Policy

While business is operated globally, the structure of society is changing dramatically. The population continues to age, and the way of hiring people as well as working styles are changing in various ways. In this time of change, it's necessary to ensure a comfortable and safe workplace environment for all employees and enable them to make the most of their capabilities and possibilities.
The Asahi Kasei Group regards all employees as precious assets. In terms of maintaining health and safety at our workplaces and work sites, our ESH & QA Principles state: "In all operations, we give the utmost consideration to health, operational safety, workplace safety and hygiene, quality assurance, and environmental protection throughout the product life cycle from R&D to disposal, as preeminent management tasks." Based on this, in cooperation with employees, we strive for a comfortable workplace environment throughout the company.

Preventive action for occupational accidents

In fiscal 2020, the Asahi Kasei Group established a Life Saving Actions (LSA) program to eradicate serious occupational accidents, and we began implementing it throughout the Group. We have established the following four behaviors as prohibited behaviors that could result in loss of life if not observed, and are promoting thorough adherence to these behaviors in all aspects of our business activities.

In addition, our ongoing efforts to prevent workplace accidents is integrated into our comprehensive OHSMS¹ program that combines conventional safety and hygiene initiatives² with risk assessments and a prevention-oriented plan-do-check-act (PDCA) system.

• ¹Occupational Health and Safety Management System: A standardized management system used to confirm that continuous improvement is being applied to measures to minimize the risks of workplace injuries and to prevent the emergence of future risks
• ²Tidiness/orderliness/cleanliness (3S), reporting of near-accidents and potential hazards, hazard prediction analysis, safety patrols, and case studies

Approach to prevent occupational accidents

Inherent safety and safeguards

Measures to achieve inherent safety and the application of safeguards to avoid risks are generally considered to provide the greatest level of safety, as shown in the following table. We incorporate such measures in the construction of new or replacement facilities, upon safety reviews of existing facilities, and to prevent the recurrence of accidents.

Systems for safe operation

Our group is striving to ensure safety in our activities to comply with safe operating standards^*. Specifically, we are devising and implementing measures such as checking the status of compliance with safe operating standards in our daily operations. Operations for which the elimination of risk through equipment modification is impractical are classified as operations requiring special control and strictly managed, such as by ensuring worker competence and prior plan-based approval.

• *Rather than individual rules for specific procedures, safe operating standards are a system of safety principles which define common safety practices that apply to categories of operation based on similarity of risk. For example, to prevent entanglement in machinery, our standard stipulates not to touch any exposed moving parts.

Sharing and utilizing information of occupational accidents

We investigate causes and take measures to prevent recurrence at sites where workplace accidents occur. We share a database of information on all workplace accidents within the Asahi Kasei Group for utilization in activities such as safety training, case study discussions, and prevention of similar accidents.

Occupational accident statistics

In fiscal 2021, 22 lost-worktime injuries occurred among Group employees in Japan. Classifying these accidents by type, there has been a decrease in recent years in the “fall from height,” “caught in/between something else,” and “traffic accident (road)” categories, which are the targets of the aforementioned Life Saving Actions program. We will also promote activities to prevent other types of occupational accidents that can easily lead to serious accidents.

• ¹Number of accidental deaths and injuries resulting in the loss of one or more workdays, per million man-hours worked.
  Our goal of 0.1 or less is extremely ambitious. At a plant with 100 workers, it would mean only one worker in 50 years suffered from a workplace injury which resulted in a day off.
• ²Lost workdays, severity-weighted, per thousand man-hours worked.

Maintaining and improving comfortable workplaces

Workplaces where potential health hazards are present are subject to regular monitoring under the Working Environment Measurement Law. Additionally, we will manage risks for chemicals to identify and reduce risks resulting from chemical substances.
Noise and heat exposure data are recorded and maintained for all relevant personnel to enable each individual's exposure to be managed and minimized. We are advancing plant modification and reviewing work procedures to create a more comfortable work environment.

Dealing with the asbestos issue

We have dealt with the asbestos issue as explained below.

	Specific Measures
Measures for buildings owned by our Group, including its plants	Conducted asbestos surveys and systematically removed, contained, or enclosed it in accordance with the Ordinance on Prevention of Health Impairment Due to Asbestos.
Replacement of asbestos in plant joint sheets	Asbestos in joint sheets is replaced with non-asbestos materials sequentially when joints are opened for inspection or maintenance.
Responding to health issues of our Group retirees	The Group does not engage in the production or handling of asbestos as specified in the Ordinance on Prevention of Health Impairment Due to Asbestos. However, if a retiree who had handled asbestos on a temporary basis during his or her tenure with the Group (for maintenance purposes for example) requests it, he or she can receive a medical examination and a follow-up will be conducted.

