Resolving the Gender Gap and Empowering Women
In the Global Gender Gap Report 2022, the World Economic Forum reported that it would take another 132 years to close the gender gap. Girls around the world who cannot receive primary and secondary education because of barriers such as child marriage, poverty, discrimination, and gender prejudice, are in an increasingly dire situation. Japan’s ranking for gender equality has shown little improvement in 15 years since 2006 and is in 116th place, the lowest among major developed countries. Women’s participation is especially low in the areas of politics and the economy. Building on insights and experiences accumulated by Shiseido, we partner with international institutions, private enterprises, municipalities, and other related organizations to work towards gender equality, including women’s financial independence and participation in decision-making. We strive to nurture a society where everyone can feel empowered to live their life freely by having fair opportunities regardless of gender.
Resolving the Gender Gap and Empowering Women in Japan
As a leader in achieving gender equality throughout Japanese society, Shiseido promotes a variety of activities to empower women by constantly upgrading our internal initiatives.
Shiseido D&I Lab
In 2023, we established Shiseido D&I Lab within the company to explore ways to leverage the power of diversity. We research the process by which the empowerment of diverse human resources facilitates innovation by introducing different values and ideas and verifying the cause-and-effect relationship between diversity and corporate growth. We also aim to obtain know-how to maximize the power of diversity by analyzing the effects of our initiatives. Additionally, we disseminate our findings from the research at Shiseido D&I Lab broadly throughout society, thereby contributing to the growth of the Japanese economy through D&I.
Participation in the 30% Club Japan for Sound Gender Balance in Corporate Decision-Making Bodies
"The 30% Club Japan aims to increase the proportion of women on the boards of companies in Japan. As part of a global initiative that originated in the United Kingdom, the Japan chapter was inaugurated in May 2019, and Phase 2 started in May 2022 with the goal of achieving a 30% proportion of female directors at TOPIX 100 companies by 2030. Masahiko Uotani, Shiseido’s Representative Director, Chairman, and CEO, continues to serve as the chairperson for Phase 2, as well as for Phase 1, leading the activities of the TOPIX President’s Committee, which consists of 33 chairpersons and presidents of companies listed on the TOPIX 100 and TOPIX Mid 400.
The TOPIX President’s Committee has held 7 sessions to date with a total participation of 125 chairpersons and presidents of the TOPIX 100 and TOPIX Mid 400. To lead innovations, it is necessary to nurture an organizational culture with high adaptability to change, and it is considered extremely important to achieve gender balance among management executives (such as executive officers and organization head positions －organization head) who have many team members and substantial influence on daily operations. Therefore, lively discussions continued in 2022, just as in 2021, concerning the appointment of women to executive officer and organization head positions through the examination of case studies at different member companies. On the project management team organized by operation-level leaders of member companies (about 80 members from 33 companies), cross-company projects have been organized to tackle three gateways that inhibit the career development of women, which was clarified through the TOPIX President's Committee, by promoting the implementation of concrete measures to resolve common issues, including the development of career awareness among young women, the sharing of best practices for combining work with childcare, and exchange meetings between female candidates for executive positions with Committee leaders.
In Phase 2, a fully integrated approach influencing society through various stakeholders collaborating with companies, which is characteristic of the 30% Club Japan, is going into full operation. Specific actions have been taken through the collaboration of the Investor Group of 31 institutional investors, the University Group of 9 universities, and the TOPIX President’s Committee.
With its activities during the past 4 years, the ratio of women on the boards of companies comprising the TOPIX President’s Committee rose by 14.0 percentage points to 22.9% compared to the average of listed companies in Japan. It has also brought further progress for women’s participation in corporate decision-making, such as advancement to previously untraditional posts, including directors of business operations and manufacturing operations. Shiseido will lead the way in transforming Japanese companies to break away from the current homogeneity by promoting the active participation of women, thereby leading innovations."
