Management That Fully Exercises Our Employees' Potential
To achieve consistent growth over the medium to long term, it is vital that all of our employees are healthy, active, and have a sense of purpose. SCSK is united in its commitment to create such an environment across all of its organizations. Under the strong leadership of senior management, we were among the first in the industry to usher in working style reforms focused mainly on cutting back overtime hours and increasing the rate of consumed annual paid vacation days. Our efforts have begun to see steady successes and now we are seeking to build on them.
Initiatives for Working Style Reform
SCSK has been working continuously to create more efficient and flexible working styles since 2012 before the term working style reform was coined in Japan. From 2020, we launched a working style reform initiative to plan and execute new approaches to the concept for our offices and our location strategy with a focus on more productive work and remote work based on the rapidly changing social situation and business environment whose future remains difficult to predict. We believe that through these initiatives, improving employees’ physical and mental health and increasing their motivation toward work will give rise to a positive cycle where we improve the service value provided to clients and increase stakeholder returns.
Smart Work Challenge
Smart Work Challenge launched in FY2013 is a core measure of SCSK for promoting the target of reducing average monthly overtime hours to 20 hours or less and ensuring employees take all of their annual paid vacation days every year.
Between FY2014 and FY2019, we achieved the target average number of overtime hours of 20 hours or less and target rate of consumed annual paid vacation days of about 95%. Since FY2020, it has not been possible to achieve those targets for various reasons, including changes to new working styles that combine in-office and remote work, because of COVID-19. Therefore, we conducted a New Working Style Survey and are promoting measures to solve these problems. One example of these efforts is discussing online communication etiquette, case-specific communication guide, and in-house examples in the Communication Tips collection in the New Working Styles issued in 2021 and supporting efforts to achieve highly productive and creative work through quality communication. Furthermore, since FY2021, we have been working to balance efficient, highly productive working styles and self-improvement activities, under the slogan “tackling the challenge of more sophisticated smart work,” in order to create an independent organization that can flexibly responds to changes in the environment.
Smart Work Plus
The program encourages the acquisition of skills and business experience outside the scope of SCSK through second jobs and side businesses, and also hires specialized human resources from outside the company in a form of second job to harness their knowledge and expertise in developing innovation and new business, thereby aiming to contribute to the provision of new value.
SCSK aims to be a company that is pleasant, fulfilling place to work, and since fiscal 2013, we have implemented the Smart Work Challenge (reducing overtime and taking paid vacations), Commenced Dokodemo WORK (measures for remote working), and d Kenko Waku Mileage Program (health promotion measures). We have been promoting work style reform centered on those three measures, and "Smart Work Plus" is a system that allows employees to realize even more diverse working styles that leads to job satisfaction.
Under our corporate philosophy of Create Our Future of Dreams, the SCSK Group will continue to promote diversity management, including working style reform and the active participation of women and seniors, and build a management foundation that allows diverse human resources to continue to play an active role.
Details of the Program | ||
---|---|---|
Name of the System | Smart Work Plus | |
Side-businesses | Outline | A system that allows SCSK employees to use their leisure time outside of working hours to engage in work other than SCSK. |
Eligibility | All employees | |
Process | In principle, notification system is required (permission required for employment at other companies in the same industry) | |
Second Job | Outline | A system that allows people who primarily work or work outside of SCSK to work at SCSK with limited assignment, limited workdays/ working hours. |
Eligibility | Fixed-term employee | |
Process | Employment Agreement is required. |
Pleasant Workplace Environment
SCSK's Committee for Creating a Pleasant Workplace Environment
SCSK's Committee for Creating a Pleasant Workplace Environment is an e-work community in which all employees participate, regardless of job category, department, or post. Based on mutual trust with management, this community strives to facilitate the personal growth of employees together with the development of the Company. This is accomplished by contributing to form a fulfilling and rewarding workplace environment. The committee serves as a representative of employees in matters related to labor management. It also carries out various efforts related to such matters as stimulating communication between employees and enriching benefits programs.
Employee Satisfaction
As a result of promoting various types of measures, including those related to diversity and inclusion, in order to promote working style reforms, improve work-life balance, and use diverse human resources, we have maintained a high level of employee satisfaction as a company with a pleasant and rewarding workplace in the employee awareness survey conducted annually.
Furthermore, as one of our measures related to respecting diversity and making it possible for anyone to work with peace of mind, we continually conduct training and seminars to raise employee awareness of the LGBTQ community and harassment. Employees of related partner companies also participate in some of the anti-harassment training, and in FY2021, more than 3,400 employees took the course.
Initiatives for Rewarding Workplace Reforms
To achieve the SCSK Group’s vision of becoming a “Co-Creative IT Company in 2030,” and driven by intense changes in business climate, we must pursue reforms that not only create a pleasant workplace environment, but also a rewarding one as well. As a pioneer in working style reform, and as an IT service company supporting social infrastructure, we are working to develop an organizational culture where our entire workforce can fully contribute their skills so that each and every employee, who possesses abundant diversity, grows autonomously and achieves a strong sense of reward at work in order for SCSK to provide co-creative value to society.
Results and Future Policy for Working Style Reforms
Through the Smart Work Challenge, which was launched in FY2013, we have worked to create a pleasant workplace environment for everyone and linked this to improving the health of employees and creating opportunities for self-growth. By continuing to “tackle the challenge of more sophisticated smart work,” we will not only establish new working styles appropriate for SCSK and realize a rewarding working place for employees and business growth, but also contribute to the growth of clients’ businesses and link this to the creation of new value for society.
Work-Life Balance
Support for Balancing Work with Childcare or Family Care
We are promoting the development of an inclusive workplace environment. This includes eliminating long working hours, using remote work and flex time systems to provide flexibility in workplace and working hours, and offering various leave programs that make it possible to take time off down to the half day or hour, and thus creating a foundation so that employees from varying backgrounds can excel at work on the same stage.
Additionally, we have developed a program in response to women’s unique health issues and a program to support employees working reduced hours due to childcare or family care return to full-time work quickly. To complement these programs, we work to support autonomous career development by holding seminars that promote understanding of these issues and seek out solutions together and roundtables to facilitate communication and sharing of information among employees.
Comments from an employee providing nursing care
- I was suddenly faced with providing nursing care to a family member, but I was completely lost in terms of what arrangements to make and felt considerable stress. I consulted with an outside professional paid for by the company who explained in detail about all the arrangements, which eased my stress level greatly. The company’s leave programs proved to be a big help, too, from the early stages of my family member’s hospitalization.
- There was a time when I had to take a large number of holidays over a short period of time to attend medical appointments with my parents, which is when I took balance support leave. The Smart Work Challenge makes it easy to take annual paid vacation, so I was also able to use these days to take time off from work. I’m really grateful that the company offers these types of support programs.
We have established a flexible work system and facilitated the smooth return to work for employees taking childcare leave and have various work-life balance programs in place to support employees in returning from paid leave at an early stage.