Dynamic workplaces where employees can demonstrate their unique capabilities and be healthy in mind and body are essential for any enterprise seeking sustained growth. The JX Nippon Mining & Metals Group strives to create workplaces that are attractive from many perspectives. Examples include our work to ensure occupational health and safety, provide an appropriate personnel evaluation system, and offer human resources training.
Assessment: Achieved/Steady Progress Not Achieved
| KPI | Fiscal 2021 Results/Progress | Assessment |
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| Reduce serious occupational accidents: Less than 0.7 accidents (four days or more of lost work time) per 1,000 workers in fiscal 2021 |
The occupational injury rate per 1,000 Employees in fiscal 2021 was 1.71. With solemn consideration for the accidents that have occurred, we constantly strive to improve our health and safety management system and prevent occupational accidents by improving the effectiveness of our risk assessments and enhancing the ability of employees to investigate the causes of accidents. |
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| Increase annual leave utilization rate: 80% or more in fiscal 2021 |
Thanks to our ongoing efforts to create a work environment that encourages employees to take vacation days and to provide more days where employees are encouraged to take leave, the annual leave utilization rate improved versus the previous fiscal year, although it only reached 77.9%. Moving forward, we will continue to take actions to encourage employees to take more vacation. |
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| Implement initiatives to revitalize people and organizations |
We enhanced a variety of measures for Activity-Based Working (ABW) and vitalizing communications. In addition, we took action to build an environment in which diverse human resources can play an active role through securing and utilizing highly specialized and senior citizen talent, as well as introducing a new personnel system. |
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| Initiatives for health promotion: Cancer screenings for 70% of employees or more in fiscal 2021 |
Each operating site formulated measures to increase the screening rate and held seminars on cancer prevention by medical specialists. These and other efforts tailored to their respective environments resulted in a 63.1% screening rate, a significant improvement from the previous year (54.7%). For fiscal 2022, we are promoting activities aimed at further increasing the screening rate by carrying out e-learning for all employees, distributing leaflets recommending cancer screening, and holding cancer prevention seminars. |
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| Maintain and improve hiring rate for disabled persons: 2.3% or more in fiscal 2021 |
In fiscal 2021, employees with disabilities comprised 2.21% of our total number of employees. We will continue to maintain and improve the hiring rate for disabled persons through bolstering the newly-established Cheerful Support Office in fiscal 2021. Furthermore, we will actively provide support and roll out measures for enabling disabled persons to lead fulfilling social lives. |
Recognizing that the safety and health of its employees is the foundation for sustainable growth, the JX Nippon Mining & Metals Group is committed to creating a workplace environment that ensures safety and promotes health.
We place the highest priority on ensuring the health and safety of people working in all areas of business operations at the JX Nippon Mining & Metals Group and create attractive workplaces by providing safe, secure, and healthy working environments.
The Group maintains health and safety committees and other bodies at operating sites and Group companies in keeping with the Industrial Safety and Health Act. We have also established a system to have discussions with workers, including those from subcontractors stationed permanently, within the framework of our management system. At our head office, the Central Health and Safety Committee meets once a year, attended by representatives (key safety managers and labor union branch committee chairs) from the divisions and operating sites. The Central Health and Safety Standing Committee meets five times a year, attended by standing committee members of the former (safety managers at each division and the three officers from the Central Labor Union). We also hold joint labor/management health and safety visitations (once a year) and Group safety supervisors’ meetings (twice a year) to exchange information on health and safety. In fiscal 2021, in light of the impact of the spread of COVID-19, our basic posture was to hold hybrid in-person/online meetings, and joint labor/management health and safety visitations were held in person at operating sites with infection control measures in place.
Environment and safety audits are conducted periodically by a team under direct supervision of the president at operating sites directly run by the Company (including Group companies within the sites) and major domestic Group companies. Issues discovered in the audits are reported to the president, and also notified to the respective operating sites. Audits were to be conducted at 16 sites in fiscal 2021, including eight sites for which on-site audits were postponed in fiscal 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19. However, due to the spread of the virus, on-site audits were only completed at 12 of these locations, while all locations underwent document audits through online channels. No major issues were identified. For those locations only undergoing document audits, on-site audits are to be postponed to fiscal 2022.
