Job satisfaction and well-being
The spread of COVID-19 has triggered a rapid “change in the way of working” with the birth of technological innovations related to labor, such as ICT, AI, and automation. On the other hand, social issues surrounding human resources are becoming increasingly serious in Japan, such as a decline in workforce due to the falling birthrate and aging population and more and more workers leaving the workplace to care for their parents.
The Daiwa House Group company philosophy (corporate creed) includes an injunction informing relations with employees: “A company’s progress depends directly on ensuring a good working environment for its employees.” In line with this, we believe ensuring workplaces conducive to safety and health encourages employees’ development and provides an environment allowing them to give full play to their capabilities.
In order for our company to continue to grow sustainably, it is essential that each employee’s “strengths” and “individuality” shall be maximized and that our organization shall be a synergistic one where they can shine together. As a foundation for this, we have designed a flexible personnel system that allows each employee to choose his or her own way of living and working. We also place emphasis on building interactive relationships and supporting the autonomous career development of our employees, thereby enhancing their growth and engagement.
Health management policy and encouraging health management practices
We have established a health management policy, “Health is the basis of building homes and developing communities. We support developing a living environment where the top priority is employees’ health and their family members’ happiness, and everyone can act energetically.” In addition to promoting the maintenance and improvement of employees’ health, we will foster a workplace culture in which each and every employee can work vigorously and perform to the best of their ability in a psychologically safe work environment. Through these efforts, we are promoting wellbeing (mental, physical, and social health) measures at the companywide level, which will lead to the maximization of employees’ job satisfaction and, ultimately, to higher engagement.
Health Management Promotion System
The company appointed the President and CEO as the chief in charge of health management promotion and the officer in charge of human resources as the head responsible for health management promotion and developed a structure where the Human Resources Department plays a key role in promoting health management practices in cooperation with industrial healthcare staff and health insurance associations. The General Affairs Department of a branch office functions as the headquarters of the Safety and Health Committee and leads specific initiatives to solve the branch office’s issues in cooperation with occupational health physicians, representatives of employees, and the Safety and Health Committee members.
Health management strategy map
To achieve well-being (mental, physical, and social health), we have implemented measures to improve each employee’s health literacy and make him/her aware of the necessity to take effective actions, have taken population approaches utilizing the organization’s capabilities, and have verified the effectiveness based on relevant indices to work on the PDCA cycle. We will enhance work engagement by making employees feel “healthy and happy” and deliver the best performance.
Periodic medical examinations and stress checks
The company provides a well-developed periodic medical examination program including tests for lifestyle-related diseases for employees as a collaborative health program with health insurance associations. In order to enable early detection and early treatment of disease as well as health risk management, the major objectives of medical examinations, we have continued to achieve a medical examination rate of 100% since 2013. We also support employees’ health maintenance and development by ensuring that all employees who were required to receive detailed tests or medical treatment undergo follow-up tests. In addition, we offer specific health guidance, “health improvement seminars” to help employees improve their health voluntarily. All employees, including those who work at workplaces having less than 50 employees, have received periodic stress checks annually since 2016, and the mental health conditions of employees have been verified and monitored by a specialist external agency.
Implementation of population approach
With the aim of fostering a workplace environment where everyone can work safely in good health, the company has developed the “health analysis system,” which assigns scores to be tallied up to each worksite based on the results of periodic medical examinations and analyzes and monitors mental and physical health conditions of each worksite by utilizing the analysis of the results of stress checks of the group (organization). We have also taken a population approach to reducing the entire risk at a worksite, for example, by implementing measures to change lifestyle (e.g., sports) for health development and to improve health literacy (e.g., seminars) for each worksite and by launching a system to provide subsidies to worksites that actively improved workplace environments (the health promotion activity subsidy system).
Improvement of health literacy
As part of a mental health program, since fiscal 2018, mental health line-care training (e-learning) has been provided to managers. Managers have learned how to deal with employees who have developed mental problems and how important the improvement of a workplace environment is as well as the basics of early detection of employees suffering from poor health: “spotting signs of illness, listening to a person who has a bad health condition, and having the person receive medical treatment.” Furthermore, the company encourages employees to acquire the Certification for Mental Health Management (Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and provides money gifts for those who pass the test (first and second classes only).
According to the “in-house survey on support for balancing medical treatment and work” conducted in 2021, many respondents appreciated the enhanced support system. However, a high percentage of the respondents (71% of the respondents with no experience of balancing medical treatment and work, and 58% of those with such experience) said that they would seek an understanding of using the system and the disease from people around him/her (superiors, colleagues, and subordinates). Also, as the company’s presenteeism measured in fiscal 2022 was lower than the Japanese average (84.9%), we have placed priority on creating an environment where employees can easily use the system to support balancing disease treatment and work. To solve this issue, we provided “e-learning on supporting balancing disease treatment and work” to all employees in fiscal 2022, and employees learned the necessity of supporting the balance, details of the support system, women’s health issues, characteristics of treatment of three major diseases and infertility procedures, and care to be taken for employees who receive the treatment or procedures.
Through these activities, we aim to improve employees’ health literacy and create a workplace environment where employees who balance disease treatment and work can deliver the best performance.
