsic motivation regardless of their age.
In both our current HR management system and post-retirement re-employment system revised in FY2022, we follow the basic concepts of “pay for job, pay for performance.” We have eliminated the seniority-based promotion and ensured that we promote the right talent to the right positions according to the strengths and expertise of each talent.
On the other hand, for senior employees who have a wide range of experience and extensive knowledge, we have other support measures to help developing a strengths-based career path. This includes encouraging autonomous career development and offering opportunities for recurrent training throughout their careers.
Sumitomo Corporation gives career development programs and holds career design seminars for employees aged 45 and older. Through these programs and seminars, employees look back on their career and are provided with an opportunity to obtain information useful to making plans for their future career and life and making new findings in a manner that will enable them to further develop themselves and demonstrate more of their abilities.
In addition to senior employees, we also provide employees in their 20s to 40s with age-specific career training, encouraging them to make an early start to autonomously design their career for the future.
Every year, employees aged 45 and older are provided with an opportunity to talk with their direct superiors and consult with them about their post-retirement career and life plans. Through this system we support them in choosing flexible post-retirement work styles according to their individual needs.
Moreover, in the interview, employees aged 58 and 59 are briefed on the assumptions about their post-retirement assignment and treatment. The interview thus provides the employees and the company with an opportunity to make adjustments about their mutual expectations.
Sumitomo Corporation has an organization devoted to helping employees aged 50 and older search for their next career paths within the HR Solutions Dept. This organization offers career counseling service to the subject employees, including providing them with a matching service for transfers inside the Company, supporting them in changing their career paths outside the Company, and giving useful information as they plan for their next careers.
We have appointed a re-employment support agency to help employees who like to change their career paths outside the Company, including finding a new job and starting a business. The agency’s professional counselors work closely with these employees to support their next careers by providing various services tailored to their specific needs.
As part of its efforts in corporate social responsibility and toward diversity, Sumitomo Corporation Group has been promoting the employment of people with disabilities.
In 2014, we established Sumisho Well Support Co., Ltd., a special subsidiary company, and we have worked with them since then to employ people with disabilities and provide them with opportunities to participate.
As of June 2024, a total of over 100 employees with disabilities are working for the two companies.
Employees of Sumisho Well Support are engaged in various tasks, such as outsourced general office tasks, scanning documents for digitization, printing and binding of business profiles, and business-related data input. They are extremely important for the business activities of our company. Going forward, Sumitomo Corporation Group will continue to rely on the uniqueness of each of our employees with disabilities to help in our creation of added value.
