Promoting Healthy Management

Implementation Status of Health Management Activities

Sumitomo Rubber Industries has established the Health Management Regulations in addition to clearly defining risk categories to be assigned to employees based on their health checkup results in order to strengthen follow-up measures to support their health management. In line with risk categories, we encourage employees to undergo additional examinations and offer them interviews with and guidance from industrial physicians, nurses and other industrial health specialists. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also utilized remote interviews in a proactive manner. We have thus promoted health management measures aligned with the needs of employees who work from home. In terms of the provision of follow-up measures, we aim to ensure that a growing number of employees undergo detailed examinations when their initial checkups suggest the need to do so. Simultaneously, we also strive to raise the ratio of individuals in appropriate disease management, especially among those with high blood pressures and diabetes.

Acting in collaboration with the Health Insurance Association, we conduct cancer examinations (including those for cancers that predominantly strike women), specific health checkups and specific health guidance to ensure the early detection and treatment of cancer. Moreover, we implement countermeasures against metabolic syndromes and other measures aimed at preventing serious symptoms.

As part of measures to improve lifestyle habits, we are focused on implementing measures to address issues associated with (1) smoking, (2) alcohol consumption, (3) sleeping, (4) eating and (5) exercise.

In particular, we consider a high smoking rate among our workforce to be a Companywide issue. Accordingly, we promote countermeasures across the board from perspectives of preventing smokers from suffering health damage as well as safeguarding non-smokers from a harm of second-hand smoking. After the President delivered his message to employees, the head of each business base announced their declaration of smoking cessation in 2023. Thus, we are proactively engaged in Companywide efforts to discourage smoking. At the end of 2020, we abolished all indoor smoking areas at several key business bases. At the end of 2021, we then enforced a smoking ban during working hours at all the key business bases. As of May 2023, five of our domestic bases have introduced a prohibition of smoking within their premises. Furthermore, we plan to enforce a universal ban on smoking within the premises of all business bases by the end of 2024.

In May 2022, we launched central and district Smoking Cessation Committees to accelerate Companywide measures to discourage smoking and encourage smoking cessation. In April 2023, we began providing support to smokers willing to quit smoking (via, for example, the enhancement of subsidies to be paid for smoking cessation treatment, the development of an inhouse structure for supporting efforts to quit smoking and the introduction of smoking cessation assistance programs offered by the Health Insurance Association).

As part of other measures designed to help improve lifestyle habits, a team of industrial health specialists engage in cross-regional activities covering multiple business bases, while the Health Insurance Association hosts walking rally and other health promotion events.

We also believe that enabling employees to develop health literacy and awareness is essential to nurturing a health-oriented corporate culture. Based on this belief, we provide employees with health-related information and education on an as-necessary basis. For example, we utilize our intranet to post “HEALTH NEWS” while streaming on-demand health seminars.

2023 Declaration of Smoking Cessation Announced by Business Base Heads

We conduct stress checks for all employees, including those working at business bases with a workforce of less than 50 people. These stress checks serve as a primary measure aimed at preventing the development of mental health-related issues by, for example, helping employees develop a self-awareness of stress. Follow-up measures after the implementation of stress checks include conducting interviews with individuals exposed to high stress and providing them with health counseling. To that end, psychiatrists and industrial counselors are stationed at some of our business bases. Furthermore, findings from the collective analysis of stress checks are relayed to each workplace, while interviews are conducted at business units whose employees are deemed to be exposed to high stress. Insights gleaned from these initiatives are utilized to inform our efforts to improve the workplace environment.

In 2022, we implemented self-care seminars focused on anger management for individual employees as well as line care seminars for managerial employees. These seminars were held online. Looking ahead, we will also implement seminars and other training programs for those in managerial and supervisory positions to help them gain greater capabilities to handle stress-related issues among their staff.

With regard to the reinstatement of employees who have suffered from mental health-related issues, we provide them with interviews with industrial physicians while holding the Reinstatement Assessment Committee, so that these individuals can smoothly return to their workplaces upon recovery with the aid of various supportive programs, including those allowing them to work for shorter hours. In fiscal 2022, a total of 42 employees utilized these supportive programs.

In step with the expansion of the size of our operations, employees are now expected to handle a growing volume of work. Given these circumstances, we aim to curb overtime hours and, to this end, strive to improve operational efficiency while promoting such necessary measures as augmenting staffing.

To mitigate excessive working hours, we issue notifications to employees who have worked overtime for 80 hours or more in one month to urge them to pay attention to their overtime work status. To this end, we monitor the log-in data of Company-furnished PCs and other information available from the attendance management system. These employees are also granted interviews with industrial physicians. For individuals who work many hours of overtime and work on holidays, and are thus deemed to bear excessive workload, their supervisors conduct face-to-face interviews with them to plan improvement measures, while departments in charge of human resource management exercise monitoring over the status of improvement. In these ways, we strive to curb excessive working hours.