Engagement with Employees

The source of power for growth of a company lies in its human resources. We strive for human resource development via a fair human affairs system and various human resource development measures. In order to enable individual employees to work in a way best fitted to their style, we promote a work-life balance and other initiatives to provide an easy-to-work environment.

Respecting human rights

In its "Framework Handbook for Business Ethics," the Hitachi Cable Group claims that it respects the personalities and human rights of its individual employees and never commits any unjustified discrimination. Under the basic stance of "not allowing any kind of harassment occur" and "taking the appropriate measures, including awareness-raising activities and education in order to prevent various types of harassment from taking place," the Group addresses the prevention of harassment. To be precise, contact persons are assigned at individual offices and workplaces to handle issues, and awareness-raising activities are conducted as appropriate, taking advantage of the Intranet, in-house magazines and other measures.
Furthermore, with regard to human rights, position-based education opportunities are mainly exploited to propagate and raise an awareness of proper knowledge, while efforts are made to promote proper practice of human rights protection.

Human resources treatment system and development of human resources

Improvement of management-by-objectives system and new establishment of role definitions

Study meetings of the new management-by-objectives system are carried out at all places of business

To enable employees to promote the enhancement of ability and skills and to encourage autonomy, Hitachi Cable has continued to update its human resources treatment systems. The management-by-objectives system was introduced to managerial employees and above in 1995 and has been improved every year by, for example, expanding the coverage to all employees on a major career path. In FY2009, the company stipulated the roles and requirements expected of line managers as "Role Definitions," updated the management-by-objectives system based on this, and restructured and simplified the system to agree with the original goal of management by objectives of "human resources development" and "assessment." The "Role Definitions" were prepared on the basis of interviews with about 70 managerial employees, including executives as well as medium term management plans and other management policies, and strives to realize a workplace management more suitable for accomplishing business strategies by enabling individual line managers to set targets and manage their implementation based on their role definitions. Through integrating "Role Definitions" and target management and running its PDCA cycle, Hitachi Cable commits itself to "develop independent human resources" and an "establishment of persuasive assessment systems."

Training by related business divisions

Scene from training of related business divisions at the Production Planning Department of Hitaka Works

We started an "on-the-job training by related department" course with new college and university graduates who joined the company in FY2009. When each new employee has gained a basic understanding of the department he or she is posted to, the new employee will experience on-the-job training of production management and Just-in-Time (JIT) production activities at a business department related to his or her department (mainly a plant) for a period of three to six months. The purpose of this training course is to help new employees to understand the basic concept of "manufacturing" and operational/supply chain flows and to raise their awareness of the significance of responsibility for "manufacturing." Though the course has just started, the new employees who actually took the course commented that they had been able to get not only the knowledge of production processes and cost calculations but also in-house connections and that they were able to gain strong confidence working in a manufacturer. Going forward, we shall further enhance and improve education to raise an awareness of responsibilities and obligations of manufacturers' employees in different ranks in addition to new employees, playing an active role in the continuous social contribution by the Hitachi Cable Group.

Overseas operations training

Staff of Hitachi Cable America, Inc. and overseas operation trainee (left)

Ever since its commencement in 1978, this training system enables employees to gain overseas operational experience. The goal of the system is to enable participants to master the command of practical languages and operational expertise in the international community at local language schools, universities or professional schools while attaining operational experience at our overseas Group companies. There is a oneyear and short-term (3 to 6 months) course available, greatly contributing to develop global human resources development among young to middle-rank employees.

Initiatives to promote diversity

Promoting the participation of various talent

Hitachi Cable promotes diversity management to integrate the ability and value of diverse human resources into one to invigorate the entire organization, regardless of personal attributes (sex, age, nationality and physical/mental challenges.)

Expanding opportunities for females

Currently, the ratio of females employed in managerial roles at Hitachi Cable is rather low when compared with global major companies, and we are somewhat behind in terms of active roles of females within the company. For this reason, we set a target of promoting the employment of female major career path so that the ratio reaches 20% among newly employed major career path, and within the last ten years, the number of female major career path has increased fivefold. We continue to aggressively employ female employees on a major career path and promote the education and development of candidates for female major career path.
Toward a company that can fully offer opportunities for women to take advantage of their abilities and skills, it is essential to improve the ways of working, including those of males, enhancement of various systems to support a work-life balance and diverse ways of working and understanding within the company. Hitachi Cable will continue to take a wide range of initiatives so employees can work in a lively way, regardless of their sex.

Promotion of employees with disabilities

By the end of FY2008, we fulfilled the mandatory proportion of jobs for people with disabilities, and the ratio in FY2009 was 1.86%. As the Hitachi Cable Group (consolidated), we have also satisfied the mandatory proportion, (1.83%.) We continue to make efforts to expand the range of functions available, improve working environments and secure employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Work Life Balance

Guidebook for Supporting the Balance between Work and Childcare

In order to enable employees to choose the ideal way to work in accordance with personal values and family conditions, a wide variety of alternatives are available. For childbirth, child rearing and nursing, employees can take advantage of the temporary leave system, short time working system, and childbirth leave system for a spouse. In FY2009, the company established a new system to re-employ employees who left the company for child rearing and nursing. We also prepared a "Guidebook for Supporting the Balance between Work and Childcare" to summarize the above and strengthen the in-house information provision so that employees can be assured to use the systems. The company has also introduced such systems as discretionary work, flextime and a "volunteer vacation system" taking advantage of the number of total paid holidays, offering a flexible working structure.