Empowering Women through Collaboration with Local Governments
As part of Shiseido's ongoing efforts to empower women, in 2021, Shiseido Japan Co., Ltd., and Hiroshima Prefecture entered into an agreement on promoting the empowerment of women. Since then, we have been supporting the women of Hiroshima in social engagements and job placements chiefly through beauty seminars. In 2022, we held an online makeup seminar for mothers seeking employment and lectured them on basic makeup and gave them advice on hair styling and makeup to help them prepare for job interviews. In February of the same year, a Social Area Leader based in the Shiseido Japan was invited to speak at a discussion in an online seminar for the empowerment of women hosted by the Hiroshima Prefecture Department of Commerce, Industry and Labor to share her personal experience and motivate women aspiring to hold managerial positions. In August, we started a new initiative in job placement support and distributed vouchers at the prefecture’s job placement office for women, the “Waku-waku Mama Support Corner”. The vouchers can be redeemed at Shiseido counters for a short personal makeup lesson by Shiseido Personal Beauty Partners. Furthermore, reaching beyond the framework of the agreement, we joined a networking event for women in management hosted by the Hiroshima City Center for Promotion of Gender Equality. We met 12 women managers mainly from local companies and exchanged views on the challenges that women in leadership positions face. We are contributing to the growth of Hiroshima Prefecture through these efforts in raising awareness and communicating the empowerment of women and assisting in the creation of networks among working women.
In 2022, Shiseido Japan Co., Ltd., joined a citizens’ collaboration project, the “Machi, Watashi, Kirameku Women’s Campus Yamagata,” a project in which Yamagata City and Ridilover, a general incorporated association that organizes educational and training programs on social issues concluded a comprehensive partnership agreement. As part of this project, Emiko Ashida, Shiseido’s People Division Vice Chief People Officer spoke at a seminar to promote women’s empowerment in May, and Yukari Suzuki, Shiseido’s Director, Senior Executive Officer joined a talk event in June, encouraging women working in Yamagata City.
In addition, 20 women from Yamagata City participated in a total of 5 workshops (June-December) to resolve issues, and Shiseido Japan’s Yamagata Office employees joined in discussions. They also held beauty lecture sessions on skincare and makeup in June and September. In November, a lecture was given on the theme of ""Balancing Family and Career"", and 20 employees from Shiseido's Sendai Office also participated in this project.
Childcare Support
In the drive to make the childcare environment better through company cooperation, Shiseido started a childcare business in 2017 with the establishment of KODOMOLOGY CO.,LTD., which focuses on the entrusted operation of in-house childcare facilities within businesses. In addition to the operation of in-house nurseries, such as KANGAROOM Shiodome (2003) and KANGAROOM Kakegawa (2017), we began supporting the establishment and management of 3 childcare facilities at other companies in Kanagawa Prefecture and Shizuoka Prefecture (2 facilities in Shizuoka and 1 facility in Kanagawa ). In April 2022, the parenting training program for men “KODOMOLOGY Ikutore—Preparing for Paternity Leave”, started full-scale operations at KANGAROOM Shiodome in response to the phased implementation of the new legal requirements for paternity leave in Japan. This program provides support for participants in gaining an awareness of childcare and greater family involvement in childcare while pursuing careers. A cumulative total of 52 participants, including Shiseido employees and their families, completed the program, and many commented that they felt more positive with the parenting training, and that the program provided an opportunity to consider the balance of childcare and career as a family.
Supporting Female Researchers in Natural Sciences
The proportion of female researchers in Japan is low compared to Western nations, remaining at roughly 17.5%. To improve this situation, Shiseido is offering continued support to female researchers in Japan who are engaged in world-leading, innovative research in natural sciences. “The Shiseido Female Researcher Science Grant” has been providing support in this area since 2007. Now in its 15th year, 2022, we awarded research grants to 10 female researchers. This subsidy is distinguished for its versatility in providing support to women in their life events such as childbirth and childcare, so long as the objective of the funding is research. To date, it has contributed to the research results and the career development of 149 researchers.
