Human Rights and Labor

Respect for Human Rights

Basic approach

Since the founding in 1945, the IDEC Group has advocated “management with respect for humanity,” and has positioned this as the foundation of our every action in “The IDEC Way,” our corporate philosophy. We respect humanity and endeavor to avoid discrimination of any form, including on the basis of race, skin color, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual expression, ethnicity, nationality, disabilities, pregnancy, religion, political party affiliation, labor union affiliation, experience with military service, protected genetic information, and marital status.

As a company engaged in business globally, we support international principles and norms including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, work to respect human rights, and recognize the need to mitigate or prevent any adverse impacts our corporate activities have on the human rights of various stakeholders.

We have established a Human Rights Policy to ensure that all people involved with the IDEC Group have a strong awareness of human rights and contribute to the sustainable development of society. We newly formulated the IDEC Human Rights Statement and revised our Human Rights Policy in 2023. We expect all business partners including our suppliers to understand and support this policy, and we continually encourage our business partners to respect it.

Human Rights Policy

Implementation structure

We established a Human Rights Subcommittee within the Risk Management Committee, a specialized committee of the Sustainability Committee chaired by the CEO in 2024.

The Human Rights Subcommittee, working under the executive officer in charge of strategic planning, monitors the status of initiatives and activities concerning human rights globally, clarifies action items, and implements them in coordination with related functions as necessary.

The details of activities are deliberated over and reported to the Sustainability Committee under the supervision of the Board of Directors.

Process for addressing human rights

During FY2024, we clarified our procedures for implementing actions that address and promote human rights. Going forward, we will continue to promote various initiatives in line with these procedures.

Assessment of impacts on human rights

The Risk Management Committee’s “Human Rights Subcommittee” has identified and assessed potential negative impacts on human rights within our value chain that could be caused by the IDEC Group’s business decisions and operations. Human rights items below are based on “Human rights items significant to the IDEC Group” in the IDEC Human Rights Statement. Going forward, we will formulate policies that outlines the implementation of preventive and corrective measures to address these high priority human rights issues.

Prohibition of forced and child labor

The IDEC Group prohibits all forms of forced labor and child labor including slavery and human trafficking in the IDEC Human Rights Policy. This also applies to the supply chain. In the IDEC Group CSR Procurement Guidelines, we prescribe a prohibition on forced labor including slavery and human trafficking and require our suppliers to comply with those stipulations.

Decent work

“Decent work” is defined as “rewarding employment (work) which has high consideration for humanity,” and also as “productive work in which the rights of each individual are ensured, sufficient income is generated, and appropriate social protection is provided.”We have implemented various workstyle transformation initiatives, such as increasing work efficiency through DX, building an IT infrastructure that includes telephones, etc., introducing a planned paid holiday program, and encouraging male employees to take childcare leave.
To enable more flexible working styles, we have launched discretionary work and we are currently reassessing flex-time systems, existing work-from-home programs and special leave systems.

Moreover, in FY2023 we established a Decent Work Promotion Subcommittee to strive to create a rewarding workplace environment where employees can work with ANSHIN, in order to increase employee satisfaction and achieve employee well-being. The following objectives have been established and cross-departmental information sharing and company-wide policies are currently being studied.

Through coordination by relevant departments beginning with the Decent Work Promotion Subcommittee, IDEC will work to create a work environment that is rewarding for all employees.

・Optimization of working time management
・Support for balancing career and family
・Achievement of flexible work styles
・Support for empowering women

Reduction of long working hours

The IDEC Group is making a company-wide effort to promote Decent Work and prevent excessive work with the aims of realizing 100% use of annual paid leave.

In addition to the conventional "no-overtime work days", we encourage employees to leave work on time through calling on employees to leave early on the P.A. system. As a result, employees are required to compile and execute more efficient work plans, making them more conscious of working hours than before.

We also strive to increase annual paid leave utilization rates with emphasis on encouraging employees to seek mental and physical refreshment based on scheduled utilization of paid leaves. We are striving to create a workplace atmosphere that encourages taking holidays. For example, we give monthly feedback on individual leave utilization with the aim of realizing 80% or higher utilization.

