Working on Land

Promotion of work/life balance

Since Fiscal Year 2009, the primary focus of the Work/Life Balance Promotion Committee^*1 has been implementation of the NYK WLB Project action plan, which centers on activities to "change attitudes." As Phase II of the project, we conducted four programs during Fiscal Year 2010: 1) established numerical targets for overtime hours and holidays at the group level and monitored achievement; 2) created better company announcements to encourage workers to go home early; 3) proposed ways to reduce meetings; and 4) conducted trials of a "leave on time" program.

Work/life balance programs (excerpt)

• Parental leave
  Available until the child reaches 26 months of age
• Family care leave
  Up to a total of one year. Can be divided in two if within two years of the leave commencement date.
• Parental and family care flextime and shortened work hours

1. Flextime system — Offered to employees who are pregnant, caring for children up to the sixth grade, or providing nursing care to family members
2. Shortened working hours (up to two hours per day) — Available to employees caring for children up to the first grade or providing nursing care to family members.

• Spouse transfer leave
  Up to two years available if a spouse is reassigned overseas or to a location in Japan more than 130 kilometers away. (For domestic transfers, limited to three years from 2010).
• Yusen Childcare (in-house childcare service)
  Began in April 2002. Staffing above statutory requirements. Laundry facilities and other conveniences provided.

Yusen Child Care

Yusen Child Care

In April 2002, NYK became the first company in downtown Tokyo to open its own internal day-care facility, the Yusen Child Care Center. After opening the facility, we continued to ask ourselves how we could facilitate its use by more employees, which resulted in several innovations, including programs to enable users to commute by car and the acceptance of children from employees of other companies.

Reemployment program

NYK launched the NYK Career Club (NCC) and NYK Friend Club (NFC) in April 2006. The NCC is a program created in response to the amended Law Concerning Stabilization of Employment of Older Persons and provides for reemployment through age 65 of employees who retire at age 60 and meet certain conditions. On the other hand, the NFC is a program that provides for fixedterm reemployment of staff members who have left NYK for personal reasons. The purpose of both programs is to provide ambitious, skilled employees with opportunities to work after they have left the company.

Volunteer leave

In April 2006, we introduced a Volunteer Leave System to encourage employees to participate in volunteer activities. Eligible volunteer activities are announced by the Office for Corporate Citizenship^*1, spending up to five days a year on volunteer programs. Several employees obtained some volunteer leaves every year, through which these employees deepened interaction with people in many different walks of life.

NYK Mate Network (mentoring program)

Mentoring program

The "NYK Mate Network" was introduced in November 2005 as a mentoring program. It serves as a human resources development program in which senior employees (mentors) provide support and motivation to junior employees (mentees) in the achievement of their goals. Young employees who desire to become mentors are provided with training opportunities to learn about mentoring and enhance their skills. Several group companies have introduced or are considering the introduction of similar programs.