Principal Themes:Human Rights and Labor
Occupational Safety and Health
Under the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter, the DNP Group promotes safety and health activities involving All DNP members with the aim of building a workplace culture of “safety and health takes precedence over everything else.”
- Structure to Promote Management
- Initiatives for Maintaining and Improving Health
- Initiatives for the Prevention of Industrial Accidents
Structure to Promote Management
DNP Group Safety and Health Charter
The DNP Group established the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter in 2019 to foster the workplace culture to ensure that safety and health take precedence over everything else, based on the awareness that all Group employees working with sound body and mind empower the Group as a whole. This Charter includes the phrase “the will of All DNP members” which incorporates their resolve to ensure that safety and health is firmly in mind, and to think and act from their own position. To prioritize health and safety over everything else, all DNP Group employees undertake activities to ensure time for dialogue and education, based on the firm decisions made by the heads of the divisions.
DNP Group Declaration on Health
The president of DNP formulated and announced the DNP Group Declaration on Health on April 1, 2021 as the ideal for the DNP Group in the form of a top commitment to showing the company’s ideal state towards its goal of embodying the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter. In accordance with the Declaration, DNP started afresh to implement health measures aimed at health and productivity management.
The DNP Group Declaration on Health is based on the idea that Group employees working energetically in trustworthy teams with sound bodies and minds displaying their individual strengths to the maximum degree possible are essential for the generation of new value and the realization of our Third Corporate Founding.
DNP Group Declaration on Health
The DNP Group aims to embody the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter by promoting the heath management and health-driven measures that boost the happiness of our employees, based on the following three perspectives:
1. Maintaining and improving the physical and mental health of our employees and their families. 2. Developing the psychological capital, or positive mind of diverse individuals or human resources. 3. Building psychological safety, or trust-based relationships in our individual workplaces and teams.
With this declaration in mind we aim to achieve improved corporate value.
April 1, 2021
Yoshinari Kitajima,President
Structure to Promote Occupational Safety and Health
The DNP Group is promoting safety and health activities in accordance with the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter and the DNP Group Declaration on Health, led by the president. The workers and employers work together to improve the safety and health of the entire Group based on the promotion structure and operating methods prescribed in the DNP Group Safety and Health Management Regulations. While the DNP Group Safety and Health Liaison Council (chairperson: Executive Vice President managing the Human Capital Sector, secretariat: Employee Relations Department of Personnel & Employee Relations Division) lies at the center of this structure, safety and health liaison councils and safety and health promotion councils at the individual business units and Group companies, safety and health committees at individual workplaces and others are enhancing the structure’s effectiveness by specifying the details of activities.
The DNP Group is promoting specific activities including the formulation of the Basic Plan for Prevention of Industrial Accidents and Health Maintenance and Promotion as a three-year medium-term plan based on the results of internal activities and the challenges to be addressed, taking trends in society and the industrial safety and health measures taken by the Japanese government into consideration.
The progress of the Basic Plan is overseen by the director in charge of the Human Capital Sector, who reports to the Board of Directors as necessary, ensuring that our safety and health initiatives are effectively monitored and managed.
The Sixth Basic Plan for Prevention of Industrial Accidents and Health Maintenance and Promotion (Policies)
Based on its Human Capital Policy, DNP strives to implement the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter and the DNP Group Declaration on Health. In addition to ensuring both physical and mental health and workplace safety, we aim to cultivate each individual’s spirit of taking on challenges (psychological capital) and promote workplace revitalization (psychological safety), thereby enhancing employee well-being and workplace engagement, which contribute to the increase of corporate value.
- We will strengthen our organizational framework and talent development to establish an effective occupational safety and health management system that all employees proactively (and autonomy) participate in through dialogue and training.
- Our first priority in preventing industrial accidents is the elimination of serious accidents. We continually improve our equipment and processes through risk assessments, while implementing measures to reduce the risk of different types of accidents, which are becoming more diverse and frequent.
- To promote health, we focus on health management through regular medical checkups and stress assessments. We implement a targeted high-risk approach to prevent the onset and progression of illnesses in high-risk individuals, while also taking a population approach to improve the overall health and well-being of all employees and the workplace.
Education and Training
Toward the realization of the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter and the DNP Group Declaration on Health, DNP provides level-specific education and specialized training on occupational safety and health.
Regarding safety, DNP is working to improve the level of safety and health activities through various educational programs that include online specialized training on equipment safety for front-line managers in manufacturing locations.
For health, DNP provides education and training on illness and lifestyle habits such as diet, exercise and smoking as well as mental health care utilizing online seminars and e-learning programs while also cooperating with health insurance associations, and these efforts are helping raise employee awareness and change their behavior.
