People

The Kuraray Group consists of employees from various nationalities and backgrounds, and the active participation of all diverse members is crucial to the long-term and sustainable improvement of corporate value.
We have developed basic policies that will guide each company in Kuraray Group to follow and to establish HR policies, systems, and work environments that enable all employees in the Group to contribute to the growth of the company and, at the same time, to pursue their personal growth and happiness through their jobs, regardless of the work they are involved in or where they are located.

Sociality Goals and Actual Performance (FY2020 Actual)

Number of Employees

Number of Employees   As of December 31, 2020
	Total	Male	Female
Kuraray Group as a whole	11,219	9,142	2,077
Kuraray only	4,211	3,701	510

Employee Turnover Rate (Kuraray Co., Ltd.)

Employee Turnover Rate (Kuraray Co., Ltd.) FY2020

	Number of Employee Turnover	Turnover rate
Personal reasons	59	1.40%
Retirement	24	0.57%

Talent Development

For the Kuraray Group companies in Japan, we have established a companywide training scheme to support acquisition of the knowledge and skills required for jobs and career-building efforts by employees themselves.

The training is open not only to regular employees but also part-time and contract-based ones. The Kuraray plants and domestic group companies plan and implement their own talent development programs and provide their employees with finely tuned support for skill development and career-building. We also have an incentive system under which it furnishes grants for acquisition of certain public qualifications by employees for their own self-improvement.

In fiscal 2020, we launched the Kuraray PRIDE as a mechanism to strengthen our business creation capability, and Autonomous Learning Program for Achieving Career Development (ALPACA) as a mechanism to promote and support employees’ autonomous competence enhancement.

Global Talent Development Program

The Kuraray Group’s sales ratio outside Japan is close to 70% in recent years, and 40% of the entire Group’s staff work outside Japan.

The Kuraray Group, for our global growth, launched a Global Talent Development Program starting in fiscal 2007, in order to foster personnel who can actively play a part on the global stage. Over 800 persons globally have attended in the 13 years up to fiscal 2020, and we conduct annual reviews to the program while providing continued training.

GTT (Global Team Training) is a prominent example of our training, aimed at developing global leadership among section manager class personnel, and has been held 18 times in total with approximately 350 attendees. The network of training alumni offers significant contributions toward promoting group-wide communication that goes beyond national borders.

Our trainee program is another successful example, where we send young employees between Japanese and overseas companies for a three-month period. More than 100 people have participated, and many of them have been engaging in achievements as global talent later, such as being stationed abroad.

Global Talent Management

Similarly, with regard to talent management, we are engaging in initiatives to develop the foundations for talent management at a global scale with an aim to optimize the worldwide utilization of talent. Since fiscal 2017, we have introduced a globally uniform personnel evaluation system and human resource information system on a stepwise basis. Based on these systems, We will implement the following basic human resource management processes on a global scale: 1) setting work goals and performing personnel evaluation based on these goals; 2) supporting capacity building and career development; 3) finding competent personnel, rotation and optimal allocation of personnel, and reviewing the personnel succession plan.

Kuraray also introduced behavioral indicators (Kuraray Competency 5x5) that will be applied to the Group companies globally, and is utilizing them as personnel evaluation items and indicators of capacity development. In addition, We sorted out job grades, which were different in each country and company, as global grades based on the duty size and is utilizing them for personnel allocation and selection of participants for human resource development programs.

・Mechanism to Support Autonomous Career Development

The Kuraray Group has been utilizing a “mechanism to support a self-career development,” aiming at creating organizations in which each employee actively tackles their career development and engages in work enthusiastically. As part of this scheme, “Training for Designing One’s Own Career” is undertaken for employees.

From the launch of the program in 2015, 800 persons received the training.
After receiving the training, the trainees are interviewed by an in-house career advisor and receive support to attain their career goals.