We had acquired OHSAS 18001 certification at 11 of our domestic operating sites and two overseas operating sites, and has been preparing for the introduction of ISO 45001 (JIS Q 45100) following the abolition of OHSAS in March 2021. Compared to ISO 45001 (JIS Q 45001), ISO 45001 (JIS Q 45100) enables the promotion of Group-wide occupational health and safety activities that involve more on-site workers. We are revising and creating new management documents including OHS manuals, and are systematically converting and acquiring new certifications, aiming to further improve health and safety levels. In fiscal 2021, we will complete conversion at these sites. From fiscal 2022 onward, we will promote the introduction of this occupational health and safety management system at more sites, with the aim of obtaining new certification at yet-uncertified sites.
The Group formulates the Management Policy on Health and Safety each fiscal year. The goals and key policy measures are set based on analysis of health and safety performance in the previous year. The policy is discussed and approved by the Central Health and Safety Committee and then promulgated across the Group.
In order to raise the sensitivity to hazard for each and every employee and enhance their safety awareness, the Group has established the Safety Education Center, where we conduct experience-oriented safety education, in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture. Here, sensitivity to hazards refers to sensing danger correctly. Sharpening this sensitivity leads to workers being able to avoid danger.
Since many of the occupational accidents that have occurred are recurrences of past cases (similar accidents), the center has prepared a program to help workers see that potential accidents are always present, and to improve worker understandings of danger and their sensitivity to hazards through simulated experiences of past occupational accidents. In addition, we have implemented a new educational curriculum that utilizes VR technology, enabling students to have hands-on experience as a victim of an accident or disaster, a situation not easily simulated in real life. In recent years, while the number of occupational accidents among employees has been decreasing, the number of occupational accidents among employees from Subcontractors has become an issue. To address this, we have introduced midsize education facilities at our core operating sites to improve the sensitivity to hazards and safety awareness of not only our Group employees but also those of our Subcontractors. The Safety Education Center and the midsize education facilities work in unison to eradicate occupational accidents among workers.
VR experiential education
In addition to setting up safety training facilities at each operating site, we produce videos based on actual past accidents that teach safety by reproducing these accidents in a visual medium. We take opportunities such as our safety lectures to use these materials and raise safety awareness and sensitivity to hazards. These videos are based on accidents that have occurred both within the Group and outside the Group. They offer viewers an emotional understanding of how disastrous an accident can be and teach the viewer what causes accidents, as well as countermeasures against them, and they facilitate communication at Group companies.
The Group strives to ensure the safety and health of all persons connected to our business, and to elevate safety-first awareness and sensitivity to hazards. We periodically conduct safety training programs held via e-learning for all employees at domestic and overseas Group companies. Training consists of safety basics and knowledge that people can absorb in a short time. In fiscal 2021, 2,865 persons, or 73% of our workforce, completed training on the topic of occupational accidents.
The Group produces safety awareness posters based on actual accidents that have occurred in the Group and externally. These posters are displayed mainly at manufacturing sites to raise safety awareness and prevent the recurrence of accidents. The posters provide at-a-glance information on key safety points, related laws and regulations, and disaster case studies for each topic, and are designed to bring awareness to both young and experienced employees. We also use monitors installed in several office spaces on each floor to display digital signage for raising safety awareness among employees at the head office.
Actual safety awareness posters in use
Each of the Group’s operating sites carries out its own risk assessment activities based on our occupational health and safety management system. Risks at operating sites are managed by implementing PDCA cycles, consisting of hazard identification, devising accident scenarios, risk assessments, necessary measures to mitigate risk (beginning by considering tangible measures first, and then intangible measures only if tangible measures are unapplicable), and evaluation of the effectiveness of those measures.
In fiscal 2021, we aimed to further strengthen these risk assessment activities by focusing on significant residual risks at each operating site and reinforcing management aspects to prevent serious occupational accidents. Improving the level of our risk assessments is an issue that we will continue to work on in the future. Our measures going forward include visualizing the progress of residual risk management and other risk mitigation, further promoting intrinsic safety measures that incorporate the concept of machine safety, and training risk assessment promoters and instructors at each operating site.
One of the most important safety issues for our Group is to prevent accidents involving collisions between heavy machinery and people. In order to prevent these collisions, which can easily lead to serious accidents, we not only introduced RFID* in fiscal 2018, but, in fiscal 2021, we conducted demonstration tests and launched operation of a human detection system using AI cameras at Kurami Works. This system is designed to alert a forklift operator when a worker approaches the machine, and this testing is part of our measures to implement IoT and AI. In fiscal 2022, we will press forward with these actions even further, working with manufacturers to develop an automatic braking system linked to our human detection system using AI cameras.
Cameras installed on forklifts
At overseas Group companies, priority issues are set for each of the responsible divisions, and activities are implemented accordingly.
