We have created a message to clearly explain the concept behind our ideal of contributing to Group growth by demonstrating the diverse strengths of each individual, which we uphold in our commitment to diversity.

 

The Tokyo Gas Group promotes workplace diversity as a corporate enterprise that offers every employee the opportunity to excel by applying their full knowledge, abilities, and experience.

1. We structure our corporate organization to encourage mutual respect for diverse work styles while enhancing productivity.
2. We proactively support the success of women as the foundation for promoting diversity across the organization.
3. We deeply integrate the promotion of diversity into all our business operations through our Group Diversity Promotion Team.

■Tokyo Gas Group Diversity Promotion System

Diversity Month

Seeking to change the mindset and behavior of Group employees, we designated November 2018 as Diversity Month and held various seminars on diversity, with about 800 participants.
 

Seminar	Content	Number of Participants (subsidiaries and affiliates)
LGBT Seminar	In addition to gaining basic knowledge related to LGBT issues, participants listen to speakers about problems and other issues the LGBT community confronts and learn how to create better workplaces.	101 (21 from 8 companies)
Seminar for male employees on balancing work and parenting	An expert on male participation in parenting offers a lecture on the concept of balancing work and family.	43
Women’s Career Seminar	The Tokyo Gas Group’s young female employees learn how to approach work from older female employees and examine their careers.	51 (12 from 5 companies)
Paccho Farm vegetable shop	Farm staff sell fresh products from the Paccho Farm.	60
Seminar for employees returning to work after childcare leave	Participants learn how to balance work and parenting and collaborate with colleagues after returning to the workplace while also considering career development.	24
Seminar for balancing work and nursing care	This two-part seminar is divided into courses on basic issues and nursing facilities. The basics including learning how to turn concerns about nursing into preparations for the future. Also covers information on available facilities, benefits, and costs related to home nursing and other nursing care.	132 (46 from 6 companies)
Lecture on Promoting the Advancement of Diverse Talent Diversity Today and Tomorrow – Looking Beyond 2020	In this session, outside lecturer Dai Tamesue, CEO of Deportare Partners, speaks about creating working environments that enable diverse personnel to thrive.	371 (55 from 10 companies)

 

Tokyo Gas has been actively promoting the career development of women. In addition to enriching our programs to support a balance between childcare and work, we are strengthening employee awareness and evolving our corporate culture by hosting seminars on women’s career development. The ratio of women in management positions has increased by 3.9% in 10 years, from 4.1% in 2009 to 8.0% in 2019. Appointments to the general manager and manager level in particular have dramatically increased from 4 to 20, while the first women was promoted to managing executive officer in April 2018. Our goal is to raise our female management ratio to 10.0% by 2020.

Action Plan for Promoting Women’s Careers (Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.)

The ratio of female management is steadily rising as a result of strategic measures.

• *1Number of Tokyo Gas employees, exclude personnel on loan to Tokyo Gas from other organizations and include personnel on loan from Tokyo Gas to other organizations (registered personnel). Data are as of April 1 of each fiscal year.
• *2Employees in supervisory positions, or employees of equivalent status.

No significant difference in average age between male and female employees.

• *3Number of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) are as of the end of March of each fiscal year.

No significant difference in length of employment between male and female employees.

• *4Number of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) are as of the end of March of each fiscal year.

Most of our employees return to work after taking a maternity leave. 

• *5Number of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) are as of the end of March of each fiscal year.
• *6Percentage of employees who completed parental leaves each fiscal year and those returned to work at the company.

• *7New graduates (graduates, undergraduates, technical college graduates) among Tokyo Gas employees as of April 1 of each fiscal year.

Efforts for Promoting Female Advancement

As part of our active efforts to recruit and retain female employees, we are building employee awareness and evolving our corporate culture through seminars we host for both female employees and their managers. 

■Seminars and Lectures in FY2018^*8

Date	Theme	Number of attendees (subsidiaries and affiliates)
May 2018	Seminar for managers with subordinates who have small children	47 (21 from 4 companies)
November 2018	Seminar for employees returning to work after childcare leave	24
November 2018	Women’s Career Seminar	51 (12 from 5 Companies)
March 2019	Seminar for employees returning to work after childcare leave	31 (4 from 2 companies)

• *8Data represents the Tokyo Gas Group employees.

Training for Female Employees

 

In April 2016, we established the Grand Career Support Program, which replaced our program that had primarily focused on enriching the life of employees in retirement. The new program provides comprehensive support for developing the careers of employees who are over 50, with the aim of raising their motivation and performance by clarifying the work they can contribute to through training, one-on-one meetings with superiors, and interviews with training and career consultants in the Personnel Dept. By consistently offering such support, many employees are opting for re-employment when they retire, almost all of whom have been rehired by the Tokyo Gas Group.

