Tokyo Gas Group will promote diversity to ensure sustainable growth and development into the future.

With competition between companies in the energy market continuing to intensify, the Tokyo Gas Group aims to maintain its position as the customer's choice and achieve sustainable growth and development in the future by realizing its Challenge 2020 Vision. One important priority for the Group as a whole is the promotion of diversity. For us to continue to meet diversifying customer needs, it is vital that every single person employed by the Group should have the chance to excel and make maximum use of his or her knowledge, ability, and experience. We are committed as a corporate group to developing and expanding systems to achieve this goal and foster employee awareness of it while continuing to proactively create an organizational culture in which everyone can excel, regardless of gender, age, disability, nationality, or whether they were hired straight out of university or mid-career.

June 2016 
Michiaki Hirose 
President 
Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.

Tokyo Gas Group will promote diversity in order to become a corporate group that gives every single working person the chance to excel by making maximum use of their knowledge, abilities, and experience.

(1)We aim to realize an organization (diverse working styles and productivity enhancement) in which every person accepts each other's working style while enhancing productivity.
(2)We regard promoting the success of women as the beginning of the promotion of diversity, and will continue to undertake this proactively.
(3)We will establish a "Group Diversity Promotion Team" and promote diversity in the entire Group in an integrated manner with management.

A Group Diversity Promotion Team has been formed in the Personnel Department. This works closely with management to promote diversity in Tokyo Gas Group by implementing a range of measures focused on promoting women’s participation in the workplace, encouraging employment of people with disabilities, and providing career support for seniors.

Framework for Promoting Diversity at Tokyo Gas Group

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Diversity Promotion at Tokyo Gas Group in Overview

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Tokyo Gas has long worked to actively elevate women in the workplace. We are now further stepping up our efforts to foster employee awareness and create an organizational culture conducive to developing the careers of female employees through a variety of initiatives. These include seminars and a system to assist those with young children to balance work and childcare.

We are also steadily promoting more women. The ratio of women in management positions has climbed 3.0 percentage points over the past eight years from 4.1% in 2009 to 7.1% in April 2017. This includes a dramatic expansion in the number of departmental heads and managers from 4 to 17, and in April 2016 we appointed our first female Executive Officer. By 2020, our aim is to have 10% of all management positions filled by women.

Ratio of Women in Management *1, 2 *1 Numbers of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of April 1 in each fiscal year.
*2 Employees in positions with subordinates or employees of equivalent status.

Average Age by Gender *3
*3 Numbers of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of the end of March in each fiscal year.

Average Length of Employment by Gender *4
 *4 Numbers of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of the end of March in each fiscal year.

Rate of Return to Work after Parental Leave *5, 6

*5 Numbers of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of the end of March in each fiscal year.
*6 Percentage of employees taking parental leave each fiscal year who returned to work at the company.

Hiring of Men and Women *7
*7 Data are for Tokyo Gas hires of fresh graduates of graduate schools, universities, or technical colleges from among all new hires, and are as of April 1 for each fiscal year.
 

■Action to promote women's participation in the workplace (under the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace)

Tokyo Gas is actively fostering employee awareness and developing an organizational culture conducive to the elevation and support of women in the work place through seminars for both female employees and their managers.
 

Seminars and Lectures Held in FY2016*8

Month/year	Theme	No. of participants
May 2016	Seminar for managers with subordinates who have small children	40
October 2016	Panel discussion on promoting women’s participation in the workplace	300
October 2016	lecture program on promoting the active participation of diverse human resources 2016	350
November 2016	Seminar on women's career development	31
November 2016	Seminar on career development for parents of small children	12
March 2017	Seminar for employees returning to work after parental leave	24

*8 Data are on Tokyo Gas Group employees.


Education for Female Employees

Seminar on women's career development
These seminars for women in their twenties provide pointers on active career development in order to help them build their careers from an early stage.

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Seminar for employees returning to work after parental leave
These seminars are taken by employees on parental leave before they return to the workplace. They are designed to give them a clearer picture of work arrangements after their return and how they can work with superiors and coworkers to both smooth their return and balance work and parenting.

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Seminar on career development for parents of small children
This is held for employees who have returned from parental leave and have been balancing work and parenting for a certain period in order to give them an opportunity to consider their long-term career development.