Policy and Promotion System

The employee health landscape has altered dramatically in recent years with an ageing workforce and increased stress from changes in the business and social environment. At the same time, for the Asahi Kasei Group to provide value to society through its business, we need employees to be more productive and creative than ever.
In response, we have been developing health & productivity management^*, which positions health-related initiatives as a company-wide management issue, and expand on the health management of past ESH & QA activities. We announced our Health & Productivity Management Policy as “promoting and supporting initiatives for maintaining and advancing the physical and mental health of employees based on health management activities, and improving the organizational environment by enhancing both individual and organizational vitality.”
We established Corporate Health & Productivity Management in January 2020, appointed Executive Officers with responsibility and deputy responsibility for health & productivity management in April 2020, and issued a Statement on Management for Health in October 2020. In terms of continuously raising corporate value, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to provide an environment in which employees can maintain their physical and mental health as they play an active role. We will work to further promote health & productivity management based on the Group Health & Productivity Management Vision described in the Statement.
In April 2021, the health management centers that our occupational health staff belong to at our nine major sites in Japan, including our Tokyo Head Office and our branches in Nobeoka City, Miyazaki Prefecture, and Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, were placed under the authority of Corporate Health & Productivity Management. The system was changed to enable standardization and overall optimization of health-related operations, strengthen cooperation among sites, and enable a prompt response to issues shared within the Group, and we have begun health & productivity management at these locations. Furthermore, starting April 2022, we have instituted health & productivity management at our smaller offices and affiliated companies in Japan.
In addition, we are preparing to expand our health & productivity management around the world by 2024. We will also strengthen our efforts to maintain and promote the health of women and “well-being management,” which aims not only for physical and mental health by achieving the effects of our health & productivity management measures and performance improvements, but also, as the next step, by having employees achieve sound physical, mental, and social well-being.

• * In Japanese “Kenkokeiei” is a registered trademark of Nonprofit Organaization Kenkokeiei.

Overview of health & productivity management

Health & Productivity Management Objectives

To achieve our health & productivity management objectives, we believe it is important both to create opportunities for employees to be active and grow, and to revitalize individuals and organizations.
To create opportunities for employees to be active and grow, we will reduce the number of days employees take off work. We also believe that reducing the number of days employees take off work is not enough to promote health & productivity management, so we will work to make individuals and their workplaces more active.
From the perspective of improving productivity, we will also strive to help employees get more and better-quality sleep, a lack of which is said to be a major contributing factor behind "presenteeism¹."
For this reason, the Group has set its primary health & productivity management goals as follows: (1) creation of opportunities for employees to play an active role and grow, etc. (improving the absence rate through countermeasures for mental health issues, people with serious lifestyle-related diseases, people with metabolic syndrome, cancer, and smoking), (2) revitalizing individuals and organizations (improving work engagement²), and (3) improving the quality and quantity of sleep.

• ¹ A state in which employees go to work but are unable to perform due to physical and mental health issues. In a study conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) that used the WHO-HPQ to measure employee productivity, it was reported that presenteeism accounts for 60-80% of total health-related costs.
• ² A positive and fulfilling psychological mindset toward one’s work that consists of three components: enthusiasm, immersion, and vitality.

(1) Creating opportunities for employees to play an active role and grow, etc. (improving the absence rate)

	FY2019 Results	FY2020 Results	FY2021 Results	FY2022 Target	FY2024 Target (compared to FY2019 results)
Percentage of employees absent from work due to mental health issues1	0.91%	0.98%	1.00%	0.80%	0.64% (30% reduction)
Percentage of employees seriously ill with lifestyle-related diseases2	11.0%	11.0%	10.7%	9.9%	7.7% (30% reduction)
Percentage of employees suffering from metabolic syndrome	11.1%	11.4%	11.0%	9.9%	7.8% (30% reduction)
Number of days off per cancer case	79.2 Days	68.1 Days	87.5 days	67.3 Days	67.3 Days (15% reduction)
Smoking rate	25.8%	24.7%	23.5%	20.7%	15.5% (40% reduction)
Percentage of employees who do not get enough rest from sleep	32.4%	28.5%	27.2%	27.4%	22.7% (30% reduction)