Short time working system use results*1

FY2006 FY2007 FY2008 FY2009 Persons 1 9 3 0

Childbirth leave system use results*1

FY2006 FY2007 FY2008 FY2009 Persons 3 8 24 25

*1	The number of persons who started to use the system in the relevant year (To count the number only for the start if use overlaps two fiscal years, the figures in and before FY2008 are adjusted.)

Opinion from a user of the childcare leave system

Hitaka Works Sumi Ishigami My first child is now four years old, and I had my second child last year. I am now taking my second childcare leave. I feel somewhat uncertain about going back to work with two kids, but thanks to the kind and warm understanding by not only my seniors but also my colleagues in my workplace, I am looking forward to returning to work. I think the experience of childbirth will be my strength, not a handicap in doing my job. The challenge is a high hurdle, but I want to do my best, hoping my children will be proud of their working mother.

Health and safety

Safety management

We endeavor to maintain high levels of health and safety standards and further improve them under the basic principle of "Protecting the health and safety of employees comes before all else."
In the area of safety management, in addition to the establishment of an employee health and safety management system, in particular we have promoted the nurturing of safety consciousness and a provision of full safety information through the health and safety website. In terms of safety education, we are making efforts to strengthen education with steady activities, including morning sessions making use of weekly "Safety News" and regular "Safety analysis" by management as well as education to improve risk sensitivity through Risk Anticipation Training, viewing of videos and hands-on education using unsafe equipment. In addition the Package Materials Production Division of Densen Works implemented and improved its health and safety system around risk assessment, and acquired an "OHSAS18001*2" certification, which is considered to be the only international standard on labor health and safety management systems in June 2008.

*2 OHSAS18001: Workplace Safety Management System Certification

Countermeasure against disasters

Hitachi Cable sets December as "Disaster prevention awareness month" to raise anti-disaster awareness and to improve the disaster prevention management system. In September, we practice drills to prepare for the event of a major earthquake at our works. We continue to provide traffic safety activities to employees, including traffic lectures, inviting people involved in law enforcement as speakers, education for new car owners that commute by car and training using SD cars (touring automobile equipped with safe driving educational facilities.)
All works of our Group have established an internal firefighting team that regularly practice firefighting drills to prepare for unexpected occurrences. In addition, both domestic and overseas Group companies conduct a comprehensive range of activities to raise the awareness of disaster prevention.

Health management and mental health care

To protect the health of employees, Hitachi Cable offers counseling to employees who work a lot of extra hours as well as regular health checks, complete medical check ups for employees who reach a certain age and various seminars on lifestyle disease prevention and such are carried out.
On the other hand, we urge health insurance unions to introduce such mechanisms as reference services to specialist doctors and consultation for second opinions, making efforts to build an environment where employees can work with a sense of safety and security. In recent years, mental health of employees has become a critical issue in society. We regularly offer opportunities for stress checks of employees and feed the results back to them, while improving mental health care services where they can consult specialists and counselors. Furthermore, in order to solve the wide variety of trouble employees encounter, we collaborate with medical institutions in the Hitachi Group and the EAP*4 Center to provide consultation.

*4 EAP

Employee Assistance Program This is a program with the purpose of supporting employees mentally, physically and socially

Healthy labor-management relations

At Hitachi Cable, all employees except management belong to a labor union. To promote communication between employees and management, smooth management and business development and the enhancement of working conditions for employees, "Central Management Committee" meetings between Head Office and Labor Union Headquarters and "Works Management Committee" meetings between business establishments and branch offices of the Labor Union are each held twice a year.
In addition, in newly established or updated various systems related to labor conditions, the company and the union establish task forces for discussions, making efforts to maintain and strengthen healthy and favorable labormanagement relations.

Employee benefits and welfare

In order to make the lives of employees and their families richer and more stable, Hitachi Cable offers a comprehensive range of measures to support them. In 2003, as one of the employee benefits and welfare to back up self-help efforts and the independence of employees, the company introduced the "Cafeteria Plan System (selective benefit and welfare system)" that offers options to meet the different lifestyles and needs of individual employees such as "ability and skill development," "childrearing," "nursing" and "health building" in addition to such conventional benefits and welfare as dormitories for single employees, company-run houses and medical services. Within a range of points that each employee has earned (Cafeteria Points,) he or she can choose the necessary support when it necessary.

Life plan support

In these modern times with a declining birthrate and an aging population and as lifestyles in old age are becoming more diversified, having a definitive life plan is becoming more and more important. Hitachi Cable provides information to serve as the basis for life planning after retirement (retirement benefits, company pension, welfare pension, health insurance, employment insurance, etc.) and hosts "Life Plan Seminar" as opportunities to think about one's life and work styles after retirement.