Enhancing safety and health activities
DNP ensures that its health and safety initiatives comply with legal requirements and the DNP Group Safety and Health Management Regulations through annual self-inspections. These inspections are designed to verify proper implementation, correct and improve matters where necessary, and ultimately reduce risk while elevating the Group’s safety and health activities.
DNP also has activity plans for each business segment, and promotes activities at each workplace to ensure that they are in line with The Fifth Basic Plan for the Prevention of Industrial Accidents and Health Maintenance and Promotion (Policies).
Initiatives for Maintaining and Improving Health
The health and productivity management the DNP Group seeks to achieve and the Declaration on Health
Health and productivity management refers to the strategic management of employee health from a corporate management perspective. It is expected to improve vitality, creativity and productivity in addition to the maintenance and promotion of health. The DNP Group incorporated this thinking in its formulation of the DNP Group Declaration on Health. The DNP Group is promoting health-related measures to energize Group employees and transform entire workplaces into teams full of life and energy.
The DNP Group is tackling four material issues* to significantly increase human creativity (added value productivity). One of them is health and productivity management that increases the happiness of employees. With the Human Capital Policy, “respecting employees leads to respected employees driving corporate growth and enhancing society,” (nurturing human capital who can be active in society both within and outside DNP,) the Group invests in employee health. The DNP Group broadly defines health, which is the foundation of employees’ success, in consideration of 1) maintaining and improving physical and mental health, 2) developing psychological capital, or a positive mindset, and 3) building psychological safety, or trust-based relationships to ensure health and productivity management that can increase employee happiness. Corporate value will increase if a company increases employee happiness through health and productivity management, and mentally and physically healthy and energetic employees exhibit their capabilities as a team of vibrant people.
- *Four material issues
“Support for career autonomy of employees and strengthening of organizational capability”
“Health and productivity management that increases the happiness of employees”
“Hiring, personnel assignment and reskilling based on human resource portfolio”
“Promotion of diversity and inclusion utilizing diverse individuality”
The Basic Plan for Health Maintenance and Promotion
The Sixth Basic Plan for Prevention of Industrial Accidents and Health Maintenance and Promotion, covering the period from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026, sets specific indicators to monitor healthy, energized employees and dynamic teams. These indicators include the regular health checkup participation rate, the rate of employees requiring medical follow-up, the percentage of employees identified as having health risks (as defined by our own criteria), overall health risk from stress assessments, and work engagement levels. The Basic Plan focuses on five key areas: (1) enabling people to be healthy and vibrant people and creating healthy and vibrant workplaces, (2) establishing a foundation for promoting health initiatives, (3) addressing health risks and promoting lifestyle improvements, (4) supporting mental health and (5) enhancing engagement.
To accelerate our health and productivity management and initiatives, we collaborate with our health insurance association, clinics set up within the association, and divisions and Group companies engaged in medical, healthcare and wellness-related services.
- *Other health indices, number of subjects, response rate (DNP non-consolidated , FY2023, values in parentheses are for FY2022)
- Absenteeism: 2.64 days/year, 10,194 employees, 87.4% (2.28 days/year, 10,246 employees, 87.2%)
As of March 31, 2024, there were 54 employees on leave due to injury or illness.
- Presenteeism: 18.8%, 10,194 employees, 87.4% (14.4%, 10,246 employees, 87.6%)
*Method of determining absenteeism: Survey to confirm the number of absence days from work due to illness
*Method of determining presenteeism: Single-Item Presenteeism Question (SPQ)
For the maintenance and promotion of physical and mental health
To promote and maintain physical and mental well-being—the foundation of health and productivity management—DNP conducts thorough follow-ups after medical checkups and provides specific health guidance for high-risk employees, based on the results of regular health checkups and specific medical examinations. To ensure effective health management centered on these checkups, we continuously strengthen the framework of our health management system and follow our internal guidelines to ensure proper follow-ups according to each employee’s risk level regarding lifestyle-related diseases. As our workforce ages, more employees are receiving health findings from their checkups indicating there are issues to be addressed. For those whose results indicate particularly high risks, we recommend they seek medical care and facilitate follow-up check-ups by public health nurses and other healthcare services. Thanks to these efforts, in fiscal 2023, 84.1% of employees who needed a follow-up or detailed medical examination completed it, and 83.8% of high-risk employees sought medical care at a healthcare institution.
We encourage employees that do not have significant health issues but need to improve their lifestyles to participate in specific health guidance to reduce health risks. We are promoting collaboration with the health insurance association by increasing the number of public health nurses and setting specific health guidance participation goals. As a result, the participation rate in specific health guidance increased 11.1 percentage points, from 25.4% in fiscal 2021 to 36.5% in fiscal 2022.
