Health of Employees

Basic Views

For a company to achieve continuous sustainable growth, it is essential to improve work environments and health management systems so that each employee can maintain their good physical and mental health and continue to work actively.
SHI Group promotes a variety of health management measures as part of its activities to create healthy workplaces, including the introduction of health guidance by industrial health workers and health management support systems.

Promoting Activities to Create a Healthy Workplace (Health and Productivity Management)

Recognizing that the health of our employees is essential for the sustainable growth of the SHI Group, we established the "SHI Group's Declaration on Health Promotion" in January 2018. We will make further efforts to promote health and productivity management by continuing to pay attention to and support the health of each and every one of our employees.

SHI Group's Declaration on Health Promotion

SHI Group will strive to maintain and improve the health of workers based on the management philosophy of "respect for human beings," and create the environment where everyone can live in good physical and mental health.

Strategy Map

To increase the effectiveness of our efforts by visualizing the connections between the management issues we seek to resolve and health measures, we have created a healthy workplace (health and productivity management) strategy map.

Promotion System

We are promoting health and productivity management with the following system , with President and CEO serving as the Chief Health Manager. The Health Promotion Council, consisting of the Safety and Health Group, the labor union, and the health insurance union, share issues related to occupational health and health promotion, and promotes various health management activities such as maintaining and improving employee health and implement measures to create workplace that is healthy both physically and mentally.
Health and sanitation teams at major manufacturing sites and Group companies are integrating the measures into their own issues and deploying them.
The Health Promotion Council shares with the Central Safety and Health Council the "Healthy Workplace Development Activity Plan," which sets specific goals for healthy workplace development activities, and the "Health Management Report," which summarizes the activities for the fiscal year.

Indicators and Targets

We consider the hospitalization rates of those with cardiovascular diseases attributable to hypertension and untreated hypertension, and the number of employees on care leave or administrative leave due to mental health problems as material issues, and are taking initiatives to address these issues along with various other issues. To further promote activities to create a healthy workplace (health and productivity management), we have established specific indicators for the SHI Group. We are working to achieve the targets set for each indicator by reviewing the status of achievement for each fiscal year.

Indicators Targets FY2020 Results FY2021 Results FY2022 Results*5
Lifestyle diseases Hospitalization rate due to cardiovascular disease Hospitalization rate: Ratio of total number of hospitalizations to number of employees*2 0.9% or less 1.1 1.4
Efforts to make exercise a daily habit Participation rate in radio calisthenics or map-guided walks*1 90% or more 82.2 82.1
Satisfaction level of participants in map-guided walks*2 80% or more - 86.7
Reduction in the number of smokers Smoking rate*1, *3 10% reduction
(from FY2020)
27.7 26.6
Mental health Reduction in the number of workdays lost due to mental health problems Rate of employees with mental health problems/employees on care leave or administrative leave*2 0.5% or less 0.6 0.7
Stress checks Stress check participation rate*1 90% or more 93.3 92.8
Mental health training Rate of mental health training participants*1, *4 90% or more - - 83.4
Satisfaction level of trainees*2 80% or more 88.0 79.0
Improving health literacy Dissemination of information on health for all employees Frequency of information dissemination*2 6 times or more per year 13 16
Competence improvement education for industrial healthcare staff Number of times competence improvement education was conducted*2 Once or more per year 2 2
Improving competence of health supervisors, etc. Number of times competence improvement education was conducted*2 Once or more per year 1 1
Implementation of health education on women's health Number of participants*2 300 people or more 130 167
  • *1 SHI alone
  • *2 SHI and Group companies in Japan
  • *3 40 years old and over
  • *4 For 1,391 new hires, new managers, etc., in FY2022
  • *5 Only the confirmed values are listed.

Examples of approaches

Promotion of Data-based Health and Collaborative Health Management

We are working to improve the quality of health support provided by industrial healthcare staff, etc. to employees by using the online health management support system.Based on the health status of employees aggregated through this system and information compiled from health-related data owned by the SHI Health Insurance Union, SHI Group companies, the SHI Health Insurance Union, and the Federation of Sumitomo Heavy Industries Workers Unions are working together to promote healthy workplaces.

Promoting Measures to Address Mental Health Problems

Using the results of periodic stress checks, we offer health counseling for employees who have health problems, as well as mental health training programs tailored to the specific issues at each business site.For employees who are currently working while having a health problem or those who are returning to work after recuperating at home, we also offer programs to support their work or return to work in cooperation with external Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).

Measures to Address Cardiovascular Diseases

A diagnosis of any serious cardiovascular disease, such as cerebral hemorrhage or myocardial infarction, in employees in their prime working years can be devastating not only for the individual, but also for their families and the company.Focusing on lifestyle diseases (especially hypertension and diabetes) that cause these cardiovascular diseases, the SHI Group provides employees who are still suffering from these diseases with treatment support from industrial healthcare staff and promotes appropriate considerations in work for those who are at high risk.

Implementation of Health Promotion Programs

To prevent lifestyle diseases among employees, we offer a health promotion program that incorporates walking into a daily routine, and verify its effectiveness by comparing the body composition and blood pressure of participants before and after the program.We will continue to encourage employees to participate in the program to help them make exercise a habit, and will also work with the SHI Health Insurance Union for improvement of metabolic syndrome.

Anti-smoking measures

To prevent passive smoking among employees and reduce the smoking rate, we have implemented the following initiatives.
We will continue to promote efforts to realize healthy and comfortable workplaces.

  • Reduction target of smoking rate: 10% reduction in smoking rate in the SHI Group by 2024 (compared to FY2020)
  • Compliance with laws and regular management of each smoking area
  • Provide information and education on smoking
  • Discuss and report on maintaining or reducing smoking areas
  • Assessment of anti-smoking promotion activities and presenting exemplary cases

Measures Against Infectious Diseases

For employees assigned overseas, we have always been committed to keeping them well-informed and alerted to the latest information on malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, and other global health issues.Following the global outbreak of COVID-19, we also established the "COVID-19 Committee" within the Head Office of Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., to monitor the status of infection among employees, and the entire SHI Group is working together to take the following measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as well as dealing with those affected by it.

  • Provision of the latest information, including anti-infection measures, to all employees
  • Support for handling of employees with fever, symptoms of a cold, and other health problems
  • Efforts to ensure proper ventilation of rooms, avoidance of the three Cs (closed spaces, crowds, and close-contact situations), and disinfection of environments
  • Work considerations for high-risk employees, such as those with underlying medical conditions
  • Holding interviews with industrial physicians and health seminars through the use of ICT
  • Implementation of health checkups with adequate infection prevention measures
  • Provision of workplace vaccination for COVID-19

Social assessment

2021 Health and productivity
2021 Health Productivity Management Outstanding Organization
On March 4, 2021, we were certified as a "2021 Health Productivity Management Outstanding Organization (Large Enterprise Category)" selected jointly by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Nippon Kenko Kaigi (Japan Health Council).