Society

Provision of a Comfortable Working Environment

Accommodating Diverse Working Styles

Our Efforts to Accommodate Diverse Working Styles

Sysmex Corporation is working to create in-house environments that allow employees to work comfortably and achieve optimal work-life balance. We aim to ensure that all employees find their work fulfilling and rewarding as they pursue their diverse careers, and that they continue to work in ways that suit their family circumstances and local conditions.

In addition to flex-time, which was adopted as part of our efforts to create a comfortable working environment, we launched a “smart work” system that enables employees to choose their working hours, along with where and how they work, in fiscal 2021. Under this system, employees are allowed to work the hours of their choosing between five in the morning and ten at night. They can work at home or a satellite office if that suits their work or individual lifestyles.
As measures to urge employees to take paid leave, we introduced a half-day paid leave system, and we provide recommended dates for paid leave. Other various efforts include allowances paid from the Cafeteria Plan^*, our welfare program, to employees who take paid leave for travel, leisure, or cultural schooling. Starting from fiscal 2021, we also set the rate of paid leave taken as a sustainability target among our efforts to continue raising the rate.
In addition, we have a leave of absence and re-employment program designed to offer a wide range of opportunities for employees who leave our employment due to their spouses’ overseas assignment or for other personal reasons, so that they can return to work.
Our flex-time system and welfare program (the Cafeteria Plan), which were originally for regular employees, have been expanded to include contract employees.

The Cafeteria Plan provides Cafeteria Points, which entitle employees to select and sign up for certain programs (e.g., parenting support, care assistance, health improvement, and certification) on their own accord.

Introducing Smart Work (Sustainability Topics)

Supporting a Balance between Work and Child-Rearing

Sysmex Corporation has introduced diverse programs to provide family support, from pre-natal care to child-rearing. These programs include leave for fertility treatment or morning sickness, a spouse’s childbirth, and nursing children. When child care leave expires upon the employees' child turning two years of age, employees are entitled to the reduced working hours program and the work-from-home program, until the child enters junior high school. To support employees returning to work after childcare leave, we hold seminars for them before they go back to work. We also deliver newsletters for employees on childcare leave to keep them informed of work issues.
We have set the rate of childcare leave taken by male employees as a sustainability target and have implemented measures to boost this rate. During fiscal 2020, we hosted a seminar titled “Supporting a Balance between Work and Child-Rearing: Parenting Seminar for Dads” led by a guest lecturer. We also published a guidebook to male employees presenting the parenting programs available.

Technopark, our R&D site, has an in-house daycare center called Sysmex Kids Park. It is also available for temporary use when employees’ spouses work part-time, children’s guardians are sick, or employees’ family members are unable to look after children because of a funeral.
We have received the next-generation support certification logo (nicknamed Kurumin^*) as a “company that supports child-rearing” from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Based on the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children, companies that formulate business plans as general business operators, meet the targets designated by such plans, and satisfy certain standards may receive Kurumin certification as “companies that support child-rearing” from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Sysmex Kids Park
Next-generation support certification logo (Kurumin)

Other Systems to Support Work-Life Balance

Supporting Nursing Care, Corporate Citizenship Activities, and Others

Sysmex Corporation has introduced a program that allows employees who need to attend to family members in the hospital to take short-term nursing care leave and accumulated paid leave for up to 40 days in half-day increments. We also have a work-at-home system that enables employees to care for family members who require nursing care or other types of support. Furthermore, we have an income indemnity system for employees on nursing care leave lasting one month or longer (100,000 yen per month), and a program for re-employment of employees whose careers have been interrupted because of nursing care.
Volunteer leave and donor leave programs are also available as support systems intended to make it easier for employees to take leave for particular purposes.

Activities at Group Companies

Our Group companies also engage in various initiatives to provide comfortable working environments.
Recognized for its satisfying working environment, Sysmex Europe was ranked 10th in the Great Place to Work awards¹ in 2021.² The company is also certified as a “family-friendly working environment” by Berufundfamilie Service, a German consulting firm.
Sysmex Germany was ranked eighth and Sysmex Turkey fourth in the Great Place to Work awards.²

1 Rankings of companies announced by Great Place to Work (GPTW), a research institute that specializes in studies and analyses of corporate employees’ job satisfaction. GPTW publishes in influential media the names of companies and organizations that have been judged to meet certain standards in about 60 countries.
2 Sysmex Europe, Sysmex Deutschland: In the category of enterprises with 251–500 employees; Sysmex Turkey: In the category of medium-sized enterprises

Activities at Other Group Companies

Company	Activity
Sysmex America	Introduction of a flex-time system and a work-at-home system Introduction of a childcare leave system (for fathers and mothers) that exceeds statutory requirements Introduction of family support systems (child-rearing support, family leave, and assistance payments when employees need to use support systems offered by outside institutions while family members are ill)
Sysmex Europe	Introduction of a flex-time system and a work-at-home system Establishment of a parent-child room Introduction of a childcare leave system (for fathers and mothers) Child-rearing support system (assistance payments when employees need to use support systems oﬀered by outside institutions)
Sysmex Shanghai	Introduction of a flex-time system Introduction of diverse working arrangements in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
Sysmex Shanghai	Introduction of a flex-time system and a work-at-home system Child-rearing support systems (extended childcare leave, medical insurance assistance, provision of scholarships) Introduction of a family care leave system for nursing care and child care Provision of insurance that covers 37 diseases for all employees Introduction of a welfare and benefit system for contract employees Introduction of a volunteer leave system

Efforts to Enhance Employee Satisfaction

Every year, Sysmex conducts an engagement survey of all employees across the Group.¹ Results are fed back to individual divisions, where they work to enhance the level of employee engagement by drafting and executing action plans for improvement and implementing a PDCA cycle for monitoring. For divisions with poor survey scores, the human resources division offers advice for improvement.

The results of each engagement survey serve as engagement scores for sustainability targets, and they are reflected in medium- to long-term measures for personnel management. The score for fiscal 2020 across the Group was 66％, a 6％ drop from the last survey.² While considering the change of working styles due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we plan to identify questions that are closely correlated with engagement and to visualize priority issues to address. In doing so, we will establish working environments that ensure physical and mental well-being, job satisfaction, and good human relationships for all Group employees, thereby promoting measures that will lead to high productivity and successful outcomes.

1 Conducted every year since fiscal 2020
2 The survey was not conducted in the EMEA region due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Status of Sustainability Targets

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