Initiatives for Health Promotion
Health and Productivity Management at UBE
UBE has set “enhancement of corporate value over the medium to long term” as its health and productivity management goal. Under its new medium-term management plan, UBE will promote “respect for individuality and diversity and development of a comfortable work environment” to provide motivating workplaces and enhance its human capital for sustainable growth.
UBE also analyzed feedback from the Survey on Health and Productivity Management and identified issues that have not been sufficiently improved, and is promoting initiatives to solve these issues. These are: preventing employee productivity loss and occupational accidents; reducing employee smoking rates; optimizing working hours; ensuring work-life balance and time for life outside of work; and promoting communication among employees.
Strategy Map for Current Medium-Term Plan (2022-2024)
Click on the image to enlarge.
Structure to Promote Health and Productivity Management
- At UBE, important basic policies and measures related to health promotion are deliberated and decided by the Strategic Management Meeting and the Board of Directors as priority management issues. Decisions made are rolled out to each business site and the UBE Group, and measures are implemented and progress is managed in unison.
- Each business site appoints a health manager to ensure a comfortable working environment and a motivating workplace. The annual and the medium-to-long term company-wide shared priority action items deliberated by the Strategic Management Meeting are promoted through bodies such as the Health Management Implementation Committee, the Meeting of Health Supervisors, the Meeting of Industrial Health Physicians, and the Meeting of Industrial Health Nurses to enable employees to maintain and promote their own physical and mental health autonomously.
- UBE, in cooperation with the health insurance association, provides support for the prevention of serious illness, enhancement of specific health guidance, and health measures.
Each business site implements activities using Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycles in order to ensure continuous improvement of health promotion.
Vision for 2030
UBE addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion as a top priority issue to enhance its human capital.
UBE is shifting from disease management to health promotion measures. This includes spreading health and productivity management within the Group to create workplaces that are physically and mentally healthy and motivating to work in, and to improve employee work engagement.
Priority issues (four items), initiatives, and targets in the current medium-term management plan (2022–2024)
Priority Issues
- Health and Productivity Management
- Support for balancing treatment and work (including measures for mental health, brain and heart diseases, and malignant neoplasms)
- Measures to Address Tobacco Use
- Measures to Address Occupational Illness Risks
Initiatives and targets
1-1. Initiatives to Raise Employee Awareness and Understanding of Health and Productivity Management
| Item | Target for the End of FY2024 | September 2022*1 | October 2023*2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness of health and productivity management | 90% | 97.7% | 98.9% |
- *1 Results obtained from roughly half of employees
- *2 Results obtained from approximately 65% of employees
Measures
1. The president, who is responsible for health and productivity management, and the chairman of the labor union jointly issued a Health and Productivity Management Declaration.
In addition, all UBE managers were instructed to raise awareness of the Health and Productivity Management Declaration in their respective workplaces to encourage the establishment and widespread adoption of health and productivity management.
The Health and Productivity Management Declaration is posted on the top page of the company intranet along with the President’s Office, UBE Corporate Philosophy, and Medium-Term Management Plan, making it easily accessible to employees at any time.
| Priority Action Items | Targets | Achievement Status |
|---|---|---|
| Promotion programs for regular exercise | 100% participation rate | 93.0%*1 |
| E-learning for health promotion | 100% attendance rate | 99.1% |
- *1 As of March 2023
2. Establishment of a Health and Productivity Management Slogan
- Calling for slogans to promote health and productivity management as the UBE Group from fiscal 2022
- Posters displayed at all UBE Group business sites
- Outstanding entries commended by the president at the UBE Group Safety and Health Rally
- This year’s slogan: “Healthy in mind and body: Health and productivity management bringing joy to working people”
1-2. Establishment and Improvement of Work Engagement Indicators
In fiscal 2018, the number of stress check items was increased from 57 to 80, two of which (Q79 and Q80) are used to track changes in work engagement indicators.
From fiscal 2022, Work Functioning Impairment Scale (WFun) and K6, which measure presenteeism, will be introduced to examine improvement measures to increase work engagement. These systems will be used to identify groups that need to be improved based on the status of their work efforts (objective degree of work impairment, independent of group and individual characteristics, and unaffected by gender, age, or work duties). They will be used to identify the characteristics (issues) of the groups and to plan and formulate effective improvement measures. By making the results into a system for checking effectiveness based on changes in five of the 80 stress check items (Q17, Q75, Q76, Q79, and Q80), the results will be established as management indicators of work engagement.
| Fiscal Year | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q79 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 |
| Q80 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 2.7 |
- *Scoring: Agree = 4 points, Somewhat agree = 3 points, Somewhat disagree = 2 points, Disagree = 1 point
2. Initiatives to create motivating workplaces
| Item | Target for the End of FY2024 | FY2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Workplaces managing the progress in boosting organizational vitality | 50% | Promote the use of stress check reports |
3. Measures to Address Tobacco Use
| Item | Target for the End of FY2024 | FY2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Smoking rate | 20% or less | 19.6% |
Seeking to further reduce the smoking rate, the UBE Group has planned anti-smoking education for new employees and employees in their 20s. The target implementation rate is 100% by the end of the fiscal year for new employees and 100% by the end of fiscal 2024 for employees in their 20s.
4. Measures to Address Occupational Illness Risks
| Item | Target for the End of FY2024 | FY2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Thoroughly manage the risk of work-related illness | Maintenance of working environment measurement records and work records for persons subject to special health checkups as defined in the internal rules on the three areas of management of chemical substances (submitted to industrial physicians) | Standardize industrial physician patrols across the company to check the status of three areas of management at work sites |
Support for Performance Improvement
As measures to support employees so that they can work actively, UBE provides job-specific training, conducts workplace improvement activities at each workplace, and provides support for regular exercise. As part of health promotion, e-learning sessions are held for all employees three times a year and health apps are provided to those who wish to use them, creating an environment in which employees can manage their health autonomously.
