Labor practices
Ensuring Occupational Safety & Mental and Physical Health
Basic Policy
Mitsubishi Electric adheres to the basic policy of prioritizing the safety and health of our employees above all else. Based on the understanding that health and safety management form the foundation of business management, we aim to establish a culture that places top priority on safety and health in all social and business environments. Furthermore, we strive to provide mental healthcare to all employees as we endeavor to create a workplace environment that allows everyone to work to the best of their ability, comfortably and in good health.
This basic policy underlies our company-wide Safety and Health Five-year Plan (current plan covering the five years from FY2018 to FY2022), which defines priority measures in safety and health management, respectively, to annually create a company-wide safety and health management policy by which we implement specific activities toward achieving annual targets. This program has been rolled out to our group companies in Japan and overseas who also engage in health and safety management activities in line with relevant laws, national regulations and company-specific issues.
Promotional Framework
The Mitsubishi Electric Group actively promotes safety and health activities across the entire Group under the strong leadership of the top management.
Ongoing efforts are made to strengthen the safety and health management framework, as Mitsubishi Electric and its group companies in Japan and overseas cooperate in exchanging information, engage in education activities, and implement various safety and health measures. Active communication is also held with employees through meetings with labor unions and the Safety and Health Committee, and labor-management efforts are made to promote both top-down and bottom-up activities that aim to raise the level of safety and health. Specifically, we discuss the content of training for taking care of younger personnel as well as self-care and line-care in the course of considering mental health care measures, introduce such training programs, and review their content.
In case of an industrial accident occurs, safety measures are immediately taken by the department where the accident occurred. At the same time, efforts are made to prevent similar accidents by delegating a third party to conduct safety management status inspections, and laterally disseminating case reports of disasters and countermeasures developed through root cause analysis.
Company-wide safety and health management structure
Occupational Safety and Health Management System
In 2009, Mitsubishi Electric introduced the Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS*). Under the program, each office runs PDCA cycles for safety and health activities by implementing system audits based on the Mitsubishi Electric Group's requirements for safety and health management on foundation management and items to be individually managed. These requirements range from the development of policy and management frameworks in each office governed by a safety and health supervisor to the implementation of risk assessment and other accident prevention activities through education to improve employee awareness of safety and health management.
The goal is to raise the occupational safety and health management level of the company as a whole. As a result of this initiative, we have achieved one of the lowest frequency rates and severity rates of industrial accidents (number of people killed or injured in a fatal accident or an accident that requires time off from work per 1 million hours of work, and number of working days lost per 1,000 hours) in the industry.
- * OSHMS (Occupational Safety and Health Management System)
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Occupational safety and health management system
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Frequency of Labor Accidents
(Number of accidents requiring a leave, per million hours)
| FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Overseas | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Frequency of fatal accidents (Mitsubishi Electric Group (domestic/overseas))
Thorough Safety and Health Education
E-learning of Safety and Health Education
The Mitsubishi Electric Group implements safety and health education that matches its business characteristics and social environment, including stratified programs and occupation-specific programs, in addition to education programs as stipulated by law. As a common feature of the Group, Mitsubishi Electric and its group companies in Japan also provide safety and health education based on an internal e-learning system, which has been instrumental in promoting greater understanding of the principles and concept of safety and health to more than 100,000 employees, managers, and supervisors every year. Furthermore, efforts are also made to strengthen employee safety education through risk simulation, such as by installing a "safety room."
| Training name | Date conducted | No. of participants |
|---|---|---|
| Training for newly appointed safety and health section managers | April & May 2020 | 6 |
| Training for newly appointed safety and health members | June 2020 | 43 |
| Training for newly appointed safety and health promotion members | October & November 2020 | 46 |
| Training for newly appointed occupational health physicians and public health nurses | May 2020 | 13 |
| Training for newly appointed safety instructors | Novemver 2020 | 17 |
| Liaison meetings for safety and health members | October 2020 | 54 |
| Company-wide safety and health education (for general employees) | July to September 2020 | 33,621 |
| Company-wide safety and health education (for managers and supervisors) | July to September 2020 | 4,812 |
Examples of training held by the head office (Mitsubishi Electric)
"Danger simulation room" at Mitsubishi Electric's Himeji Works
"Danger simulation room"
Under the slogan of "putting safety awareness into action," Himeji Works provides danger simulation education to all onsite employees and employees of group companies (approx. 6,000). The Works has been working to increase all employees’ awareness of danger by upgrading the simulation machine, introducing a virtual reality (VR) simulator, developing and providing education to instructors, and establishing an education system.
Health Management Initiatives toward a Healthy Company
Since 2002, Mitsubishi Electric and its group companies in Japan have carried out the Mitsubishi Electric Group Health Plan 21 (MHP21) intended for their 100,000-some employees and their families, as a three-party cooperation project (Collaborative Health) with the labor union and health insurance society. MHP21 promotes a review of lifestyle habits from an early stage, as a means for preventing lifestyle-related diseases and thereby improving Quality of Life (QOL), and for realizing a "health-oriented company." Under the slogan, "Change Your Lifestyle Habits, Extend Your Healthy Years," MHP21 involves setting company-wide improvement goals in five health categories—maintaining proper body weight, creating an active lifestyle, stopping smoking, maintaining proper dental care, and sleeping properly—and evaluating the degree of achievement of these goals every year.
