Toray initiatives to facilitate active participation by female employees reach back to at least 1958, when we began promoting women to management positions, making us a pioneer among Japanese companies. Our similarly deep-rooted commitment to create a workplace responsive to the needs of women is evidenced by our introduction of a childcare leave program in 1974, anticipating the legislation of such programs nearly 20 years later. In fact, a Toray subsidiary promoted a female employee to the position of president in 2003, and we launched the Advancement of Women Project in 2004 to redouble efforts to create a corporate culture conducive to the participation of female employees.
Thanks to the consistent pursuit of these initiatives, both the number and proportion of women ranked at the level of unit manager or higher has continued to increase, with 5.04% of supervisory or managerial positions held by women as of April 2007.
Note: Figures for April of each year
Toray strives to enhance systems that help employees balance work and family life in order to both lay the groundwork for a corporate culture conducive to the advancement of women and empower both male and female employees to choose a variety of lifestyles.
In particular, we have exceeded legally mandated benefits for support systems related to childcare, family-care, and maternity protection, based on our commitment to keep systems responsive to a diverse range of employee needs and accessible to workers. Utilization of these programs by male employees is gradually becoming more common, and in FY 2006 three male employees took advantage of the childcare leave program.
In keeping with our goal of encouraging employee utilization of these systems, we provide information about new programs as well as program changes and benefits in internal company newsletters and on the company intranet.
Note: Number of employees beginning the leave (men)
advancement of women and work-life balance.
Three years ago when I was assigned to the secretariat of the Advancement of Women Project, I was extremely confused about how to tackle my new job.
When I asked people in the company for their impressions about “Advancement of Women” and what it should mean, everyone had their own ideas. Some women even criticized us for placing too much emphasis on women in this day and age.
However, everything came together after the General Manager of the Personnel & Industrial Relations Division, the project leader, explained on visits to all plants and at working team meetings that the purpose of the initiative was to increase human resources competitiveness. By approaching this problem from the point of view of human resources competitiveness, it becomes clear that we must move beyond the current situation.
There are still too few women in the corporate society, and they continue to work under various types of pressure. I believe that reducing this pressure, if only slightly, and helping women build solid careers is exactly the kind of “Innovation” we need to create a truly appealing company where men and women alike can pursue jobs they find personally and professionally fulfilling.