In 2022, the 15th award presentation ceremony and the 14th research presentation event were held at the Shiseido Global Innovation Center (Yokohama) for the first time in three years. At the research presentation, nine female researchers working on the cutting edge of research in fields such as Material Science and Molecular Biology reported on the progress of the previous year’s award-winning research and exchanged opinions with researchers from different fields. Furthermore, at a social gathering held before the award ceremony, the award recipients shared their research and concerns about life events and deepened their friendship. We hope that the network built through the award of this grant will support the activities of female researchers in the next generation of natural sciences.
Activities through Sports
Strong, Fast, Beautiful—the motto of the Shiseido Running Club
The Shiseido Running Club was established in 1979, the year when the first Tokyo International Women's Marathon was held as the first international women's marathon race in Japan. "Strong, Fast, Beautiful" is the motto of the club that introduced a number of athletes who left their mark on women's athletics in Japan, including Chie Matsuda, Mari Tanigawa, and Harumi Hiroyama. Nine athletes are currently in the club. These include, Yuka Takashima (participated in the Rio Olympics), Mao Ichiyama (won a prize at the Tokyo Olympics), Tomoka Kimura (participated in World Athletics Championships, Doha 2019), and Rino Goshima (participated in the World Athletics Championships, Oregon 2022), and they are contributing to the enhancement of athletic skills of Japanese women through global competition. Rino Goshima set a new Japanese record in a women-only race in the 50th All-Japan Women's Corporate Half Marathon Championship in February 2022. In the 42nd All-Japan Women's Corporate Ekiden Championship (Queens' Ekiden) in November 2022, a memorable year being that it was the 150th anniversary of Shiseido's establishment, the club won the second championship for the first time in 16 years, setting a new championship record, with roadside cheers from about 200 employees of Shiseido group in Japan. Our female runners continue to overcome challenges to achieve higher goals. Their running not only encourages many people but also fosters the unity of the employees of Shiseido group and the culture of learning from each other.
"The Shiseido Ladies Open" aspiring to achieve Active Beauty
Since 2019, Shiseido has sponsored "The Shiseido Ladies Open", a tournament certified by the Japan Ladies Professional Golfers' Association (JLPGA), under the tournament philosophy of promoting active beauty both in body and in mind through the dynamic performances of female athletes with the aim of achieving a brighter world filled with smiles. Through these activities, we had about 15,000 visitors come to the tournament in 2022. Of these, 10.5% came just knowing about the tournament, and 73.2% came resonating with the tournament philosophy. Shiseido also holds charity auctions with the cooperation of the players competing in the tournaments, and the money received from the auctions is donated to the Japan High Performance Sport Center, which was established by the Japan Sport Council to support female athletes. The donations are used to send nursery teachers to nursery rooms in the facilities and to purchase necessary equipment to provide an environment that enables athletes to concentrate on their sport.
Supporting Girls’ and women’s Education and Financial Independence Worldwide
Shiseido brands and regional headquarters overseas are cooperating to support the education and the independence of socially vulnerable women and girls with the aim of resolving global gender issues and empowering women.
Clé de Peau Beauté: Supporting Education for Girls
Clé de Peau Beauté and UNICEF entered a global partnership in 2019, and it celebrated its third year in 2022. Clé de Peau Beauté has supported UNICEF 1 to achieve results in promoting gender equality in multiple countries and regions through its education, employment, and empowerment programs. Through the three years the partnership has reached over 3.5 million girls and young women.
The brand continued to hold a worldwide CRM Campaign featuring the brand’s best-selling product, The Serum, in 2022, inviting consumers’ participation and aiming to raise awareness for UNICEF’s programs. A portion of The Serum’s global sales was donated to support UNICEF’s effort to create more equitable access to education and skill development for girls in countries and regions such as Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, and Niger.
To showcase the real impact and support of these UNICEF partnership programs, in 2022, more than 150 Clé de Peau Beauté colleagues joined the Virtual Field Visit (VFV) to Bangladesh where they learned more about all the impactful initiatives made possible by the partnership with UNICEF. For example, with the support of Clé de Peau Beauté, the Government of Bangladesh and other partners, UNICEF has introduced a gender-transformative skill-based education to improve the current education system framework, and launched the Alternative Learning Programme (ALP) offering young women educational and skills training that ultimately links them to employment opportunities in their communities. The ALP students and their parents, mentors and coordinators joined to share how Clé de Peau Beauté’s contributions to UNICEF have made a positive life-changing impact on the girls.