• ¹ Percentage of employees who are absent from work for 30 or more consecutive days during the fiscal year
• ² Selected based on in-house criteria

(2) Revitalizing individuals and organizations (improving work engagement)

Each July, the Group conducts a mental health checkup using the simple mental health support system “Organizational Stress Assessment e-Diagnosis” (Fujitsu Software Technologies Limited). This initiative is aimed at primary prevention and encourages employees to become aware of their own stress levels and reduce the risk of mental health issues. Moreover, the results of the e-diagnosis are analyzed by workplace, allowing us to identify situations that cause stress for each workplace as well as the factors thereof, and thus promote activities to improve the workplace environment. The objective of these efforts is to reduce stress factors originating from the workplace itself.
In fiscal 2020, we introduced KSA (Vitality and Growth Assessment), which enables us to analyze and visualize work engagement (enthusiasm, immersion, and vitality) in workplaces in more detail than the employee awareness survey, which had a broader range of questions. We will use the results of the KSA analysis to have employees engage in dialogue with each other at their workplaces, with the aim of further improving work engagement.
In the future, we will also build a system to utilize the results of the e-Diagnosis and KSA surveys in a comprehensive manner as a support tool to further revitalize individuals and organizations at each workplace.

• Overview of KSA (Vitality and Growth Assessment)

(3) Improving the quality and quantity of sleep

Presenteeism generally accounts for 60-80% of total health-related costs, and this is said to be several times higher than medical costs. Next to mental health issues, the quality and quantity of sleep is considered to be a major cause of presenteeism, so we will promote countermeasures to address this problem.
Specifically, we will (1) establish a method for evaluating sleep, (2) investigate ways to handle employees who are not getting enough sleep, and (3) promote education and training to improve sleep literacy.
In addition, starting in fiscal 2022, reducing the percentage of employees who do not get enough rest from sleep has been newly established as a KPI for sleep as part of our Health & Productivity Management Objectives.

Specific initiatives

Mental health and care

The Asahi Kasei Group is working to reduce the rate of employees missing work due to mental health issues by enhancing its four complimentary approaches to care in accordance with its mental health care guidelines.

• (1) Self-care

  Many kinds of factors may cause absence from work due to mental health issues, and the cause often cannot be attributed to a single factor, so addressing the issue is not easy. In this situation, as a primary preventive measure, we believe that it is important for employees, no matter what the causes of their absences may be, to identify and recognize the stress they are under, and we must support measures for preventing and reducing stress.
  To promote understanding of stress and how to approach mental health, we will implement and improve training on mental health, beginning with new employees and career hires. We believe it is essential to provide training to a wide range of employees, so in fiscal 2022 we began a nationwide e-learning program, with approximately 10,000 employees taking the course.

• (2) Care provided by occupational health staff and others

  We use the mental health support system e-Diagnosis, and in addition to individual stress surveys, we also conduct workplace stress analysis using “Health and Vitality Criteria.”
  Moreover, at the Tokyo Head Office and our sales offices in Tokyo and Osaka, we have begun administering the Health Questionnaire for Transferred Employees to check the status of employees who have been transferred to other locations for various reasons and see how they are adapting to life and work in their new environment. This allows us to take early action for employees who show signs of poor health to prevent serious conditions. Going forward, we will work to prevent mental health issues associated with transfers by creating the necessary manuals, tools, and other materials to implement this initiative broadly at our major manufacturing sites in Japan and throughout the company.

• (3) Line care

  As part of our “Line Care” initiative, we are working to improve the workplace environment in each area by using measures such as the Health and Vitality Criteria (Nobeoka region) and MIRROR^* (Fuji region). In fiscal 2021, we once again held a workshop in the Mizushima region that made comprehensive utilization of e-Diagnosis and KSA in collaboration with the human resources department, occupational health staff, and labor unions.
  

  • * MIRROR: A tool for improving the work environment. Learning about and discussing the most desirable workplace.
• (4) Care provided by specialized organizations

  A provision for shortened working days is available for personnel returning from leave of absence for psychiatric convalescence as well as for any other injury or illness, enabling a gradual recovery of a full work load. At each plant site and office location, we provide care by specialists, including training sessions by external lecturers and referral of counseling services.

• (5) Analysis of direct factors and circumstances resulting in leave of absence for mental health

  To reduce the number of employees who are absent from work due to mental health issues, we use the “Stress Classification Tool for Absent Employees.” To identify the causes of their absences, occupational health staff use interview results to input the contribution ratio of direct factors and background information into the tool, then analyze the trends and characteristics by region and visualize the results in graph form. Results from each site are also aggregated, with company-wide data analyzed according to various aspects such as job category and position, which are then shared throughout the company, and for which countermeasures are created.