Fair and Equal System

・HR System

Kuraray has instituted a personnel evaluation system in which elements such as improvement of job execution capabilities, performances, roles, and spirits to tackle demanding targets (as opposed to seniority or personal factors) are reflected in remuneration. Specifically, we instituted a scheme of role and rank for management positions, under which remuneration slides with the role and performance, and a scheme of skill and position for ordinary employees, under which remuneration reflects the extent of skills and performance. We have also incorporated a scheme whereby personnel can change education courses to suit their desired career paths.

A review of wages, allowances, bonuses and work systems will be continued to further enhance people’s understanding of the employee treatment system.

・Evaluation

Personnel evaluation is based on the targets setting for job duties and competence developments in the interview between the superior and the subordinate and the achievement management of the targets.Evaluator trainings are continuously provided.

Promotion of Diversity and Work-life Balance

To maximize the capabilities of each one of Kuraray’s diverse human resources, and link them to personal and corporate growth, employees need to accomplish both work and personal life at the same time. Through various systems and reforms, Kuraray strives to enhance comfort in the workplace and provides support attuned to employees’ life events.

・Promotion of Gender Neutral and Diverse Workforce

Efforts have been made with a focus on three points, employing more female employees, expanding responsibilities of their jobs and enabling female staff to work longer at their workplaces. In fiscal 2019, we held workshops for managers with female subordinates to support the careers of female employees. Initiatives in fiscal 2020 included holding training for female employees in managerial positions jointly with other companies, and career workshops for female employees in Tokyo and Osaka.

・Employment of People with Disabilities

In addition to meeting the statutory employment rate (2.3% from March 2021), Kuraray is supporting self-sustenance of people with disabilities in cooperation with communities and support groups for people with disabilities. In cooperation with local welfare facilities, Kuraray has opened workshops for people with intellectual disabilities and strives to enhance their knowledge and share insight through the holding of seminars for workshop supervisors.

・System Allowing Employees to Take Temporary Leave from Duty to Live Abroad with Spouse Assigned to Overseas Post

A system has been established and implemented allowing employees to take a temporary leave from the duty to accompany their spouse who is assigned to an overseas post or in a similar circumstance. Those employees who take a temporary leave from the duty are allowed to return to their posts in the Kuraray Group when the overseas assignment of their spouse terminates or when the similar circumstance ends.

・“Come-back" Rehiring System

In addition to the system to rehire employees after nursing care leave and the system to rehire employees who retired for personal reasons for those who wish to work at Kuraray again, we newly launched the “Come-back” rehiring system through the Kuraray Alumni Network and other channels in 2019. Our doors are wide open to employees so they can thrive at Kuraray again by drawing on their experience outside the Company on top of their career at Kuraray.

・Efforts to Support LGBT

In 2020, in addition to sexual harassment and abuse of authority, a lecture on abolition of discrimination or harassment based on sexual orientation was included in the training for managers to prevent harassment. (In 2021, all employees are to attend the course.) An internal company newsletter communicated information on LGBT to facilitate understanding at workplaces.

Initiatives for Work-style Reform

Kuraray is promoting work-style reform to establish a working environment where each and every employee can work in good physical and mental health while striking a balance between work and private life and in turn, deliver results.

・Flexible Work-style

In an aim to enhance productivity and achieve work-life balance, Kuraray introduced a telework program in fiscal 2018, a conventional flextime system in fiscal 2019, and an hourly flextime system in fiscal 2020. In fiscal 2021, Kuraray is planning to expand the scope of employees eligible for these systems and revise them to improve convenience.

・Efforts to Curb Long Working Hours

To support employees’ proactive efforts towards improved productivity, Kuraray has launched an initiative in fiscal 2019 that gives employees the equivalent of compensation for their reduced overtime hours in their bonuses.