		Unit	2016	2017	2018
Total number of retired employees*1		Persons	348	273	172
Number of reemployed*2	Tokyo Gas	Persons  (%)	251 (72.1)	203 (74.4)	103 (59.9)
	Subsidiaries		42 (12.1)	46 (16.8)	52 (30.2)

• *1Number of employees who left the company at the mandatory retirement age of 60 for Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.
• *2Number of people hired as “career employees” (contract employees rehired after reaching mandatory retirement age).

 

The ratio of persons with disabilities employed as of June 2019 was 2.46%, well above the statutory rate,^*1 and these individuals are actively engaged in each workplace. In April 2016, Tokyo Gas launched the Liaison Committee to Promote Employment of Disabled People to foster understanding for creating more opportunities for persons with disabilities so they can succeed professionally as we continue to develop safer, more accessible working environments. Furthermore, in our effort to create an inclusive society, we opened a farm in fiscal 2018 to provide a safe and lively workplace for persons with intellectual and mental disabilities.

• *1  The statutory employment rate is determined by the Employment Rate System for Persons with Disabilities and is the percentage of regular workers who are required to be employees with disabilities.

Our Code of Conduct, which defines the required values and standards of behavior for everyone at the Tokyo Gas Group, explicitly prohibits discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. In the Management Commitment, it is clearly stated that in order to be a corporate group, we must proactively create an organizational culture for everyone and excel, regardless of sexual orientation. 
We have sought to provide a sound working environment by setting up consultation desks to address employee concerns related to the personnel system or benefits. This is in addition to our consultation desks dealing with issues related to compliance and communication in the workplace. We also organize human rights training and talks by outside lecturers in connection to LGBT issues.


Training for human rights promotion leaders

Multipurpose, accessible bathrooms are available and equipped to accommodate people using wheelchairs as well as ostomates^*1 in addition to fitting boards for changing clothes at three locations in the Tokyo Gas head office building. Groupwide, nine accessible bathrooms are provided in seven buildings.

• *1  An ostomate is a person who has undergone surgery to create an artificial opening in the body (a “stoma”) to discharge waste due to damage to the digestive tract or urinary tract caused by illness or accident.

　
Multipurpose, accessible bathroom

We practice a style of management that cultivates and maximizes the diverse characteristics and abilities of employees and creates a workplace environment that is comfortable at different life stages, so that everyone can meet the expectations for their respective roles and make the most of their abilities.
We provide programs for parental leave, shorter hours for parents of small children, and nursing care leave that exceed statutory requirements. For employees seeking to balance work with nursing care, we made revisions that enable them to work with greater flexibility by introducing a flex-time system for nursing care with no core time periods in April 2018.
We also offer systems that allow employees to take leaves of absence for fertility treatment, to attend events at their children's and grandchildren's schools, and to provide nursing care for family members, and these systems are widely used by employees.
We have introduced other arrangements to further increase the options for employee work styles, including leaves to allow employees to accompany spouses working overseas and various programs offering shorter work hours for employees receiving medical treatment.
 

■Major Programs and Usage^*1
(Programs which exceed regulatory requirements are underlined.)

Program	Outline	Item	Unit	FY2016			FY2017		FY2018
				Male		Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Parental leave	Until the end of April immediately following the child’s 3rd birthday (employees are allowed to change the scheduled date of reinstatement if they are unable to enroll their children in a nursery school)	Number of users	Persons	2		65	5	45	5	70
		Rate of return to work (%) *2	%	100		100	100	92	100	100
Shorter hours for parents of small children	Flex-time system is available during pregnancy and until the child completes the 6th grade	Number of users	Persons	227			3	214	9	220
Nursing care leave	Up to 3 years for one relative within the second degree of kinship	Number of users	Persons	4			0	1	2	0
Nursing care work	Applicable to a relative within the second degree of kinship Flextime program available up to 3 years to provide care	Number of users	Persons	3			0	2	0	3
Leave to accompany partner	For employees accompanying a spouse posted overseas	Number of users	Persons	4			3		4
Community service leave	Special leave (paid) for up to 5 days within 1 year	Cumulative number of users	Persons	48			58		61
Sabbatical system	For employees who reach the age of 30, 35, 40 and 50 Provided with commemorative gifts and special leave (paid)	Number of users	Persons	514			673		509

• *1Data are for Tokyo Gas, Co., Ltd.
• *2Percentage of employees who completed parental leaves each fiscal year and those returned to work at the company.