Initiatives for employees with severe lifestyle-related diseases and metabolic syndrome

In order to maintain and improve the health of our employees, the Asahi Kasei Group is working to prevent and address lifestyle-related diseases. In addition to running the Asahi Health Up Program, a program that provides specific health guidance and has been implemented in the past, the Slim Up Challenge project was launched in fiscal 2021 with the aim of intervening at a younger age and curbing the onset of lifestyle-related diseases to keep them from worsening and complications from developing. By expanding the target groups beyond those of the specific health guidance, we are working to help prevent lifestyle-related diseases by getting involved early on with groups that were not previously reached.

Efforts to Reduce the Smoking Rate

In addition to the Non-smoking Challenge, an optional non-smoking program planned and implemented thus far by the Asahi Kasei Health Insurance Society, we hold non-smoking seminars and other events for smokers at each of our sites. Also, to address the problem of secondhand smoke, we are working to reduce the number of smoking areas, convert them into outside smoking areas, and ban smoking during work hours.

Health & Productivity Management Strategy Map

We approach health & productivity management by first fully grasping the hoped-for results from our investments and measures, and how our initiatives lead to concrete actions that can resolve the issues that we hope to address. We have charted these relationships on a diagram.

• Strategy Map

Education on Health & Productivity Management

To support employees in acquiring knowledge and skills for health & productivity management, the Group provides a number of training programs based on the job roles for the various employee ranks.

Name	Method of Training	Purpose	FY2021 Number of Attendees
New hire training	Online Training	Gain an understanding of the basic concept of health as a member of society and learn about essential company rules	283
Basic Training for New Section Heads	e-learning	Gain an understanding of the overview, action framework, and responsibilities of the basic approach to health management as a section head	305
Training for New Technology-related Section Heads	Online Training	Gain an understanding of the current safety situation within the Group, review on-site safety, and receive lessons learned from accidents that occurred within the Group	224
Safety Training for Managers	Online Training	Gain an understanding of the current safety situation within the Group, review on-site safety, and receive lessons learned from accidents that occurred within the Group	128
Business Management Training	e-learning	Gain an overview of the Group’s health & productivity management and the importance of health & productivity management as a member of the management team	329

Addressing Global Health Challenges

Increase in Ventilator Production Due to Global COVID-19 Pandemic

ZOLL Medical Corporation (hereafter “ZOLL”), a member of our Group, determined that it was imperative to increase production and promptly deliver ventilators to hospitals due to the growing concern about ventilator shortages in the United States as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and requests by the U.S. government. ZOLL thus began increasing production in March 2020 by converting some of its automated external defibrillator (AED) production lines for use in producing ventilators to increase production to 10,000 units/month, which was approximately 25 times the normal production volume.
ZOLL’s ventilators are portable and used in intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency vehicles. Special filters with top-class performance prevent the spread of viruses, thereby reducing the risk of infection not only for patients, but also for healthcare workers and others providing treatment.

COVID-19 Workplace Vaccination Initiatives

Health Management Support for Overseas Employees

In response to the increasing number of employees working overseas as a result of our global expansion, we are enhancing our health management.
While the health care situation varies slightly depending on the length of the assignment, we provide pre-transfer medical checkups, vaccinations, advance Tamiflu prescriptions (anti-influenza medication) in case of a new influenza pandemic, and pre-transfer health education, as well as annual medical checkups throughout employees’ assignments and a post-transfer medical checkup upon their return.
During an assignment, a web interview with an industrial physician is conducted six months after the assignment. In addition to conducting e-diagnoses (stress checks) as in Japan, we also conduct questionnaires on employees’ subjective symptoms, local lifestyles, mental and physical health, and, continuing from 2020, COVID-19 and vaccination status via the Health Survey form for employees and their family members who wish to participate. We then conduct online interviews with industrial physicians and public health nurses as required based on the survey and health examination results.
Moreover, for employees working overseas who are suspected of working long hours based on their total computer access time, online interviews with industrial physicians are conducted based on the questionnaire results.
“Health Letter from Tokyo” is regularly distributed to expatriates as well, providing information such as health checkup results and lifestyle questionnaires, health information, and interviews with expatriates, all compiled by region. Also, in collaboration with a medical assistance company, we provide support for medical examinations at local medical institutions and health consultations to address health concerns and issues.