We also implement “training on high-intensity work technique to improve productivity” for employees to enhance productivity by reviewing how they carry out their work. Another initiative is “no overtime work week,” in which each person declares a particular week as their “no overtime work week” and tries to leave work on time. This is based on an awareness of issues where “no overtime work days” would sometimes result in increased overtime on adjacent days, and was launched with the aim of improving efficiency in work arrangements and establishing a habit of leaving the workplace without engaging in overtime work.

・Appropriate Working Hour Management

Kuraray is developing the infrastructure for a work attendance management system. The system is used for appropriate work hour management by enabling employees to register working hours accurately so that we can identify any discrepancies with the uptime of PCs of all employees who use a PC including managers. The system will flag any departments with overtime work exceeding a certain number of hours so they can work on reducing overtime work by preparing a working hour improvement plan to mitigate long work hours in addition to health support such as having industrial physicians and other professionals interview the personnel whose overtime work exceeded the set standard.

Kuraray has also established and operates the work-interval guidelines that states employees must take more than a certain number of hours as an interval (10 hours or more) between the end of the previous work day and the beginning of the next work day.

・Efforts to Promote Paid Holidays

As a result of efforts to improve the rate of taking annual paid holidays, targeting 80% or more, we achieved a rate of 80.4% in fiscal 2020. Kuraray will continue its efforts to maintain and improve the rate in fiscal 2021 onward.

・Initiatives at Overseas Bases

Also at Kuraray’s overseas bases, efforts are being made to carefully manage working hours and secure employees’ private time based on the laws of each country. In 2020, as the new coronavirus crisis raised concerns over long working hours due to increased employees who telework, each base took measures including having their presidents and human resource departments issue messages to encourage “preventing long working hours and securing private time and holidays.”

Scheme for Management of Healthy Mind and Body

・Basic Policy for Occupational Health

Based on the Kuraray Group Human Resource (HR) Policy, Kuraray has stipulated the Occupational Health Action Policy to promote occupational health promotion activities. The Director responsible for Administrative Unit, who is in charge of occupational health activities, attends the Central Council on Occupational Safety held every year, where attendees from both labor and management discuss the current situation and issues in occupational health activities, which are to be reflected in next year’s activities.

The Troisdorf site of Kuraray Europe GmbH and the Legnago and Rho sites of Chemviron Italia S.r.l. have been certified ISO45001, which is an international standard for the Occupational Health and Safety Management System.

・Mental Health Care Schemes

Kuraray has four care schemes including schemes for a self-care and a line care in an effort to reduce mental disorders. Kuraray has implemented and is promoting a stress check, training for the prevention of a mental or physical disorder, a consulting system such as counseling, and a work attendance system allowing employees on a rehabilitation program to work on a time schedule suiting their rehabilitation programs when they return to their workplaces.

・Schemes to Prevent Harassment

Kuraray is striving to ensure employees’ mental health and improve the working environment through schemes to prevent many forms of harassment, with a focus on power harassment and sexual harassment. Kuraray promotes measures including training sessions to prevent incidents of harassment, activities to utilize the results of stress checks and other tests, and work to reinforce our counseling desk system. Anti-harassment training is held at Kuraray Group companies inside and outside Japan, and all managers and supervisors (around 470 in 2020 out of around 900 in scope) have taken the course at Kuraray Co., Ltd. The anti-harassment training for general staff starts in 2021.

・Support for Health Improvement

Enhancement of health awareness of the employees is promoted through personal guidance on health, promotion of health improvement campaigns and other means. “Health Improvement Operation” is carried out companywide urging the employees to voluntarily work on improving their lifestyles as countermeasures against the metabolic syndrome. In addition to requiring employees to set targets for exercising, they are provided specific health guidance as individual measures. The ratio of employees who received specific health guidance is 45.2% (fiscal 2019). Health checkups featuring checkup items surpassing those required by laws are provided so that we can find employees at the early stage who need to improve their health.

In 2020, we held online exercise promotion seminars for Group company employees and their family members countrywide as a measure to tackle lack of exercise due to self-quarantining amid the COVID-19 crisis.