Communication with Employees

Over the two years between fiscal 2020 and 2021, Toray Group has implemented the Toray Philosophy Project as one of its group-wide projects under the Medium-Term Management Program, Project AP-G 2022.
The Group aims to achieve sustainable growth globally and into the future by living up to its corporate philosophy of “contributing to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies and products. ”Toray Group adopted the Toray Philosophy with the aim of remaining a corporate entity worthy of the full respect of society. The Group organized its management principles — the principles it has upheld since the beginning — in the form of the Toray Philosophy.
The Toray Philosophy Project aims to instill the Toray Philosophy as a set of common values shared by all Toray Group employees, as well as a concrete sense that each employee is contributing to society in the course of executing their work. Toward this end, project activities have been designed to achieve the following goals.
1. Fostering an understanding of the Toray Philosophy as a set of common values shared by all Toray Group employees
2. Incorporating the Toray Philosophy into the guiding principles of each workplace and individual employee's conduct so that this philosophy is embodied in concrete action
3. Encouraging each employee to envision a future Toray Group based on the Toray Philosophy and share their thoughts with workplace colleagues so that actions to help achieve this vision are driven by employee initiative
Toray Group has issued the Toray Philosophy Book to help Toray Group employees better understand the concepts of the Toray Philosophy. The Toray Philosophy Book has been published in 17 languages¹, including Japanese with the help of translation by Toray employees in different countries and regions, for the use of Toray Group companies outside of Japan. Toray Group also implemented two participatory programs: Toray Philosophy for Me, which asked employees to think about what the Toray Philosophy means to them and how it can be put into practice, and Our Toray Philosophy Action Declaration, which asked each workplace to apply their employees' understanding of the Toray Philosophy to the question of what a workplace that embodies this philosophy looks like. The results of these exercises formed the basis of discussions that focused on the actions needed to put the Toray Philosophy into practice at both the individual level and the organizational level.
In addition, Toray Group has held director-led, group-wide lectures and workplace roundtable discussions on the Toray Philosophy and has incorporated presentations on it into the corporate education curriculum, to enhance comprehension and further instill the practice of Toray-style management.
Certain group companies in Japan have their own management philosophies, and the Toray Philosophy Project provided an opportunity to discuss, in conjunction with the Toray Philosophy, the degree to which these companies' management philosophies have been instilled and put into practice.As this project marked the first time that group companies outside Japan have implemented activities designed to instill the management philosophy among employees, the level of understanding of Toray and the Toray Philosophy varied significantly from company to company. For those companies that are relative newcomers to Toray Group, project activities were not rushed, but rather carried out deliberately with the idea that it is important to first foster an understanding of and sense of belonging to Toray Group. The Group continues to take its time carrying out activities designed to thoroughly instill the Toray Philosophy among employees through video messages from the presidents of these companies and the local language edition of the Toray Philosophy Book.
In compiling a digest of these activities, a questionnaire was sent to those in charge of the Toray Philosophy Project at each Toray Industries department. Many respondents indicated that personnel in their department were clearly proud of or wished to feel pride in Toray and that they hoped to continue to work with employees to make concrete changes to conduct and transform the organization as a whole. To the question of whether the project provided an opportunity to put its three goals (1, 2, and 3 above) into practice, 97% of respondents answered “strongly agree” or “agree” (4 or more on a 5-point scale) with regard to goal 1, with 89% strongly agreeing or agreeing with regard to both goal 2 and goal 3.
Issues involving organizational culture and the gaps that have been detected between the Toray Philosophy and the workplace over the duration of these two years of activities will be taken over by the Corporate Brand Committee, which was established in September 2021 under the Brand Committee chaired by the president. This committee will continue to formulate and implement measures to activate internal communication. The entire Group will work to ensure that all employees conduct themselves in accordance with the Toray Philosophy and foster an attachment to the Toray Group.

1. 1 The 17 languages are Japanese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Dutch, Arabic, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, Chinese (simplified, traditional), and Korean.

Toray Group employs various forms of media such as printed in-house magazines, intranet, and company-wide bulletin boards to provide information on the Group’s management policies and issues, as well as to promote dynamic communication that will strengthen the Toray brand and foster a sense of belonging among Group employees. Messages from the president appear in all of these media. The printed in-house magazine is published in two languages (Japanese and English) to keep employees informed about management and business topics as well as corporate projects.
The Group has launched an intranet called TORAYNAVI Lite in Japanese and English for group companies in and outside Japan to share timely information.

Employee Survey

Toray Industries, Inc. regularly conducts an employee attitude survey of Toray Group employees in and outside Japan. The survey is designed to assess employee engagement and motivation, and to gauge the level of progress in implementing the long-term vision and medium-term management program. It is conducted in six languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, and Korean.The fiscal 2020 survey yielded encouraging results, with many respondents indicating a positive view of Toray and expressing a desire to continue working at Toray Group in the long term. The survey also shed light on issues and highlighted requests from employees. These are relayed to the relevant departments so that they can address them and raise employee satisfaction.
The survey results are used to identify gaps that may exist between employee attitudes and customer assessments from customer satisfaction surveys, and to analyze the level of communication between managers and staff. The results of the employee attitude survey are circulated within the company as feedback and are utilized to make improvements.

A special characteristic of Toray Group's approach to corporate social responsibility is its “CSR line activities,” an employee participation system that emphasizes putting CSR into practice on the job. Each workplace implements activities suited to its own circumstances, such as holding discussions on CSR issues.

Toray Group strives to ensure that social responsibility is firmly rooted in its culture by providing employees with various opportunities.
Since fiscal 2019, the CSR Operations Department of Toray Industries has visited departments as well as group companies worldwide to conduct interviews to exchange opinions. The aims are to ascertain the status of CSR initiatives in each workplace and to promote further progress. The progress rate of the initiative for fiscal 2021 was 42%, falling short of the target of 60% of all targeted departments and group companies to be visited by the end of fiscal 2023. The rate of progress was affected by the period of time in fiscal 2020 when the department was unable to conduct in-person interviews due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews are being conducted online now to improve the situation. The issues for CSR activity implementation identified during the interviews to exchange opinions will be reflected in Toray Group's CSR promotion measures.
Toray Group communicates CSR information through a variety of internal publications (including the People and Toray Management magazines and an internal CSR newsletter) to help employees understand the necessity of implementing CSR in each workplace. In addition, the Group also strives to increase CSR awareness with an e-learning course covering the fundamentals of CSR, CSR webinars designed to promote understanding and awareness of global environmental issues, and other programs.