Realizing a Rewarding Workplace

Each and every one of Shiseido employees demonstrates professional expertise and leadership, and this has contributed to realizing a rewarding workplace and supported the Company’s growth.
Shiseido is now diversifying employee work styles by combining remote and in-office work.
Through continuous efforts and new challenges, we aim to achieve to sustain both employees’ health and their personal growth.

To promote equal opportunity, Shiseido has introduced a flex-time system, a remote work (telework) system, options to work part-time, our own childcare services and subsidies for childcare and education, and, regardless of gender, paid special leave to raise children (childcare leave). We support family and career balance through a variety of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives.

Achieving a work-life balance enables employees to use their newly created time to play active roles in society. Shiseido believes this not only leads to employee growth but also enhances the Company’s performance and its corporate value. To accommodate employees' lifestyles and help them advance their careers regardless of life events, such as childcare and family care, the Company has introduced a more fulfilling system above the standards currently provided by law. The Shiseido Group in Japan stipulates equal treatment for employees with same-sex and opposite-sex partners since 2017. Common-law and same-sex couples are also eligible for support provided to employees who are raising children or caring for families as detailed below.

In 2023, 642 Shiseido Group employees in Japan (including 167 men) took childcare leave. We hold "Welcome Back Seminars" for employees returning to work after childbirth to reduce concerns about balancing work and childcare. As a result, 92.3% of employees in the Shiseido Group in Japan have returned to work from childcare leave, a high level that continues to be maintained.
To promote the goal of 100% take-up of childcare leave among employees who are men, we published internal interviews with employees who had taken paternity leave and shared information about childcare. By the end of 2023, the Shiseido Group in Japan had achieved 100% take-up of childcare leave for employees who are men.

To help its employees balance childcare and work, the Shiseido Group in Japan offers a robust environment as detailed below. In all cases, not only biological children and adopted children who have a legal parent-child relationship, but also children who are in the probationary period for special adoption and children who are entrusted to foster parents for adoption are eligible. The details of the support systems are summarized in the “Guidebook for Support to Balance Work and Childcare/Nursing Care,” which supervisors shall inform eligible employees about.

Employees may take up to six weeks paid leave before delivery and eight weeks partially paid leave after the birth of a child. It is possible to use accumulated leave and annual paid leave to cover unpaid leave. If employees choose to take unpaid maternity leave, they can claim maternity allowance through the Shiseido Health Insurance Society.

Shiseido employees may take maternity leave in excess of the legally required minimum for up to a total of five years during the period until their child turns three years of age. Employees are eligible to use the system up to two times for any reason if their child is less than one year old, and they can apply beyond the second time under special circumstances. No wages will be paid by the Company to employees during childcare leave. However, employees receive childcare leave benefits through employment insurance. Shiseido has a communication system called the Childcare Plan which allows female employees to confirm with their supervisors the process from pregnancy onward to return to their workplace. This plan, intended to facilitate employees’ smooth return to work, reduces anxiety about pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare, and is also a means to share information when a supervisor changes.

In addition to childcare leave, employees may take up to four weeks childcare leave within eight weeks after the birth of their child.
If employees apply for the full four weeks of leave at the start, it is possible to take the leave twice for the same child by splitting it in half. No wages will be paid by the Company to the employees during childcare leave; however, employees receive childcare leave benefits through employment insurance. During the childcare leave at the time of delivery, the Company allows employees to work based on prior adjustment within limits agreed by both employees and the Company (supervisors) according to an agreement concluded between labor and management.

When an employee's partner (spouse, etc.) gives birth, special paid leave of up to five days is available in addition to paternity leave. In addition, employees are eligible to take special paid leave for childcare (a leave of consecutive seven days or less (including Saturday and Sunday) twice during a period), until their child turns three years of age. Employees who have been working for the Company for less than a year and as such not eligible for the childcare leave can also take this special leave. They are allowed to take it as a leave of two weeks in a row.

Japanese law requires the introduction of a short working hours system for employees with children until their child turns three years of age, Shiseido allows up to two hours reduction in working hours per day until the first end of March after their child turns nine years of age. During the period until their child turns one year of age, one hour of the reduced hours is covered as paid time.

When beauty consultants, who work in over-the-counter customer service, utilize the “Childcare Time” system for short working hours, substitute staff called Kangaroo Staff are sent to support sales counter operations in the evening hours. Since the Company began employing Kangaroo Staff in 2007, it has become easier for employees working in sales operations to balance work and childcare.

Our Head office and Major facilities have spaces for breast-feeding and breast pumping. Employees of the Shiseido Group in Japan who support children receive allowances for breast pumps. Shiseido allows employees to take breaks (30 minutes or more each twice a day) for breast-feeding and pumping from their child’s birth until they reach one year of age. During that period, one hour of break time is covered as paid time. This benefit is provided beyond the legally required minimum.

Employees can take paid leave on an hourly basis for children under elementary school age (usually age six and under) in need of nursing care due to sickness or injury, and when they receive checkups or vaccinations. Employees are entitled to paid leave in excess of the legally required minimum for up to five days (40 hours) a year for one child and up to 10 days (80 hours) a year for two or more children.

Employees with children up to the third grade in elementary school (i.e., until the first end of March after their child turns nine years of age) may request to accompany their partners who are transferred within Japan so that employees can continue their careers.

In Japan, the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act requires employers to consider employees’ situations regarding childcare or family care when they are relocated. Shiseido has established operational guidelines for the transfer of employees raising children that involve a change of address. Employees who utilize the “Childcare Time” or “Family Care Time” system are exempted from transfers that involve a change of address at their request.

Employees can take leave as often as necessary for a family member requiring care, for a period of leave up to one year at a time and up to three years in total.

Employees can take “Family Care Time” of up to two hours a day for purposes such as accompanying a family member to the hospital. This plan may be utilized for up to one year for one family member, and up to three years in total.

The Company allows up to three years of leave for employees to accompany their partners who are transferred overseas.

Employees can take paid leave utilizing the “Social Studies Day Scheme” for up to three weekdays a year for social contribution activities. The Program encourages each employee to gain perspective in solving social problems, to foster a culture of thinking and acting on their own, and to utilize their experience wider perspective from such activities in their work. The Company believes this will lead to value creation for Shiseido.

External specialists are available 365 days a year to offer advice on physical and mental health concerns and balancing childcare or nursing care with work.

The Shiseido Group in Japan concluded a labor-management agreement relating to overtime work and working on days off (Article 36 agreement) in accordance with Article 36 of the Labor Standards Act. The agreement sets a maximum of 80 hours per month of overtime work even in exceptional cases and on a temporary basis (instances of 45 to 80 hours of overtime work per month are limited to up to six times per year). Based on the rule that overtime work is allowed only when supervisors require, Shiseido informs the details of the Article 36 agreement to personnel in charge of each department and those in manager positions in an effort to reduce long working hours. To comply with the Article 36 agreement, all Shiseido facilities have enacted policy toward (1) reducing overtime work, (2) improving the usage rate of annual paid leave, and (3) reducing overall actual working hours. The HR departments at major Shiseido Group companies in Japan monitor the overtime hours of labor union members every month. They also provide guidance to heads of departments where overtime is significant and encourage health checkups for employees who work long hours. Data on working hours and paid leave take-up rates are shared with labor and management and reflected in initiatives to correct long working hours.