As we accelerate the global expansion of our business, the environment in which our employees operate in is becoming more diverse than ever, which is why it is important for us to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) so that all employees can play an active role in the company while demonstrating the full extent of their abilities. Specifically, in order to achieve continuous business growth, it is important to employ, train and retain human resources and to achieve the status where "employees can work safely and actively while respecting different and diversified values." For this reason, we are promoting a wide range of initiatives, including a system that allows each employee to demonstrate their individuality, a fair, highly transparent, and attractive corporate culture, as well as a flexible work environment that can adapt to change. We established "Difference" × "Sense of Unity" as a theme for promoting DE&I. New awareness and ideas will emerge when human resources with different backgrounds and ideas work together. Our aim is to become a company that has a sense of unity and is attractive to people outside the company, and to create an organization full of human resources who desire to work actively in our company for a long time by fostering a corporate culture accepting of diversity. Click here to see the results of the engagement survey.
Our efforts to promote diversity focus on three main areas: management, individual experiences and perspectives, and work styles.
When it comes to the diversification of managerial positions, we promote diversification particularly in three main areas: young employees, mid-career recruits, and female employees. Specifically, we have made it possible for young employees to be selected for managerial positions at an early stage by eliminating the seniority system for some grades in the promotion system in FY2022. We also actively appoint mid-career recruits to manager positions. There are currently around 100 mid-career recruits who are playing an active role as managers, which is 17% of all management positions within our company. As for the active engagement of female employees in managerial positions, although the ratio of female managers increased by 1.7% since FY2022, it still remains at 5.8% (FY2023) and is one of the challenges our company is striving to address. First, in order to increase the number of candidates for female managerial positions, we have set a target ratio of 15% female managers at the section manager level for the two-year period from April 2021 in accordance with the Act on the Promotion of Women's Active Engagement in Professional Life, and we are happy to report that we have achieved this goal. Going forward, we will strive to achieve a 10% ratio of female managers by FY2026 and 20% by FY2031. In FY2023, we conducted training for all managers on unconscious bias, which is one of the factors that hinder diversity management. In particular, we conducted training for directors and general managers to control their unconscious bias and consider the development of female managers. We will continue to develop systems and environments which recruit, train, and retain talent in a fair manner regardless of age, company history, or gender as we strive to achieve our goals.
| Goal | Action plan | Annual Results |
|---|---|---|
| Increase the percentage of female employees at managerial level to 10% or higher by FY2026. |
|
The percentage of female employees at managerial level FY2023：5.8% |
We have established an "open recruitment system" and an "internal challenge job system" so that individual employees can acquire diversified experiences and perspectives. We also began to allow our employees to engage in "side business and concurrent business" from April 2023 in order to acquire new knowledge and experience that cannot be obtained from internal operations.
By acquiring diversified experiences and perspectives regardless of whether they are obtained from inside or outside the company, we aim for further improvement of productivity and the creation of revolutionary innovation.
In promoting the diversification of managerial positions, individual experiences, and perspectives, we believe it is important to not only diversify work styles, but to also continuously develop work environments to make it easier for our employees to work. We constantly strive to improve work-life balance by reforming work styles that contribute to recruiting and securing excellent talent. We have also been promoting DX and improving our systems by utilizing IT to further streamline our operations, and in order to create an attractive work environment, we introduced several systems that eliminates core time, such as a super-flex time system, a telecommuting system, and a work interval system. In FY2023, the average monthly overtime hours per employee was 16.2 hours, and the average paid leave utilization rate was 71.3%, meaning that monthly overtime hours for that year was at the same level as that of the previous year, and that we achieved our target paid leave utilization rate of 70%. In FY2024, we will promote the realization of more flexible work styles by introducing a flextime system for outside sales staff and increasing the number of annual paid leave days granted (uniformly 20 days) regardless of length of service. In addition, we aim to achieve more balanced work styles by reducing average monthly overtime hours by 3 hours (10 minutes per day) per employee and setting the paid leave utilization rate at 70% or higher. Through such efforts to diversify work styles, we will create an attractive work environment, which will help to enhance our company’s competitiveness in recruitment and secure excellent talent.
We believe that society as a whole should support families raising children and that creating an environment that supports childbearing and childrearing is one of the challenges that companies should address. We formulated an action plan based on the "Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children," and are working to support employees in balancing their work and childrearing.
