Human Resources Development
Toward Achieving “Sustainable People”
With the recent trend toward globalization, it has become essential for companies to secure diverse human resources, and initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DE&I”) have become even more important. The Daicel Group has positioned DE&I as one of its key management issues, and is creating a system that enables each of its diverse employees to maximize their unique abilities and individuality.
Diversity promotion & work style reform (overall structure)
Diversity Week
In FY 2024, Polyplastics held the Diversity Week for the purpose of getting each of our employees to deepen their understanding of DE&I issues and think about diversity in more personal terms.
During Diversity Week, various events, such as lectures, training, and discussions within departments, were held to give employees opportunities to think about DE&I from a variety of different perspectives. Here's some examples of this initiative.
- Blind Soccer Experience
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We organized a blind soccer experience to raise awareness of those with physical impairments and promoting discussions among employees.
It is said that humans obtain 80% of their information through sight. Blind soccer is played by completely blocking the participants’ vision, making them rely on voice, sounds, and trust in teammates, such that it is a sport that requires a heavy dose of communication skills and teamwork. The participants in this event noted the following: “It was a chance to rethink and understand what is needed for communication” and that “It was a great experience in that I was able to learn about myself and about my teammates.” This experience involved the participation of 16 persons from various Daicel Group departments, including Daicel employees who are active as blind soccer players.
- Career-related Lecture Delivered by Outside Director Okajima
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Daicel’s outside director, Mari Okajima, delivered a lecture that addressed DE&I and career development. She talked about what it takes to be a leader and the state of diversity with a focus on activities carried out by women. This lecture was presented in a hybrid format through both online and offline channels and was attended by 265 employees.
Introduced a Babysitter Fee Subsidy Program
In addition to Diversity Week, we launched a babysitter fee subsidy program in FY 2024 based on the use of a project organized by the Children and Families Agency. This was done in hopes of enhancing our own system for balancing work and childcare.
User Feedback
Both my wife and I are making use of this program since we seek to balance work and childcare. While we sometimes ask my wife’s parents to look after the kids when we are really busy, there are still times when circumstances are such that this is not possible. Thanks to the increase in options to ask a babysitter to step in at such moments, the mental pressure on us has been alleviated to some degree.
Although there was some apprehension when we used this program for the first time, we were given detailed explanations on how to make use of it and the ability to interview prospective babysitters when it comes time to select one also allows us to feel more at ease.
We will continue to expand the scope of value co-creation at a high level throughout the Daicel Group to enable anyone to have fair opportunities to take on challenges for themselves.
Action Plan for Promoting Women’s Activities
To create a system and environment at Polyplastics in which female employees can work to the best of their abilities over the long term, we created the following action plan and are implementing various measures.
FY 2024 Results
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- Career-related lecture delivered by a female outside director
- Provided training on unconscious bias
- Held DE&I discussions, and more
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- Provided information on childcare leave to eligible male employees and their superiors
- Publishing fathers’ parental leave experiences
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- Followed up on individual employees with especially low leave usage rates
Silent Communication
In Hong Kong, a workshop was held to deepen understanding of minority groups.
The purpose of this workshop was to get people to experience first-hand the difficulty of communicating with others without the use of sound and thereby promote understanding of those who are hard-of-hearing. The 13 employees who participated in this workshop wore soundproof earphones and played a game that required that they communicate with others through sign language, body language, and other such actions.
Participants were reminded of the importance of understanding those with hearing impairments and learned about the importance of mutual respect in the workplace and about the ideas and notions that should be considered in order to create a workplace environment in which people of varied backgrounds can flourish.
Working with an Acceptance of Individual Differences
Polyplastics (Japan) is promoting initiatives to create a work environment where sexual minority employees can work without suffering disadvantage or discrimination. In FY 2024, we held, as we did the preceding year, an LGBTQ seminar for all employees to acquire basic knowledge of sexual minorities.
At family days held by the Daicel Group at our Tokyo head office, an LGBTQ-themed picture book produced for participating employees and their families was introduced. At multiple in-house Diversity Week events organized throughout the Daicel Group, sweets placed in original packaging featuring a rainbow design symbolizing allies were distributed to participants in an effort to highlight the importance of working while accepting what makes each of us different. We will continue to promote initiatives to foster a work environment where everyone is mutually acknowledged and respected.
Diversity Seen from Data
We aim to create a workplace where diverse human resources can play an active role and work while feeling happy. As a foundation for this, we are striving to develop and enhance a system that makes it easier to take paid leave, a system for reappointment and rehiring, and a system for childcare and nursing care leave.
In FY 2024, the childcare leave usage rate for women was 100% and for men was 90.9%. The childcare leave usage rate for men exceeded the national average by 60.8 points.
In FY 2024, the rate of employment for persons with disabilities was 2.38%, which fell short of the statutory employment rate of 2.5%. However, hiring activities continued to be carried out with a view to reaching the statutory employment rate and the rate of employment in a single month at the end of March 2025 improved to 2.73%.
We will continue to exchange information not only with local special needs schools but also with organizations that provide support to persons with disabilities, further expand our hiring activities, and proactively recruit persons with physical disabilities other than those with intellectual disabilities.