In September 2022, Shiseido has been awarded the Dark Blue Ribbon by the government of Japan, in recognition of the support extended by its global luxury skincare and makeup brand－Clé de Peau Beauté to the Japan Committee for UNICEF. The brand has supported UNICEF’s global initiatives to educate and empower girls around the world.
(Left) Chief Brand Officer of Clé de Peau Beauté”
(Right) Executive Director, Japan Committee for UNICEF
Additionally, Clé de Peau Beauté's long-term philanthropic commitment includes the annual 'Power of Radiance Awards―a long-term philanthropic endeavor to honor women from around the world who have acted to drive positive change through knowledge since 2019.
In 2022, the fourth year of the program, the Power of Radiance Awards recognized Ms. Amanda Simandjuntak from Jakarta, Indonesia in recognition of her efforts to empower young girls through STEM education. Ms. Amanda Simandjuntak is the CEO and co-founder of MARKODING, a non-profit organization with a mission to empower underprivileged youth in Indonesia through innovation and technology.
Funding for these charity programs comes from a portion of the global sales of the brand’s best-selling product―The Serum.
In May 2022, Ms. Amanda Simandjuntak, an Indonesian national, gave a speech at Clé de Peau Beauté’s Indonesia Office and stressed the importance of STEM education and its purpose in creating more future career opportunities for girls of Indonesia. She also explained her current focus, the plan for a program designed to empower girls through innovation and technology.
The brand will continue to support women who have a positive impact on society.
Shiseido Travel Retail: Supporting Marginalized Women and Girls in Cambodia
In 2020, Shiseido Travel Retail partnered with Friends-International in the “Empower Her” initiative, an initiative that aims to help young women from disadvantaged backgrounds in Cambodia to break the cycle of poverty by providing them education, vocational beauty training, access to job placement opportunities, and support in employment. In support of the initiative, we have contributed cash donations and beauty products, and we are also involved in the development of the training curriculum. In 2022, 134 students received vocational beauty training—45 of whom were given the opportunity for employment.
International Women's Day: Shiseido Global Action
"Shiseido uses the International Women’s Day (March 8) of each year as an opportunity to implement various initiatives to promote a deeper understanding of gender equality as well as diversity and inclusion among all global employees and to encourage them to perceive them as personal matters and make voluntary improvements. In 2022, we conducted a Global Gender Culture Relay as a cross-regional initiative under the common theme, “Discover gender issues in your culture”. As part of the campaign, we featured books, movies, art, and the like with the theme of gender and the lives of women that drew attention in respective regions across the world at Shiseido through the company intranet.
Under the theme of the International Women’s Day, Shiseido’s regional headquarters for Asia Pacific held a campaign declaring the efforts of each and every employee in enlightening “gender equality”. In Singapore, we also called for portraits and video shoots of the employees’ engagements and shared the history of Shiseido’s gender equality advancement with its employees in a newsletter.
Shiseido’s regional headquarters for Travel Retail also distributed the brand’s effort towards gender equality through a newsletter connected to the International Women’s Day. In Singapore, we also called for employee participation in the Global Gender Culture Relay in contest-form.
In the regional headquarters for the Americas, we shared portrait photos of each employee with the theme of International Women’s Day on the regional company intranet. The affinity group, “Women Empowering Women,” also held a panel discussion with female leaders.
The regional headquarters for Europe held an in-house movie event featuring Japanese women’s lives. We learned about the diverse range of women’s situations in different regions through this film."