■Support for Work-Parenting Balance

 

Management tenaciously focuses on the value of ”time”  to rectify and reduce long working hours so that every employee can work with enthusiasm while maximizing their potential.
In addition to establishing diverse working styles, we review work processes and methods while also taking action to boost organizational productivity.

Work Style Reform Action Plan

Since fiscal 2018, we have been working to achieve the goals of our Work Style Reform Action Plan.
We launched the Work Style Reform Promotion Campaign, from September to November of the same year, to accelerate our efforts for work style reform with the aim of nurturing the corporate and organizational culture.
 

	KPIs (Numerical Targets)
Theme 1: Rectifying and reducing long working hours	By fiscal 2020, reduce cases of over 80 hours of extra non-legal working hours per month to zero and reduce cases of 60–80 hours/month by half of the fiscal 2017 level
Theme 2: Encouraging employees to take annual leave	Reduce the number of employees who have taken fewer than 5 annual paid vacations during fiscal 2018 to zero
Theme 3: Promoting flexible work styles	Create an environment that allows for teleworking for all employees by 2020

Theme 1: Rectifying and reducing long working hours

We are working to rectify and reduce long working hours to prevent health disorders and enable each employee to engage in work with vigor and fully demonstrate their potential.

 

Targets and Outcomes

Target for FY2020	Target for FY2018	Outcome
By fiscal 2020, reduce cases of over 80 hours of extra non-legal working hours per month to zero and reduced cases of 60−80 hours/month by half of the fiscal 2017 level Note: Non-consolidated basis	Reduce the number of cases of 60−80 hours/month by 25% of the fiscal 2017 level Note: Non-consolidated basis)	Reduced the number of employees reporting over 80 hours of extra non-legal working hours per month by 32% of the fiscal 2017 level (excludes employees involved in earthquake response efforts)

 

Our Initiatives

Work Style Reform Promotion Campaign (September to November 2018)

Work Style Reform Seminars

We held seminars to provide knowledge and know-how on efficient work processes that can be put into practice by each workplace and individual. In addition to organizing lectures by outside specialists, we also introduced various IT tools, and our IT staff demonstrate how they work. Work Style Reform Seminar

(2) Workplace Meetings

We organized Workplace Meetings throughout the company to nurture a culture based on the motto “start with what we can” and with a sense of speed as we promote concrete efforts by each workplace. Every member shares their wisdom to address issues that the organization faces along with effective solutions, and each workplace is taking action to make improvements. With respect to company-wide issues that cannot be resolved at the workplace level, we seek necessary improvements in consultation with relevant departments.

Generally Prohibiting Overtime Work after 20:00

In principle, we prohibit overtime work after 8:00 pm. When working after 8:00 pm is unavoidable, the employee will submit a request to their supervisor and the occasion is used as an opportunity to discuss omitting tasks and reviewing the work process.

 

Declaration of Time to Leave Office

Flex-time System (Super Flex-Time System)

Employees can flexibly alter their reporting and leaving time through consultation with their superiors as long as they include the required core time. This system applies to about 90% of our employees, excluding shift workers.

 

When operations present a special reason for different working hours, or when the press and slack of business is evident, a flex-time system without a core time, which we call a “super flex-time system,” is applied to eligible employees in an effort to raise the productivity of the entire workplace and reduce working hours.

 

Leave-on-Time Day

We designate a monthly “Leave-on-Time Day” as an opportunity to reflect on working productively by maximizing results within a given period.

 

Premium Friday

In an effort to review work processes and methods while also boosting productivity, employees have been encouraged since February 2017 to take a half day off or use the flex-time system to finish work early on the last Friday of each month as long as this does not disrupt work.
We revised the program in July 2018 and designated Friday of each week as “Premium Friday.” We encourage employees to take advantage of the program at least once a month, depending on workload in their workplace and of the individual, and about 40% of our employees use the program at least once a month.

 

Morning-oriented Work to Make Use of Summer Evenings

In July and August, employees are encouraged to start and finish work around 30–60 minutes earlier than usual by utilizing the flex-time program, as long as this does not disrupt work, so they can enjoy their personal lives during a longer evening. 
 

Sharing Good Practices for Operational Efficiency at Each Workplace

We gather information from each workplace on initiatives for improving operational efficiency. Then we share them on our internal website and Group newsletter to spread good practices throughout the organization.

