Based on the belief that maintaining and improving the health of our employees is an investment in future profitability, from a company standpoint we published our Statement on Health in 2017 and are proactively promoting strategic Health-focused Management.
We recognize that the health of our employees is essential to realizing the Yakult philosophy of “contributing to the health and happiness of people,” and therefore strive to create safe work environments that offer peace of mind, as well as promote good physical and mental health in our employees.
In the promotion of Health-focused Management, the company President serves as Chief Health Officer, while the General Manager of the Administrative Division and Director of Human Resources serve as Health Promotion Managers . To oversee implementation, we have also established a Health-focused Management Promotion Section within the Human Resources Department that collaborates with the Yakult Health Insurance Association to promote individual measures.
Based on our Statement on Health, we regard elevating employee productivity and continued dynamism of the Group as the most important themes in Health-focused Management, which we are promoting in accordance with the following strategic roadmap.
Strategic roadmap for Health-focused Management
We conduct an in-house health survey of all employees to identify health issues.
Among the key indicators are absenteeism, presenteeism and work engagement.
| Measure | Details |
|---|---|
| Encourage those requiring medical treatment or detailed testing to undergo examination | For those found during regular health checkups to require medical treatment or detailed examination, a full-time public health nurse will encourage reexamination (up to three times), with required reporting of the results |
| Specific health guidance | Health screening and guidance to prevent lifestyle diseases with a focus on preventing and treating metabolic syndrome |
| Stress check | A group-wide stress check is implemented annually within a specific time period, with the further possibility to do one individually at any time. Each department receives the results of its overall analysis as feedback. |
| Yakult Health 21 90-day exercise course (walking, radio calisthenics) |
Walking (10,000 or 5,000 steps per day) and gymnastic exercises (RAJIO-TAISO that is a well-known exercise method in Japan) created to prevent and treat obesity and lifestyle diseases, and help form positive exercise habits |
| Encourage use of annual paid leave | Use of paid leave encouraged for birthdays, anniversaries and volunteering. From fiscal 2019 annual leave can be taken in hourly increments |
| Encourage use of parental leave | Round-table meetings are organized for employees returning to work after taking parental leave, and related training sessions held for supervisors. To encourage fathers to take parental leave, eligible employees and their supervisors are informed via email about available systems for taking leave |
Specific health guidance
Conference before reinstatement
| Initiative | Target | FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year | Value | ||||||
| Regular health check participation rate | 2025 | 100％ | 100％ | 100％ | 100％ | 100％ | |
| Follow-up check participation rate | 100％ | - | 98.6％ | 96.3％ | 100％ | ||
| Share with health issues | 16.0％ | - | 20.5％ | 21.7％ | 19.8％ | ||
| Share within normal weight range (BMI 18.5–25.0) |
70.0％ | 64.7％ | 64.3％ | 64.2％ | 63.1％ | ||
| Stress check participation rate | 100％ | 96.4％ | 95.1％ | 94.0％ | 94.9％ | 93.6％ | |
| Share with high stress levels | 8.0％ | 9.8％ | 10.4％ | 8.3％ | 8.6％ | 8.3％ | |
| Share taking online health course (investment of ¥350,000 in FY2021) |
100％ | - | - | 85.6％ | 87.6％ | ||
| Online health course satisfaction rate | 100％ | - | - | - | 98.0％ | ||
| Smoking rate | 15.0％ | 25.9％ | 24.7％ | 22.4％ | 20.7％ | ||
| Share exercising regularly (over 30 minutes, twice or more per week) |
40.0％ | 25.3％ | 27.4％ | 27.0％ | 28.5％ | ||
| Completion rate for Yakult Health 21, 90-day exercise course (walking, warm-up calisthenics)*1 |
100％ | 93.0％ | 91.3％ | 95.7％ | 95.8％ | ||
| Treatment retention rate for high-risk personnel | - | 32.7％ | 31.5％ | 31.6％ | 33.0％ | ||
| Health guidance (for metabolic syndrome) implementation rate | 100％ | 91.0％ | 75.7％ | 89.8％ | Ongoing | ||
| Average years of employment | - | 18.3years | 18.3years | 18.4years | 18.8years | ||
| Average monthly overtime | - | 10.5hours | 10.7hours | 8.1hours | 9.0hours | ||
| Annual paid leave utilization rate | - | 70.9％ | 76.9％ | 71.7％ | 76.5％ | ||
| Share of male employees taking childcare leave | Over50％ | 9.3％ | 19.6％ | 15.9％ | 86.4％ | ||
| Health awareness (share who consider themselves healthy) |
90.0％ | - | 84.2％ | 87.7％ | 85.1％ | 86.1％ | |
| Employees taking leave due to injury or illness | - | - | - | 28 | 31 | ||
| Absenteeism*2 (average sick-leave days used among all employees) |
1.5days | - | - | 1.6days | 1.9days | ||
| Presenteeism*3 | 10.0％ | - | - | - | 18.6％ | 13.2％ | |
| Work engagement*4 | Over 4.0points | - | - | - | 3.8points | 3.9points | |
*1
Share of participants who completed the course.
*2
Absence from work due to mental or physical health issues.
*3
Poor performance due to mental or physical health issues despite being at work, as measured by the Single-Item Presenteeism Question (SPQ) developed by the University of Tokyo.
*4
A sense of positive and fulfilling connection with work, as measured by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (short version) and scored as points from 0 to 6.
Employee health consciousness has increased as a result of the above initiatives. “I went for a follow-up check, which led to early detection of an illness,” a woman in her forties commented. And a man in his thirties said, “I took the 90-day exercise course and now walk the length of one station.”