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Environmental
Management
Sustainability Report 2006 |
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Creating a Better Working Environment
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Kobe Steel's personnel policies
respect the personality and individuality of company
employees and are designed to create a pleasant,
comfortable and fulfilling working environment. We are
also working with Group companies in various ways to
achieve one of the principles of the Kobe Steel Group
Corporate Philosophy: We support each employee in
developing his or her abilities, while respecting
mutual cooperation.
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Human Resource Development
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The objective of human resource
development in Kobe Steel is for each employee to
approach his or her job with enthusiasm and a sense of
pride. To this end, we believe it is important that
each of our employees has specific targets for
personal development and works actively day by day to
achieve those targets. We hope that employees will
pursue their own personal development through hard
work, and the company provides all-round support for
this.
For career development, a self-assessment system
provides opportunities for management and employees to
discuss business targets and future career planning.
On this basis, we implement periodic job rotation to
foster job skills, taking into account the
individual's wishes and business needs. To encourage
self-directed career building we operate a human
resources recruiting system, and in FY2005 we started
career development training.
Skills development is centered on on-the-job training
in the workplace. To supplement this, we run off-line
training designed to improve specialized business or
technical skills. In a measure to improve management
skills for managers, coaching was greatly expanded in
FY2005.
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Personnel Benefits System
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The system of personnel benefits
in Kobe Steel is performance based, and we have
introduced a benefits system that reflects employees'
roles and responsibilities, as well as a formula for
calculating bonuses related to business
performance.
In an effort to achieve the most credible and fair
evaluation of employee performance, besides a direct
"line" evaluation between supervisor and subordinate,
we use a "competence observation" system that provides
a multi-faceted evaluation from a wide range of
related people.
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Eliminating Gender Bias
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Kobe Steel recognizes the
importance of promoting an employment environment in
which diverse employees can fully exploit their
individual abilities regardless of gender.
Besides working to increase the number of female
staff and broaden the range of their job
opportunities, we are making extra efforts to set up
systems to foster skills and support women balancing
home and job responsibilities, to make the workplace
friendlier for women.
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| Support For Balancing Work and Child-rearing |
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In line with the coming into
effect of the Law for Measures to Support the
Development of the Next Generation, in Kobe Steel a
Private-Sector Employer Action Plan was formulated in
April 2005. We are striving to create a workplace
where work and child-rearing can be successfully
balanced.
In this action plan, the following three points are
seen as the main issues in building the foundation for
this sort of working environment:
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Implementing measures to change
such attitudes as giving the workplace priority and
holding rigid views on gender roles.
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Creating a system to provide
information and back-up on giving birth and raising
children.
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Implementing measures to
encourage the taking of annual paid leave.
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Employment of Older People
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Kobe Steel has introduced a
Mature Employee Reemployment System as a way to
reemploy workers after formal retirement. By
continuing to make use of the skills and abilities of
veteran employees, we hope that skills can be more
easily passed to younger staff, and that the
individual's keenness to work will boost workplace
vitality.
In line with the revision of the Law Concerning
Stabilization of Employment of Older Persons in April
2006, we have revised our practices by widening the
range of employees who may take advantage of the
system, lengthening periods of employment and
shortening working hours.
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Employment of Disabled People
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The Kobe Steel Group actively
promotes the employment of disabled people by such
measures as holding periodic joint seminars on
employment and is striving to make the workplace one
where individuals can make full use of their abilities
and work comfortably.
In FY2005, disabled people accounted for 1.91% of the
work force in Kobe Steel, superceding the ratio of
1.8% required by law. The company will continue with
measures designed to increase this ratio further.
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Employment Ratio of Disabled
People (Kobe Steel)
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Respect for human Rights
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To maintain a working
environment where human rights are respected, and that
is free of any sort of discrimination, the Kobe Steel
Group runs educational programs on human rights, such
as human rights awareness training for different
management levels. We are also giving training to
recruitment staff on unprejudiced recruiting.
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Preventing Sexual Harassment
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Kobe Steel's Guidelines for
Business Conduct in our Corporate Code of Ethics
clearly state that sexual harassment is unacceptable,
and our labor contracts and rules of employment
stipulate that sexual harassment will be met with
disciplinary action.
A system has been set up whereby a counselor is
available in every working location for consultation
on sexual harassment and swift action is taken. In
addition, a Manual on Preventing Sexual Harassment has
been produced and training is also given as part of
our training on human rights. These measures are
intended to create a working environment that allows
all personnel to work comfortably and with peace of
mind.
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Health and Safety Management Policy
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On the principle of "health and
safety are fundamental to business management and take
priority over all business activities", we run a range
of different health and safety activities in order to
ensure that the our employees are healthy and
energetic, and can work safely and with peace of
mind.
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Principles for health and
safety
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Employees arrive for
work each day full of vitality and go home
each evening with a smile.
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Employees are always
vigilant of the safety of co-workers and
help create a culture of caring about
health.
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Product quality is
boosted through safety activities.
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Safety
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In 1979 Kobe Steel started a
drive toward a medium to long term reduction in
accidents at work, and since then has pursued safety
activities, formulating a medium-term health and
safety management plan every three years or so. This
resulted in a big drop in the number of accidents and
the frequency rate has stayed at a low level.
Unfortunately, the last few years have seen no further
improvement and even a slight deterioration. A
particularly large number of accidents occurred in
2005.
Therefore, from this year activities will be targeted
on the following three points in an effort to
eradicate occupational accidents:
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Proper understanding and strict observance
of relevant laws, such as the Occupational
Health and Safety Law, as well as in-house
rules.
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Operating arrangements that will prevent
major disasters involving high-temperature
molten materials, toxic gas, or falls and
collapses.
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3.
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New risks created by changes to the
working environment or new processes or
types of work should not be ignored. An
on-site approach to identifying these
risks and ameliorating conditions should
be restored. (More complete risk
assessment through frank
discussions)
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Frequency Rate of Accidents that
Halted Operations
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Health
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To create a working environment
that gives full consideration to human health, we are
improving our management system in both the physical
and mental health areas.
In the area of mental health, we are expanding a
consultation system of consultation rooms where
occupational counselors and specialist doctors can be
consulted on any type of issue, as well as promoting
mental health education at all levels.
In the area of physical health, we are working to
prevent the onset of lifestyle illnesses by ensuring
that all staff have regular health check-ups and
follow-ups. We are also striving to prevent
work-related illnesses by dealing with changes in the
working environment.
A number of health-related issues have led to
widespread public concern in wider society, such as
the problem of asbestos contamination. It is our
policy to deal with such matters in a thorough and
sincere manner.
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