In order to realize our growth strategy and vision for 2025 and continue to be an indispensable company for society, it is essential to have a unique and diverse organization that can collaborate with all stakeholders, create business models that are not bound by conventional frameworks, and create new customer experience value. We believe that the physical and mental health and well-being of all people, including our customers as well as our employees, will support the growth of our organization over the medium to long term. Through strategic health management, we are working to realize the well-being of our employees, creating an environment in which they can demonstrate their individuality and abilities and enjoy greater job satisfaction, enhanced internal systems, and career support.
Create diverse and rewarding work environments
Diversifying the Organization Through Supporting Activities for Women
As women account for approximately 75% of our regular employee base, we see career advancement for women as a priority issue in diversity management. Since approximately 80% of our apparel products are designed for women, we believe that providing better products and services that reflect women’s dynamic perspectives and diverse opinions is directly linked to high financial performance and customer satisfaction. We have set specific goals and are continuously engaged in initiatives under a cross-department project team including a director in charge of this overall topic. Our goals are to increase the ratio of female managers to 45% or more and the ratio of women in senior management positions (general manager and above) to 30% by 2025. Since the fiscal year ended February 2023, the company has begun holding roundtable discussions between female employees and management, newly engaging women in management meetings previously composed solely of men. These have led to cultivating female candidates for executive positions and more active discussions, as well as a change in management awareness.
Specific Initiatives
The development and promotion of female directors and management candidates are regularly discussed at management meetings and Sustainability Committee meetings, with reports made as appropriate, to strategically form a pool of human resources. In addition to holding study sessions and lectures on diversity and operating a mentoring system, from 2022 we have begun holding roundtable discussions between female employees and management and involving female employees in the management committee, which used to be composed of men.
In terms of work style, in 2007, we began supporting a better balance between work and childcare. We have established a unique leave system, a consultation service, and a system that allows employees to choose their work style according to their child-rearing situation, thereby realizing a system that allows women raising children to work with peace of mind for a long time. The Company has an environment in which women can build their careers after taking childcare leave, with 100% of our female employees taking maternity leave and 98% returning to work after childcare leave (as of the fiscal year ending February 2023). In order to support a better balance between work and child rearing, from 2023, we are strengthening support for male employees to take maternity leave and creating a portal site exclusively for employees on maternity and childcare leave.
Achieving Well-Being for Store Employees
Career growth support project called Carikaku
In September 2022, we launched a career growth support project called Carikaku, which creates opportunities for employees working in our stores to autonomously explore future career possibilities and take on challenges. This project is the result of feedback from our store employees who want to be more actively involved in certain interest areas while still working at their store, who want to develop careers that make the most of their own personalities and strengths, and who want to take a further step forward in fields related to sales. Five major roles have been established as new career steps, including for regional promotion, where staff plan and carry out regional revitalization events and corporate collaboration rooted in the community, and as an SSC* certified instructor, who is responsible for improving store customer service skills as a sales specialist. Our employees, who are always attentive to customers’ voices and needs, as well as specific regional characteristics, are the driving force behind Adastria’s growth. We support our employees to create their own careers and to ensure they remain excited about their jobs throughout their working lives.
*SSC is an abbreviation for Service Skill Certification. This is Adastria’s unique skill certification system for all staff working in stores to improve customer satisfaction and sales abilities, as well as staff motivation and sales staff rank.
Reform work styles of employees working in stores
In collaboration with Shin-Shizuoka Cenova, we have launched the “Mutual Support for Working Hours Project” to review the business hours of commercial facilities from the perspective of both tenants and developers, with the aim of realizing sustainable working styles for store staff working in commercial facilities. Through the project, we are proposing sustainable work styles to the industry as a whole and promoting our own work style reforms to improve the attractiveness of our sales staff and to help solve labor shortages.
Foster employee wellbeing
Approach to Health Management Promotion
We aim to contribute to the well-being of society as a whole through our business, promoting health management under the slogan Play fashion! Play wellness! Our collaborative healthcare with the Adastria Health Insurance Association enables us to provide insurance and welfare services tailored to the characteristics of the company, specifically its nationwide workforce with a high percentage of young people and women and diverse employment formats, to foster a health-conscious culture and create a safe and secure work environment. In order for each and every one of us to fulfill the philosophy to Be a Person Needed, Be a Company Needed, our goal is to ensure that all of us can stay healthy and happy ourselves, both physically and mentally, and work with vigor and continue to provide Play fashion! as described in our mission.
Health Management Promotion System
The Adastria Wellness Committee, a health promotion committee formed by employees selected through internal recruitment, has been launched to promote wellbeing. We will pick up the real voices of employees and their ever-changing needs, and make proposals to reflect them in health promotion and insurance projects that are in line with the actual situation. We also plan and execute wellness events, etc., while fostering a climate and environment in which employees themselves can improve their health literacy and engage in activities to maintain and promote their health.
Earned First Certification as a Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization for 2023
In recognition of its promotion of collaborative healthcare with the Adastria Health Insurance Association and its strategic and specific initiatives, Adastria has been recognized as a Certified Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization for 2023 (large corporation category) by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Nippon Kenko Kaigi (Japan Health Council), its first such certification. In fiscal year ended February 2022, we issued the Health Management Declaration and set up the Health Management Promotion Office, a department dedicated to promoting health management in the Adastria Group. The Adastria Wellness Committee, a health promotion committee for the benefit of employees, has been studying specific measures and mechanisms, and enhances health promotion, insurance, and welfare projects tailored to our corporate characteristics. The committee will continue to foster a health-conscious corporate culture in a way unique to Adastria and that encourages employees to enjoy maintaining and improving their own health through health literacy and skills that lead to stronger mental and physical fitness.
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