As part of our Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, we issue health reports to visualize key data. These reports include graphs and rankings of our business units and Group companies based on health risks, lifestyle risks, and participation rates in health insurance association programs. By visualizing this information, we aim to motivate further efforts to improve employee health.
To promote lifestyle improvements, we also held walking events (2,299 participants in fiscal 2023) and health screening (790 participants in September 2023). In addition, we have set the goal of reducing the smoking rate to below 15% by fiscal 2026 and have launched initiatives to mitigate the health risks associated with smoking. We have also introduced health tourism programs using our own recreational facilities. (For reference, overtime in fiscal 2023 at DNP non-consolidated was 13.9 hours/year.)
Clinics
We have clinics in 13 locations across Japan, including thorough checkup clinics. The clinics provide medical treatment to dependents (aged 16 or over) in addition to the insured. In fiscal 2023, 24,994 people visited these clinics, including 1,193 employees that underwent thorough checkups.
Various Health Consultations
A consultation system has been set up for employees and their families to provide advice from medical specialists to address concerns and worries related to illness or medical therapy. It also provides support for health maintenance and promotion through Nutrition Consultation and Exercise Consultation. In fiscal 2023, 2,492 consultations were received through telephone health consultation (including family members) and at counseling rooms.
In March 2022, DNP opened a health consultation office at the DNP Health Management Center, where specialist public health nurses receive consultations from employees. By increasing the number of options for employee health consultations in this manner, DNP is enhancing its system that enables employees to feel free to consult on an even wider range of health issues.
Health Education
To promote the further penetration and understanding among employees of the DNP Group Declaration on Health, which was announced in April 2021, DNP carries out health education through e-learning programs (implemented a total of eight times from December 2021 to June 2024). Our surveys revealed that at least nearly 60% of the employees in attendance became more health conscious as a result of these courses. Moreover, an increasing number of employees are also working to improve their physical activities and eating habits.
- *Main Themes of DNP’s Healthcare Education (As of June 2024)
・E-learning
Approx. 90% attendance at the course “About the DNP Group Health Declaration” held in December 2021
Approx. 89% attendance at the course “About Healthcare Checkups” in March 2022
Approx. 93% attendance at the course “About Lifestyle Habit” in June 2022
Approx. 91% attendance at the course “About Gender-Related Health Issues” in September 2022
(The survey shows almost 96% of respondents were health conscious or became health conscious.)
Approx. 90% attendance at the course “About Mental Healthcare” in February 2023
Approx. 73% attendance at the course “About Smoking Cessation Measures at the DNP Group (only for smokers)” in May 2023
Approximately 85% participation rate in the DNP Group’s Smoking Cessation Program (as of September 2023).
Approximately 87% participation rate in the Women’s Health Program (as of October 2023).
(Following this training program, HPV test kits were distributed free of charge to those interested, encouraging cervical cancer screenings. Total investment: 2.5 million yen.)
・Online seminars
Approx. 2,400 views at the special lecture “About Cancer” of the DNP Group Declaration on Health in April 2022
Approx. 1100 views at the special lecture “About Women's Cancer We Want You to Know" of the DNP Group Declaration on Health in February 2023
・Health management seminar for management-level staff (for all officers)
Approx. 3,100 views at the seminar archive “About the Mechanisms of Happiness” in June 2022
Approx. 600 views at the seminar archive “The Role of the Managers in Health Management Practices” held in November 2022
For the improvement of vitality and organizational revitalization
The DNP Group fosters a workplace culture where safety and health take precedence over everything else. By promoting psychological capital (a positive mind) and psychological safety, we aim to create an environment where every employee feels energized, fulfilled, and motivated to take on new challenges.
To support this, we prioritize open dialogue and education. For example, in our manufacturing division, all sites hold monthly one-hour discussion and learning sessions called “Tsuki-ichi Kyoiku.” In our non-manufacturing divisions, we utilize the DNP Value Objectives (DVO) system, along with one-on-one and team meetings, to build a culture of taking on challenges and trust between employees.
We also regularly conduct engagement surveys and stress assessments to visualize the well-being of individuals and teams. These insights drive continuous improvement efforts, and as a result, the percentage of highly engaged employees increased 4% in fiscal 2023 compared to when the survey was first conducted.
DNP Well-being and award system
In fiscal 2023, we introduced DNP Well-being as a common goal for all DNP Group employees. This concept represents the healthy and optimal state of both individuals and organizations which fulfills three key elements: physical and mental health, a safe and comfortable work environment and happiness (a sense of challenge and trust). By clarifying the connection between DNP Well-being and the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter and the DNP Group Declaration on Health, we promote a vibrant workplace culture and strengthen organizational and team capabilities as the foundation for value creation.