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Manager Awareness-Raising and Development of Organizational Culture

Seminar for managers with subordinates who have small children
These seminars for managers with subordinates who have small children give participants a better understanding of how to support employees' work-parenting balance, and equip them with the management skills needed to nurture subordinates and help them make the most of their abilities.

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Lecture program on promoting the active participation of diverse human resources
Outside speakers give talks to department heads, managers, and other relevant personnel on how to create workplaces that provide opportunities for all. The 2016 lecture was delivered by Yukako Uchinaga, Board Chair of J-Win (an NPO).

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Panel discussion on the promotion of women’s participation in the workplace
In October 2016, a panel discussion featuring Tokyo Gas executives was held on “Further Empowering Women at Tokyo Gas.” The panelists discussed expanding the types of jobs open to women and transforming management mindsets in front of an audience of some 300. The event generated strong interest among our female employees.

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■External recognition
We have been awarded the “Kurumin” certification logo by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare under the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children for our active support of parents with young children. In fiscal 2016, we were also designated a Nadeshiko Brand by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Tokyo Stock Exchange for our active encouragement of women’s participation in the workplace.

　　

In April 2016, Tokyo Gas established a new system of career support for seniors to replace its existing post-retirement support arrangements. The new system provides personalized career development support, including training and interviews with consultants in the Personnel Department, to help employees in their fifties to develop their careers. Tokyo Gas has also been retaining employees beyond the mandatory retirement age since before the revised Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons*1 took force in order to provide appropriate employment opportunities to employees who have both the ability and motivation to continue working.
*1 This act is designed to help stabilize the employment of older people. It entered effect in April 2006 and requires employers to either (1) abolish mandatory retirement, (2) raise the mandatory retirement age, or (3) introduce arrangements for continued employment beyond the age of 60.

State of Reemployment after Mandatory Retirement 

		Unit	2015	2016	2017
Number mandatorily retired (total number)*1		Persons	319	348	273
Number reemployed*2	Tokyo Gas *3	Persons  (%)	241  （75.5）	251 （72.1）	203 (74.4)
	Subsidiaries and affiliates, etc.	Persons  (%)	26  （8.2）	42 （12.1）	46 (16.8)

*1 Number of mandatory retired people at 60.
*2 Number of people hired as "career employees" (contract employees rehired after reaching mandatory retirement age).
*3 Data are for Tokyo Gas on a non-consolidated basis.

At Tokyo Gas, people with disabilities perform all kinds of work alongside our other employees. People with disabilities made up 2.35% of our workforce as of June 2018, which is well above the statutory employment rate.*1 The Liaison Committee to Promote Employment of Disabled People launched in April 2016 seeks to foster understanding in order to further expand employment and create more opportunities for people with disabilities to succeed professionally at Tokyo Gas. It is also working to develop safer, more accessible working conditions.
*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 lays down the values and standards of behavior that everyone working at Tokyo Gas Group is required to share, explicitly prohibits discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, our advisory service desks fulfil the requirement that employers adopt “employment management measures concerning problems caused by sexual harassment in the workplace” specified in Article 11 of the Act on Securing, etc. of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment. We provide training in LGBT issues (which is incorporated into training courses for human rights promotion leaders, for example) and organize related talks given by outside speakers for mid-level managers and human resource managers.


A training course for human rights promotion leaders

In March 2016, we introduced three gender-neutral accessible bathrooms at Tokyo Gas Head Office Building. These are equipped with a range of facilities, including equipment for wheelchair users and ostomates,* and “fitting boards” for use when changing clothes.
* 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.

　

As one of the main pillars of our personnel policy, we are working to strengthen our organization by bringing out the skills of each and every employee so they can achieve their full potential. We promote the kind of management that cultivates and makes the best use of employees' diverse characteristics and abilities, and creates a workplace environment that is comfortable for employees at various stages of their lives, so that all are able to meet the expectations for their respective roles and make the most of their abilities.