To promote the maintenance of a Personal Health Record (PHR), UBE has introduced a system that allows employees to check the results of their own health checkups and stress checks from company PCs.
As an indicator of performance improvement, the UBE labor union organizes a wellbeing survey, and the results are reported to union members. In addition, each plant and other sites regularly conduct employee satisfaction surveys and hold roundtable meetings to proactively improve the environment so that employees can work comfortably.
| Measures | Eligible Employees | FY2022 Results |
|---|---|---|
| Grade-specific training on mental health | Newly hired employees, employees hired mid-career, managers | Total: 159 employees |
| Training on use of health information | Managers (includes managers at sites outside Japan) | Attendance by 91.6% of managers (Target: Maintain attendance of 80% or more) Conduct annually, including refresher training |
| Unconscious bias training | Directors and executive officers | Not implemented |
| Unconscious bias e-learning program | Directors and executive officers, full-time and part-time employees | 5,905 participants |
| Health promotion e-learning program | Full-time employees | 99.1% attendance rate |
Providing health content through apps
|
Full-time employees |
|
| Outside employment assistance program (EAP) | Employees and their families | Average of 9 cases per month |
In addition, employees can view their own health checkup results on a PC and undergo stress checks at any time.
| Provision of Information | Eligible Employees | FY2022 Results |
|---|---|---|
| Information on mental health | UBE Group | 24 times a year, posted on intranet |
| 3-minute health advice | UBE Group | Provided in Safety and Health Committees held at each business site |
| Information on COVID-19 | UBE Group | Posted information on infection control measures, vaccination, health management while teleworking, etc. |
| Evaluation Index | Eligible Employees | FY2022 Results |
|---|---|---|
| Wellbeing Survey | Labor union members | 72% response rate |
Since the second half of 2022, we have been considering engagement indicators, utilizing WFun and other resources.
Supply Chain
UBE has a policy in its Rules of Employment that employees may not smoke on company premises during working hours. Partner companies and suppliers are also made aware of this rule to raise awareness of anti-smoking measures. UBE also supports its partner companies by sharing its know-how on physical condition management including body temperature measurement for combating infectious diseases.
Contribution to Society
1. Fostering Mental Health
The UBE Group invites the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra to Ube City and holds the UBE Group Charity Concert in order to contribute to the development of local culture through music. Prior to the concert, UBE conducts events to build bridges between the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and young people who will lead the next generation with the aim of promoting local culture and fostering mental health.
2. Contributing to Regional Revitalization through Sports Promotion
UBE has signed an official partnership agreement with RENOFA Yamaguchi FC, a professional soccer club, to help realize an enriched future society.
3. Provision of Information
UBE provides information on the health promotion activities that it has conducted to date.
- Presentation at the Japan Society for Occupational Health
- Publication in journals, etc.: Health Up 21, Sangyo Hoken to Kango (Occupational Health and Nursing), Yamaguchi Prefecture Smoking Prevention Guidelines
- Reports at various committee meetings (Yamaguchi Prefecture Industrial Physicians Association Executive Committee; Yamaguchi Prefecture Association of Dietitians; Yamaguchi Prefecture Infectious Disease Health Crisis Management and Yamaguchi Prefecture Measles and Rubella Countermeasures Council; Liaison Council for Employment Assistance for Persons with Mental Disabilities and Developmental Disabilities ; etc.)
- Support for students and medical associations
Support for nursing student training at Yamaguchi University and the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan
Lecturer at Yamaguchi Medical Association-approved industrial physician training sessions, and education and training conducted by the Yamaguchi Labor Standards Association
Response to Global Health Issues
Since the UBE Group’s business spans the globe, the Group not only complies with applicable laws and regulations, but also responds to the risk of infectious diseases, which include the three major global health issues of malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis. As part of this response, employees with work assignments outside Japan are required to receive health checkups.
Health checkup before departing Japan: Employees with three-month or longer assignments outside Japan
Health checkup after returning to Japan: Employees working in Japan after working outside Japan for six months or longer
During health checkups before departing Japan, an industrial physician provides guidance and recommendations on the individual’s health risks and necessary vaccinations. A public health nurse provides hygiene education and health guidance based on the living and food environments in the destination area.
The Overseas Crisis Management (OCM) Commission Secretariat has introduced the Alert Star business traveler management system. It regularly disseminates information and issues alerts such as overseas safety bulletins.
*Alert STAR
Alert STAR was introduced in April 2018 with the following two objectives.
- In the event of an emergency such as a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or pandemic, the OCM secretariat and staff can centrally ascertain the current location of international travelers in the affected country and promptly confirm their safety.
- Business travelers can obtain local safety information.
Furthermore, to prevent the psychological isolation of expatriate employees due to remote work, we have established a web environment that allows them round-the-clock access to a stress check examination designed based on Japan’s Industrial Safety and Health Act to assess the degree of psychological burden. We have also established and offered a system that enables web-based consultations with industrial physicians when necessary.
To ensure health management for employees who are stationed outside Japan, we establish our own health checkup items adapted for locations outside Japan, set up an annual health checkup schedule, and encourage everyone eligible to participate. In addition, for Japanese employees, it is expected that the stress of work and life will be greater during an assignment outside Japan than when living in Japan. There is no Japanese statutory obligation that requires stress checks to be conducted outside Japan. However, UBE provides the opportunity to receive a stress check once a year, and we endeavor to prevent the onset of mental illness by asking employees assigned outside Japan to use the stress check results as a reference to ascertain their own stress level.