By expanding the realization of DNP Well-being across the entire DNP Group, we aim to further solidify this foundation for generating value.
In fiscal 2023, we launched the Health and Well-being Award to recognize efforts that contribute to creating a vibrant workplace and strengthening organizational and team capabilities. For fiscal 2024, we refined the award system to focus on initiatives aligned with the newly established DNP Well-being concept. This award system helps to widely share internal initiatives and expand the circle of well-being across the company, while also fostering a sense of joy and pride in each employee’s work every day.
In fiscal 2024, we received 121 entries in the Challenges and Trust category, 21 in the Health category, and 26 in the Safety category. A total of 1,189 evaluators, including employees who voluntarily participated in the program, voted, and ultimately, 30 initiatives received awards.
What is DNP Well-being?
DNP Well-being refers to a state where both individual employees and the organization are in good condition, not only through physical and mental health and a safe, comfortable work environment but also through happiness (sense of challenge and trust).
It represents the ideal state we all strive to achieve for “creating a vibrant workplace and strengthening organizational and team capabilities” as the foundation for value creation based on the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter and the DNP Group Declaration on Health.
Enhancement of facilities to promote communication
It is important to build a working environment that increases satisfaction with the work environment to improve the engagement of all employees. Additionally, promoting communication between workers will help improve teamwork and increase motivation. This is why the DNP Group proactively arranges and enhances its facilities for refreshment and collaboration at its locations around Japan.
Health-related data/Target indicators
Initiatives for the Prevention of Industrial Accidents
The Basic Plan for Prevention of Industrial Accidents
For the prevention of industrial accidents, DNP reviews a basic plan every three years based on the industrial accident prevention plan of the national government and trends in industrial accidents within the Company, reviews the plan, and promote specific activities.
For the three years from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026, DNP has prescribed matters to be addressed as the Sixth Basic Plan for Prevention of Industrial Accidents and Health Maintenance and Promotion and has enhanced initiatives with the three priority measures of 1) fostering a climate of safety, 2) creating a workplace with no industrial accidents, and 3) promoting measures against occupational illness, using the accident frequency rate and working environment measurement results among other indicators.
Cultivating a Climate of Safety and Creating Workplaces with No Industrial Accidents
Safety and Health Education
DNP Group has continuously believed that “dialogue and education” serve as the foundation of safety and health activities and in 2019 it formulated the DNP Group Safety and Health Charter, which proclaims that “Health and safety begin with Taiwa (dialogue), education, and human development.”
To make this belief a reality, all manufacturing bases of manufacturing departments implement “Tsuki-ichi Kyoiku Activity” (an activity to set aside one hour each month for Taiwa and education) for the realization of a culture that truly prioritizes health and safety above all else. Through monthly activities, DNP aims to improve safety awareness, foster a culture that emphasizes safety and increase the vitality of its workplaces. Furthermore, DNP has launched the cross-group Manufacturing Safety Promotion Project and is promoting a variety of activities that include sharing good practices and matters requiring attention.
Additionally, DNP also implements level-specific training and specialized training on occupational safety and health. To prevent serious accidents caused by machinery and equipment in particular, DNP focuses on providing education on equipment safety measures to managers as well as staff who operate equipment. DNP has continuously conducted this training since 2016, with 140 employees taking part in active discussions during the fiscal 2023 sessions, resulting in a cumulative total of 1,103 program participants. Besides education that utilizes VR (virtual reality) for enabling participants to experience danger as well e-learning on fire prevention, DNP has launched a dedicated internal website that allows related parties to share the details of disasters in the unlikely event of an accident as well as good examples of safety measures and strives to ensure these measures raise the level of safter activities.
Creation of a Workplace Free from Industrial Accidents
The DNP Group reviews and improves unsafe situations and behaviors at all of its workplaces, believing that the Group must prevent employee injuries or damage caused during work. In this context, the Group focuses on risk assessment activities and related measures.
We examine equipment that has the potential to be involved in serious accidents to identify and visualize all potential risks related to existing equipment, focusing particularly on high-risk areas. We then implement safety measures based on DNP’s unique equipment safety standards. Similarly, we examine newly introduced equipment to proactively identify risk factors and apply preventive measures before beginning operations as part of our accident prevention strategy.
In the event of an accident, we hold disaster response meetings at the sites affected, regardless of the size of the accident. We facilitate close coordination between the affected sites and the technical, labor, and research divisions of our headquarters to investigate the causes of accidents, develop safety measures and implement preventive actions.
Moreover, we share details about each incident throughout the Group to enhance awareness and prevent similar accidents. Communication about these accidents includes updates on the situation at the time of the accident, the causes and the responses implemented.
To more effectively promote these activities, some business sites obtained the ISO 45001 occupational health and safety certification.