In 2017, a new five-year plan was launched as Stage III, and in May of the same year we held the Mitsubishi Electric Group Health Convention attended by the top management of Mitsubishi Electric, labor union, and health insurance society as well as the executives of each office and group companies in Japan. In the convention, while renewing our determination to commit to the creation of a safe, healthy, and comfortable workplace, we adopted a Health Declaration with the aim of becoming a Healthy Company Group. With focus on strengthening individual approaches based on health data and using ICT services, introducing an award system for healthy offices, and promoting cooperation between Mitsubishi Electric and its group companies in Japan, we aim to revitalize Group activities as a whole in Stage III.
Our group companies overseas are likewise taking initiatives to maintain and promote health among their employees, in consideration of the health situation in their respective countries.
Targets and results of MHP21 activities
| MHP21 activities Priority items |
Before commencement of activities (FY2002) | Stage I Final year (FY2012) |
Stage II Final year (FY2017) |
Stage III Fourth year (FY2021) |
Stage III Target (FY2018−2022) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People maintaining proper body weight*1 | 73.0% | 71.7% | 70.4% | 68.0% | 73% or more |
| People who have an active lifestyle*2 | 11.7% | 16.2% | 24.1% | 27.4% | 39% or more |
| Smokers | 40.0% | 27.6% | 24.7% | 21.6% | 20% or less |
| People who brush their teeth three times a day or more | 13.3% | 20.5% | 22.5% | 27.0% | 25% or more |
| People who get enough sleep and are well rested*3 | – | – | – | 71.5% | 85% or more |
- *1 BMI of 18.5 or more and less than 25.0
- *2 30 minutes or more of exercise twice a week or more, or an average of 10,000 steps (1 hour of walking) or more per day
- *3 Included from Stage III
Recognized under White500
Mitsubishi Electric has been recognized, by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Nippon Kenko Kaigi under the 2021 Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organizations Recognition Program’s WHITE500 (the large-scale corporate category), for excellence in a variety of our activities that contribute to health and productivity management. These include preventing lifestyle-related diseases among healthy persons and high-risk persons, including the implementation of Mitsubishi Electric Group Health Plan 21 (MHP21), preventing productivity from lowering among employees, and preventing accidents, adjusting work hours, and ensuring work/life balance and time for living.
We will continue to strive to ensure occupational safety and health as well as mental and physical health by considering health management for employees from a managerial perspective.
Promoting Mental Health Care
Mental health care is a top priority for health management in the Mitsubishi Electric Group. By establishing a counseling program that includes an industrial physician and/or counselor and other such initiatives, active efforts are made to help employees cope with everyday worries related to work and family and other emotional issues.
Through conventional telephone and e-mail counseling and a newly introduced face-to-face counseling program as well as an online counseling program provided by an employee assistance program (EAP*), which covers domestic group companies as well, importance is placed on the primary prevention of employee mental health disorders.
As a place to check and share issues related to mental health and also for cooperation between parties developing a location policy and measures, the Location Safety and Health Committee (Committee to Promote Mental Health) will further be effectively used. By disclosing through the Committee information such as the presence or absence of employees who had an injury/sick leave or absences due to mental health, the status of implementation of measures to ensure health and welfare (the number of people eligible for long-term counseling, etc.), and the plans for and results of mental health-related training programs, continuous improvement activities are promoted.
With regard to a stress check system in line with legislation, efforts are being made to improve the workplace climate of organizations with issues in light of the results of organizational analysis.
Employees who return to work after taking a mental health leave are fully supported by the belonging department, human resource department, and industrial physician based on the Mitsubishi Electric Guidelines for Return-to-Work Support, and every effort is made to facilitate their return to their workplace and prevent any relapse.
Specifically, inspection is carried out in order to ensure thorough operation regarding the periodic ascertainment of the situation of employees who are absent from work, compliance with giving consideration to employees who have returned to the workplace based on the opinions of an industrial physician (restricting work, etc.), such as creating an environment where the workplace as a whole can provide support for smoothly returning after a long leave.
Furthermore, by appointing dedicated counselors in the Mitsubishi Electric head office, focused care is also provided to employees posted outside of Japan, where working and living environments largely differ from Japan.
In terms of education, line-care and self-care training are repeatedly implemented through lectures, to provide sessions on mental health and strengthen responses to mental health among managers and employees, especially for mental health. As a common feature of the Group, Mitsubishi Electric and its group companies in Japan also provide safety and health education based on an internal e-learning system, which has been instrumental in promoting greater understanding of mental healthcare (line-care, self-care) to more than 100,000 employees, managers, and supervisors every year.
Starting fiscal 2021, these education programs will be strengthened by making mental healthcare education for new employees mandatory and enhancing the resilience training program.
- * EAP (Employee Assistance Program): a program that provides support to employees, by providing a wide range of counseling covering physical health, relationships with family and colleagues, as well as mental health.
Mental health initiatives (Mitsubishi Electric)
Creating Comfortable Workplace Environments
The Mitsubishi Electric Group recognizes that people spend a large part of their lives at their place of employment, so we make people-friendly enhancements to the workplace environment and promote the creation of pleasant spaces that also give consideration to elderly people and people with disabilities.
By establishing own standards (workplace environment standards) for air, lighting, noise, and facilities, and by working to achieve each standard, Mitsubishi Electric pursues ongoing efforts to create comfortable workplace environments.