The Tokyo Gas Group actively supports diversity to promote the advancement of people with various talents as essential for our future growth and development.
 

As competition between energy companies continues to intensify, the Tokyo Gas Group strives to maintain its position as the customer's choice and to achieve sustainable growth and development far into the future.
One key priority for the Group as a whole is to promote diversity. For us to continue to meet diversifying customer needs, every Group employee must have the chance to excel and fully apply their knowledge, ability and experience and to work effectively in teams.
We are committed as a corporate group to developing and expanding systems to achieve this goal and foster employee awareness while continuing to proactively create an organizational culture in which all excel, regardless of gender, age, disability, nationality or sexual orientation, and whether they were hired straight out of university or mid-career. 

April 2018
Takashi Uchida
Representative Director, President and CEO
Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.

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.

The Tokyo Gas Group has set up a Group Diversity Promotion Team in the Personnel Department to work closely with management in effectively implementing a variety of initiatives and meeting the objectives of promoting women’s careers, increasing employment of persons with disabilities, and Grand Career Support^*.
*Development of career opportunities for employees in their 50s or older. Tokyo Gas Group Diversity Promotion Program


Overview of the Tokyo Gas Group Diversity Promotion Activities

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 3.5% in 9 years, from 4.1% in 2009 to 7.6% in 2018. Appointments to the general manager and manager level in particular have dramatically increased from 4 to 19, 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.

*1 Number of Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) are as of April 1 of each fiscal year.
*2 Employees in supervisory positions, or employees of equivalent status. No significant difference in average age between male and female employees.

*3 Tokyo Gas employees, as of end of March of each fiscal year. No significant difference in length of employment between male and female employees.

*4 Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of end of March of each fiscal year. Most of our employees return to work after taking a maternity leave. 

*5 Tokyo Gas employees (registered personnel) as of end of March of each fiscal year.  
*6 Percentage of those returning to work after maternity leave in each fiscal year.
*7 New graduates (graduates, undergraduates, technical college graduates) among Tokyo Gas employees as of April 1 of each fiscal year.  

Efforts for Promoting Female Advancement (Based on The Act of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace)

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 FY2017^*8

Date	Theme	Number of attendees
May 2017	Seminar for managers with subordinates who have small children	38
November 2017	Lecture on promoting the active participation of diverse human resources	350
January 2018	Seminar on women’s career development	34
March 2018	Seminar for employees returning to work after childcare leave	27

*8 Data represents the Tokyo Gas Group employees.

Training for Female Employees

 

In April 2016, we established a Grand Career Support Program, replacing our previous programs, which had primarily focused on enriching the life of employees in retirement. The new program provides comprehensive support for employee career development assuming that they will work until age 65. Also, it is intended to improve the motivation and performance of our employees over 50 years old by clarifying the work they can contribute through interviews with training and career consultants in the Personnel Department.

State of Reemployment after Mandatory Retirement

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

*1 Number of employees of mandatory retirement at age 60
*2 Number of rehired employees after mandatory retirement
*3 Data for Tokyo Gas, Co., Ltd.

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. In addition, our consultation desks satisfy the adoption of “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, for example, training for human rights promotion leaders. Additionally, we organize related talks by outside speakers for middle-level managers and human resource managers.


Training for human rights promotion leaders

Multipurpose, accessible bathrooms are available and equipped to accommodate people using wheelchairs as well as ostomates^* 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.

*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

As a major pillars of our personnel policy, we are strengthening our organization by drawing out the skills of every employee so they can achieve their full potential. 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.
In April 2014, we extended the period of eligibility to work shorter hours to care for small children from the end of third grade to the end of sixth grade. Provision was further enhanced in April 2017 employees were permitted to flexibly change the date on which they intended to return to work from parental leave if they were unable to obtain a nursery place for their child. As for nursing care, a three-year period for a leave or for nursing care work has become available to all employees. The parental leave, nursing care leave, and shortened working hour schemes are longer than those required by law. 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.
 

Program	Content	Item	2015		2016		2017
			Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Parental leave	Until the end of April immediately following the child’s 3rd birthday	Number of users	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	Flex-time system is available during pregnancy and until child completes 6th grade	Number of users	213		227		3	214
Nursing care leave	Up to 3 years for one relative within the second degree of kinship requiring nursing care.	Number of users	3		4		0	1
Nursing care work	Flex-time system is available for up to 3 years for one relative within the second degree of kinship requiring nursing care.	Number of users	0		3		0	2
Leave to accompany partner	For employees accompanying a spouse posted overseas	Number of users	4		4		3
Community service leave	Special leave (paid) for up to 5 days within 1 year	Total (including repeat users)	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)	Number of users	594		514		673

*1 Data for Tokyo Gas, Co., Ltd.
*2 Percentage of employees taking parental leave each fiscal year who returned to work at the company.

Support for Work-Parenting Balance

Management tenaciously focuses on the value of “time” long working hours 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

In fiscal 2018, we established and started implementing our “Work Style Reform Action Plan,” as required by Keidanren for member companies.
The plan defines goals for three focus areas: rectifying long working hours, encouraging employees to take annual leave, and promoting flexible work styles. We also set numerical targets to ensure successful implementation.

Work Style Action Plan

	KPIs (Numerical Targets)
Theme 1: Rectifying long working hours	By fiscal 2020, reduce cases of over 80 hours of extra non-legal working hours per month to zero (0), and in fiscal 2017 cut cases of 60–80 hours/month by half
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 (0)
Theme 3: Promoting flexible work styles	Create an environment that allows for teleworking for all employees by 2020

 

Generally Prohibiting Overtime Work after 20:00

In principle, we prohibit overtime work after 20:00 so as to help our employees maintain their health, promote diversity in our human resources, and secure the work-life balance.
 

Work-at-home Program

The work-at-home program was tested in fiscal 2016 and fully introduced in some workplaces in fiscal 2017. Digitizing documents and the use of information and mobile devices to boost productivity have made it possible for employees to work from home. Over 350 employees have already applied for these arrangements, and we expect the number to rise as we increase the applicable workplaces and further update the ICT environment.
 

Mobile Working

Arrangements have been made to allow employees to work away from the office using mobile devices to more effectively use time spent commuting or in transit for greater efficiency.
 

Flex-time System

Employees can flexibly alter their reporting and leaving time between 7:00 and 22:00 through consultation with their superiors as long as they include the required core time (mandatory working hours) of 10:00 to 15:00. This system applies to about 90% of our employees, excluding shift workers.
 

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 flex-time to finish work early on the last Friday of each month as long as this does not disrupt work.
 

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 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.
 

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.
 

Declaration of Time to Leave Office

   

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

The RPA Office promotes operational optimization by actively utilizing RPA, which automates business operations through software. As of April 2018, eight departments have adopted the program, and others plan to do so as well.
 

“Waku Waku Work” Work Style Innovation

We have defined positive, exciting styles of work that generate value and raise productivity as Waku Waku Work, which is work that is value creating, varied and fun. Using ICT and other resources, we have been working on the following three forms of Waku Waku Work categorized according to objective. Under the leadership of promotion managers at each department and headquarters, each workplace has been exploring and implementing exciting work styles.

Challenges to Overcome toward Achieving Goals

“Three Works” as Measures for Work Innovation