We are currently working toward our goal of having at least 80% of our male employees take either childcare leave or reduce the amount of hours that they work. After April 2017, we introduced a new childcare support system, "Encouraging Leave for Childcare Participation," and we are also developing an environment to promote understanding of the workplace among male employees who take childcare leave that child-rearing is a life event for both men and women. In concrete terms, we provide guidance for the purpose of support from pregnancy, the start of childrearing, and reinstatement (pre-mother, pre-father guidance) and orientation at the reinstatement from childcare leave for the purpose of reducing anxiety at reinstatement and supporting smooth returns to work as well as follow-up seminars after reinstatement from childcare leave for employees and their supervisors (seminars to support work-life balance starting after reinstatement from childcare leave). Thus, we support our employees in balancing work and childcare. We also disseminate information such male employees’ experiences taking childcare leave through our internal company newsletter and web portal. In recognition of these activities to support a balance of work and childcare and create a supportive work environment, we were certified by the Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare as a standard-compliant general company, and we were awarded the mark of certification as a childcare support company (Kurumin) five times between 2008, and the Platinum Kurumin certification in November 2019.
| Goal | Action plan | Annual Results |
|---|---|---|
| Increase either the percentage of childcare leave or the percentage of reduced working hours taken by male employees to 80% or higher by FY2026. |
|
Percentage of Male Employees Taking Childcare Leave FY2023：65.4% Average number of days of male employees taking childcare leave FY2023：46.2days |
Percentage of Male Employees Taking Childcare Leave
Retention rate of female*
While employees may take leave when they cannot come to work due to attendance to weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies of their own or their family members, moving for job transfer, and accidents, disasters, and other events of force majeure, we also have systems in which special paid holidays can be taken under other circumstances.
We have been proactively promoting the employment of challenged persons and creating a work environment where challenged persons can work easily. In April 2022, we established a 100% subsidiary, Ono Pharma UD Co., Ltd., in order to provide more working opportunities for challenged persons. In October 2022, it was certified as a specified subsidiary and engaged in printing business at the beginning. In the future, we will expand it as a place where challenged employees can fully show their abilities and work actively in a greater variety of businesses. As mentioned above, we would like to contribute to a sustainable society by providing worksites where employees can engage in meaningful work. Currently, more than 30 employees are working actively.
Employment rate of persons with disabilities
We are engaging in creating worksites where our employees respect diversity, such as sexual orientation and gender identification (SOGI), where individuals who are LGBTQ+ can ensure their psychological safety and work, as part of promotion of DE&I. Additionally, we regularly implement e-learning courses for all employees, seminars with external speakers, and training specifically designed for managers in order to promote employees’ understanding of SOGI and enable them to respond appropriately based on accurate knowledge.
In addition, in order to visually convey to all parties concerned that there are Allies (people who understand and support LGBTQ+) within the company, we have created original Ally stickers, which we distribute to employees who wish to receive them.
In recognition of these activities, we were awarded the "Silver" designation in the "PRIDE Index 2023," organized by the General Incorporated Association Work with Pride. This index evaluates the initiatives of companies and organizations regarding LGBTQ+ inclusion.
We will continue to steadily implement each of our initiatives to create a comfortable working environment for our LGBTQ+ individuals.
For more information on PRIDE indicators, please see here.
In October 2023, we rolled out the Global HR System with the aim of enabling our diverse workforce to play an active role globally with a common set of values. Specifically, we aim to standardize HR policies and business processes such as talent management by globally unifying the concepts and processes of each system, namely grade, evaluation, and compensation, which comprise the framework of the system.
The duties and responsibilities of each employee are clarified, and grades are determined according to common global standards. This will foster a sense of satisfaction regarding the required roles, achievements, and compensation, and will encourage employee career autonomy by clarifying the requirements for each position.
We have established common global competencies (a clear statement of the way we expect our employees to think and act), and concurrently standardized evaluation items, scales, and processes. This will promote the activities and development of talent across countries and locations, and encourage employees to demonstrate their competencies. In addition, we have included "fairness and integrity" in competencies and included compliance in all employees' personnel evaluations in an effort to improve employees’ awareness of compliance by directly linking it to their compensation. Individual goals are set at the beginning of each fiscal year, cascading down from higher-level goals. In addition to quarterly interviews held during the fiscal year, these goals are updated as necessary by communicating according to changes in each employee’s circumstances. At the end of the fiscal year, a summary interview and evaluation feedback interview are held to discuss the individual strengths and weaknesses of each employee, and to discuss future career development.
We will create common global guidelines, reward employees who produce results and demonstrate competency, and help motivate employees by utilizing a market-competitive compensation system.
We comply with the Minimum Wage Law and pay our employees more than the minimum wage. We protect the lives of our employees and promote the creation of workplaces where employees can work with peace of mind.
We have two labor unions: the ONO Pharmaceutical Labor Union, which is a nationwide organization, and the ONO Pharmaceutical Chemical & General Workers’ Union at the Joto Pharmaceutical Product Development Center. As of March 31, 2024 the ONO Pharmaceutical Labor Union had 1,820 members and the ONO Pharmaceutical Chemical & General Workers’ Union had 12 members. Both unions have good relationships with the company.