We were also one of the first corporations to introduce the office hours interval system and take other pioneering measures to reduce long working hours.

In this way, we help our employees control their working hours, leave work early when their workloads are light, and shorten working hours so that they can devote more energy to having fuller private lives.

 

Realizing a safe, healthy and comfortable workplace environment

The IDEC Group considers the safety and health of employees as the most important issue in achieving management with respect for humanity, and aims to be a company that pursues and achieves world-class safety, health and wellbeing.

We emphasize risk assessment, which not only complies with relevant laws and regulations, but also investigates hazards or hazards in the workplace and takes measures to prevent hazards or health problems of employees based on the results.

In "safety," we train a large number of qualified personnel such as “Safety Assessors” * who are "safety specialists," and utilize their knowledge to realize more advanced and safe production sites that take comfort and productivity into consideration.

Regarding “health”, the IDEC Health Care Center makes efforts to enhance employee follow-up on health management and raise health awareness through health seminars and other programs. We also work to achieve "wellbeing" by making our employees' lives and work worthwhile from various aspects including mind and body, such as improving systems for childcare and nursing care, and establishing a fitness gym in the head office so that each employee can achieve a high level of Decent Work.

* A qualification system that certifies that you have knowledge and ability of machine safety based on international safety standards, and as a standard certification project of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Japan Electrical Control Equipment Manufacturers Association (NECA) has established and institutionalized qualification certification standards, which are operated by Japan Certification Co., Ltd. (JC).

■ Occupational Safety and Health System

Ethical code of conduct 

IDEC publishes the IDEC Group Code of Conduct, which sets forth basic guidelines for the conduct of business activities, on a global basis. The IDEC Group Code of Conduct is based on our Group philosophy “The IDEC Way,” and is positioned to consolidate the actions that employees should take into three axes: “Workplace” (actions toward human rights and workplace environments), “Social” (actions toward society and the environment), and “Business” (actions toward business operations), which are structured so that they can be easily communicated throughout the world.
We are also building a highly transparent compliance system by conducting ongoing compliance training, formulating anti-corruption policies, and arranging internal reporting systems.

IDEC Group Code of Conduct

Implementation of human rights education

In position-based training for new graduate hires, mid-career hires and promoted employees, we conduct human rights training and workshops based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

As human rights-related training that broadly covers areas of human rights to be respected by companies, we provide education and training that incorporates human rights themes into anti-harassment training, compliance training and occupational safety & health training.

We conducted video-based anti-harassment training and compliance training for our Japanese group companies in FY2024. The attendance rates were 100% for anti-harassment training and compliance training respectively. In conjunction with the training, we are also distributing IDEC Group Harassment Case Cards to employees with subordinates, to foster correct knowledge about harassment and prevent it from happening. We plan to expand human rights-related training globally in the future.

We have also posted videos on forced labor and child labor, and a checklist to confirm the relationship between human rights and our business on our corporate intranet, as part of efforts to promote understanding and raise awareness of human rights issues among employees.

　
(Commitment to human rights issues)

IDEC has indicated the following five items as points for our commitment to human rights issues, and is systematizing human rights education in accordance with each personnel level.

・Compliance
・Respect for basic human rights
・Prohibition of harassment
・Promotion of occupational safety and health
・Freedom of association and collective bargaining rights

Rights for labor unions and collective bargaining

IDEC Corporation and its affiliates, IDEC Systems & Controls Corporation and IDEC Sales Support Corporation (hereafter referred to as “the Companies”), have concluded a collective labor agreement with the IDEC Labor Union of the Japanese Electrical Electronic & Information Union (hereafter referred to as “the Union”). 
The purpose of this agreement is to ensure normal and fair labor-management relations between the Companies and the Union to respect each other's positions based on the principles of understanding, good faith, and sincerity, and to maintain peaceful relations between the Companies and the Union.