 

Review of Business Processes

We take a top-down approach to raising efficiency and advancing our Group operations by reviewing the operations of each department from the process level and making active use of digital technology. We set up the Project Department in fiscal 2019 to implement a fundamental review of operations for the entire Group.
 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

We make active use of RPA, which automates standardized tasks through software. Also, we are pursuing operational efficiency with about 80 RPA terminals in operation as of December 2018.

Theme 2: Encouraging employees to take annual leave

To help employees achieve a better balance between their work and private life, we are creating an environment where all employees can pursue a well-paced work style that allows them to concentrate on either work or rest.

 

Targets and Outcomes

Target for FY2018	Outcome
Reduce the number of employees who have taken fewer than 5 annual paid leave during fiscal 2018 to zero (non-consolidated basis)	Target achieved for approximately 99.5% of employees (about 30 employees took fewer than 5 annual paid vacations)

 

Initiatives

Increased follow-up of individuals taking fewer than five annual paid leaves

When an employee takes fewer than five annual paid leaves, we work with the workplace, supervisor, and individual toward creating an environment that facilitates taking paid leave.
 

Campaign Encouraging Employees to Take Leaves in the Summer

The period from July to September has been designated the “period for summer leaves” with the goal of encouraging all employees to take at least seven days of paid leave during this time. Currently, about half of our employees take summer leaves of at least seven days.
 

Work Style Reform Promotion Campaign (September to November 2018)

▶　 See Theme 1 for details

Theme 3: Promoting flexible work styles

To establish an environment where diverse personnel can fully demonstrate their abilities, we review uniform work patterns to promote flexible work styles with no limitations on where employees work.
We will replace the computer terminals of all employees to allow for teleworking in fiscal 2019. At the same time, we will promote paperless offices to create an environment where employees can work without limitations on location.

 

Targets and Outcomes

Target for FY2020	Target for FY2018	Outcomes
Create an environment that allows for teleworking for all employees by fiscal 2020 to promote flexible work styles Note: Non-consolidated basis	Enhance the teleworking system and expand its application to more workplaces Note: Non-consolidated basis	Revised the system in May 2018 to allow a combined application with half-day office work The system was expanded as follows (began implementation in April 2019) Expanded eligibility to more workplaces (all workplaces excluding those involving work shifts) Simplified the application flow (verbal application with a supervisor is acceptable) Eliminated the limitation on the number of items implemented Eliminated a limitation on work locations (coffee shops, homes, hospitals, and other locations are acceptable)

 

Initiatives

Dokodemo (“Anywhere”) Work System

To raise productivity, a homeworking system was introduced on a trial basis in fiscal 2016, and full-scale implementation began at some workplaces in fiscal 2017. To enable work styles with greater flexibility and efficiency, we added the balancing of parenting and nursing care with work and also bolstered the work-life balance to serve that purpose. Accordingly, we expanded the scope as mentioned in the table above. So that employees can balance nursing care with their work, we also allow employees to work from their parents’ home or hospitals.
 

Telework Days

To further raise productivity by making use of the Dokodemo Work System, we have been participating in the Telework Days initiative sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication and others since 2017. In fiscal 2019, with one year remaining before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we will implement a large-scale trial using the teleworking system in order to put in place a work style not requiring the use of public transport.
 

Satellite Shared Office Space

We have signed agreements with outside satellite office operators to develop an environment where employees can work on location without limitations.
 

Electronic Settlement

By enabling approval via laptop computer and smartphone, we provide speedy approval not affected by the location of the staff involved in operations.
 

Reforming the Office Space

We are reforming the office environment by having each workplace determine their own work-friendly environment.
In February 2019, the Digital Innovation Division renovated their office environment to raise its productivity.
We are developing an environment where employees can work together to create value. This involves making our offices paperless and encouraging employees to use any available desk while also creating spaces that facilitate open communication.  

Web-Based Teleconferencing

We are creating an environment that facilitates communication with distant workplaces, including overseas bases.
 

Work Style Reform Promotion Campaign (September to November 2018)

▶　See Theme 1 for details
 

"Waku Waku ("Exciting") Work”

As part of our initiatives for work style reform, we have been utilizing ICT to pursue Waku Waku Work since fiscal 2016, which is defined as work that creates value and is varied and fun.
Using ICT and other resources to raise productivity and create value, we aim to establish highly productive office environments and collaborations that transcend divisions.
We categorize Waku Waku Work into the following three forms in accordance with their objectives. Under the leadership of promotion managers at each department and headquarters, each workplace has been exploring and implementing exciting work styles.

• *1Working hours = hours invested + hours expended
• *2Hours invested: time used to generate value (thinking, communicating, etc.)
• *3Hours expended: time consumed without generating value (administrative tasks, searches, transit time, etc.)