Support for the Independence and Higher Education of Children who Live at Childcare Facilities or with Foster Parents
At the Shiseido Child Foundation, we are aiming for a society in which all children are brimming with smiles and shining in their own way by receiving support based on activities: Supporting Children’s Challenge for the Future, Creating Opportunities to Learn for People who Nurture Children, and Creating a Society in which Children are Supported by Everyone. As part of supporting the Children’s Challenge for the Future, the Foundation sponsors Self-Reliance Seminars in cooperation with Shiseido Japan Co., Ltd., Aoki Inc., Recruit Co., Ltd., and other companies and organizations, to enable junior high school and high school students who receive social care to acquire social knowledge from specialists so that they can live independent lives. In FY 2022, more than 300 children participated in the Self-Reliance Seminar. In addition, the scholarship program, launched in 2007 to support students entering universities, junior colleges, and vocational schools, has supported 81 scholarship recipients through 2022. Other activities include holding training programs for staff of child welfare facilities to "support staff who nurture children," and subsidizing child abuse prevention awareness events and seminars for families raising children throughout Japan to disseminate information to the public.
Diversity, Inclusion and the Empowerment of Women at Shiseido
We aim to build a culture that respects and supports the diversity of our workforce. By empowering people from various backgrounds, we are creating an environment where each employee feels valued and included. In particular, we actively promote the empowerment of women in Japan.
Empowering Woman at Shiseido
More than 80% of Shiseido Group employees are women, and 58.1% of women across our global organization are in leadership positions. Moreover, 40.0% (as of April 2023) of our directors and auditors are women, and the percentage of women in leadership positions in Japan is 37.6% (as of January 2023). We believe that empowering women can help generate innovation and in turn promote further growth at Shiseido and allow employees to fulfil their potential. As such, we aim to increase this to 50% by 2030 to fairly represent gender equality.
For many years, in Japan we have offered and promoted a range of systems and support measures for women’s life events. Since the early 1990s, even before the introduction of childcare and family care laws, we implemented childcare leave and shortened working hour systems. Specifically, we have opened two in-office childcare facilities—KANGAROOM Shiodome in 2003 and KANGAROOM Kakegawa in 2017—for Shiseido employees, as well as local businesses and residents. Further, to provide flexible childcare in line with diverse workstyles, in April 2023 we opened KANGAROOM+, a comprehensive childcare service offering mainly babysitting services. In addition to ensuring more freedom of time and place by offering one-on-one childcare instead of group childcare, the scope of services will be extended to include elementary school students. The aim is to cater to the problems that parents face when their children enter grade one of elementary school.
Moreover, in 2008 we introduced the Kangaroo Staff program to secure personnel as cover for Shiseido Personal Beauty Partners who are having to work shorter hours due to childcare. In 2022, 721 Kangaroo Staff helped to support the work-life balance of 1,510 Shiseido Beauty Consultants raising young children. As a result of initiatives like these, 94.9% of employees across Shiseido Group in Japan return to work following childcare leave, and we continue to maintain this high percentage.
We also hold a female leader development program called NEXT LEADERSHIP SESSIONS for WOMEN. In 2022, 63 female employees participated in the program, where they learned the necessary management and business skills while discovering their own unique leadership styles. In the six years since its launch, 49% (90) of the 185 program participants (excluding retirees) have successfully been promoted. Further, to increase the ratio of women in management positions to 50%, we expanded to three new programs for candidates for next Group Managers, Department/Division Heads and Executive Officers, reinforcing our leadership pipeline to steadily develop the next generation of leaders.
Moreover, between 2020 and 2022, a total of 117 employees from various fields including sales, production, and R&D have taken part in Speak Jam, a mentoring program linking executive officers with female employees.
We are also working to improve our workplace environments to create comfortable workplaces not only for women, but for employees with many different attributes. To ensure health, safety, job satisfaction and security, we are implementing various workstyle revisions. These include flextime with no core hours, remote work (Shiseido Group in Japan), and the introduction of “Shiseido Hybrid Work Style”, an innovative new arrangement that allows employees to combine in-office work with remote work to maximize productivity.
External Recognition
Our diversity and inclusion efforts have gained us the following external recognition from various organizations. We will continue to support the activities of employees of diverse backgrounds, including foreign nationals and midcareer hires in addition to women, to boost progress in diversity and inclusion.
Shiseido was selected as the only Japanese company in the 2022 “DEI Lighthouse” of the Global Parity Alliance. The Global Parity Alliance was launched by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company to accelerate diversity, equity, and inclusion.