In April 2014, we extended the period of eligibility to work shorter hours in order to care for a small child from the end of the child’s third grade to the end of sixth grade, and we developed more generous parental leave, nursing care leave, and shortened working hour schemes than required by law. Provision was further enhanced in April 2017 when it was made possible for employees to flexibly change the date on which they intended to return to work from parental leave if they found themselves unable to obtain a nursery place for their child. We also offer systems that allow employees to take a leave 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 being widely used by our employees.
We have introduced other arrangements too to give employees a more flexible choice of work styles, including leave to allow employees to accompany a spouse working overseas.
 

System	Details	Item	Unit	2015		2016		2017
				Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Parental leave	Until end of April immediately following child’s 3rd birthday	Number of users	Persons	2	83	2	65	5	45
		Rate of return to work *2	（%）	100	100	100	100	100	92
Shorter hours for parents of small children	During pregnancy and until child completes 6th grade Flex-time system for childcare is available.	Number of users	Persons	213		3	224	3	214
Nursing care leave	Up to 3 years for one relative within the second degree of kinship requiring nursing care.	Number of users	Persons	3		0	4	0	1
Nursing care work	Up to 3 years for one relative within the second degree of kinship requiring nursing care. Flex-time system for nursing care is available.	Number of users	Persons	0		0	3	0	2
Leave to accompany partner	For employees accompanying a spouse working overseas	Number of users	Persons	4		4		3
Community service leave	Special leave (paid leave) for up to 5 days within 1 year	Total number of users (including repeat users)	Persons	88		48		58
Sabbatical system	For employees who reach the age of 30, 35, 40, and 50 Provided with commemorative gifts and special leave (paid leave)	Number of users	Persons	594		514		673

*1 Data are for Tokyo Gas on a non-consolidated basis.
*2 Percentage of employees taking parental leave each fiscal year who returned to work at the company.

Support for Balancing Work and Parenting

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In order to give all our employees greater opportunities to cultivate and make maximum use of their skills and strengths, we consider it is essential to raise organizational productivity and create diverse work styles. We have introduced flextime arrangements, which cover about 90% of our employees (excluding shift workers and some other personnel). We are also revamping our work styles with the aim of creating opportunities to rethink how work and tasks should be approached to improve work efficiency and level workloads.


■Flextime
After consulting with their superiors, employees can choose to start and finish work each day at any time between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., as long as they meet core hours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.


■Homeworking
Homeworking arrangements were trialed in fiscal 2016 and fully introduced in some workplaces in fiscal 2017. By digitizing documents and using information and communications devices to raise productivity, we have made it possible for  employees to work from home. Over 350 employees have already applied to use these arrangements.
 

■Mobile working
Arrangements have been introduced to allow employees to work away from the office using mobile communication devices in order to make effective use of time in transit and spare moments so as to raise work efficiency.

 

■Designated "no overtime days"
At Tokyo Gas, one day each month is designated as a day for employees to leave work on time. This provides an opportunity for employees to take another look at how they approach their work so that they can achieve maximum results within a limited period of time.

■Prohibition of overtime from 10 p.m.
Work after 10 p.m. has been prohibited in principle since April 2017 to protect employee health.


■Premium Friday
Since February 2017, employees have been encouraged to take a half day off or use flex-time to finish work early on the last Friday of each month as long as this does not disrupt work. The aim of this is to get us all thinking about how we approach our work and to further raise productivity. 
 

■Morning-oriented work to make use of summer evenings
In July and August only, employees are encouraged to start and finish work around 30-60 minutes earlier than usual as long as this does not disrupt work.

■Encouraging summer leave-taking

The period from July to September has been designated "summer leave-taking time" with the aim of getting all employees to take at least seven days of paid leave during this window.

 

■“Waku Waku Work” work style innovation
In fiscal 2016, we established an Operational Reforms Project Department to explore new work styles for the Group.
Punning on the similarity of the Japanese word for “to bubble up or be excited about something” (waku) and the word “work,” we have defined positive, exciting styles of work that generate value and raise productivity as “Waku Waku Work”—work that is, in other words, value creating, varied, and fun. Using ICT and other resources, we have trialed the following three forms of Waku Waku Work categorized according to objective.
The IT Application Dept. has been given responsibility for these programs from fiscal 2017, and work style innovation continues. Moving forward, exciting waku waku work styles tailored to the needs of each workplace will be explored and implemented.

Challenges to Overcome to Achieve Goals

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


Three Styles of Work as Means of Operational Reform

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