In order to improve safety performance, we are continuing our efforts to ensure compliance with safety standards and to im-prove safety in terms of technology and awareness. We also provide services for workers at the Caserones Copper Mine, such as an accommodation camp, cafeteria, gym (currently closed due to the spread of COVID-19), and a shop. Furthermore, we are taking thorough measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including checking body temperature before entering the premises, antigen tests before starting work on-site, cleaning premise facilities, and ensuring social distancing in the cafeteria and on shuttle buses.
Partitions installed to stop infection from droplets at the Caserones Copper Mine
Based on our safety activities in Japan, we are actively promoting safety activities elsewhere in accordance with the laws and frameworks of each country. Specifically, we are promoting risk assessments focused on hazards, and we have established a Safety Education Center tailored to the actual situation in the relevant area. These centers are based on our Safety Education Center in Japan and are used for safety education.
Experiential risk training equipment (demonstrating puncturing safety shoes) (Nippon Mining & Metals (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.)
In addition to focusing on activities to systematically implement specific countermeasures through risk assessments focused on hazards, we also focus on 5S activities, which are the basis of safety. In addition, some operating sites have implemented virtual reality (VR) systems loaded with content matching actual site conditions and used them for safety education.
VR experiential education (Nikko Metals Taiwan Co., Ltd.)
Focusing on thorough compliance with rules as the fundamental principle, we provide safety education using DVDs depicting accident cases to prevent similar past accidents from occurring again, strengthen safety patrols at each operating sites, and promote activities to identify conceivable near-miss scenarios. We also focus on reviewing risk assessments and 5S activities, which are the basis of safety. This information is shared at monthly safety meetings attended by representatives from each operating site.
We are promoting a variety of measures to improve the mental and physical health of our employees through a project system in which all of our operating sites participate. With regard to improving the cancer screening rate, we engage in a range of messaging to employees with the aim of helping them learn about the characteristics of cancer, strive to prevent it, and as part of these efforts, get them to undergo screenings for early detection. As a result, the Group-wide average screening rate in fiscal 2021 was 63.1%, up 8.4% from the previous fiscal year. In the future, we will also offer e-learning to further foster cancer prevention awareness.
In addition, in order to keep all employees motivated to maintain and improve their physical fitness, we are conducting physical fitness tests to help them first understand their current fitness state. Regarding mental health, we work to build an environment in which employees feel comfortable consulting with industrial physicians. We do this by providing regular opportunities for employees to meet with these physicians and providing education to responsible parties at each operating site.
As the underlying mechanism for these activities, we have introduced a health management support system that enables centralized management of various health checkup results and working hour records, and are also making preparations for the assignment of public health nurses to all operating sites.
An interview with an industrial physician
Health bulletin
In compliance with relevant laws and regulations in Japan and overseas, the JX Nippon Mining & Metals Group is pursuing initiatives including the continued employment of workers aged 60 and older, hiring of persons with disabilities, women’s empowerment, and hiring of non-Japanese employees. We are also developing a personnel system with consideration for sexual minority employees (LGBTQ+). Here, we are working to create an environment in which diverse employees feel fulfilled and display their abilities fully.
As part of our efforts to energize individuals and organizations, we are actively working to create an environment where a diverse range of people can work with a sense of motivation. Our efforts include the creation of an environment where people can work fully demonstrating their capabilities even if they are pregnant, raising a child, or caring for a family member. We provide legally mandated systems to support having and raising children, and offer our own unique systems as well. Our handbook on the support available for employees offers tips on balancing work with childcare or family care, provides an overview of the public services and company systems available for their use, and describes the roles managers should play in this context. In fiscal 2019, we also acquired the “Kurumin” certification mark related to our action plan for raising next-generation children.
With particular respect to the success of our female employees, we formulated and followed through on a plan for the five-year period to fiscal 2020 in accordance with Japan’s Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace. In fiscal 2020, the final year for this plan’s targets, we made improvements to the working environment by expanding remote work, introducing a flextime system without mandatory core hours, and expanding the use of childcare centers. We have formulated a new action plan for fiscal 2021 and beyond, and will focus on creating more opportunities for women to play an active role.
As part of our efforts to create an environment where a diverse range of people can work with a sense of motivation, we introduced a remote work system in January 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our employees have been working from both home and office to ensure the safety of our business partners, local communities, employees, and their families, while taking into account the state of the virus and requests from government agencies, etc. We have also been striving to maintain our business to fulfill our social responsibility to deliver essential products to society. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, we will continue to utilize our remote work system so that a wide range of diverse employees, not limited to those with circumstances such as childcare or nursing care, can play an active role in the Group.
In addition to the current flextime system with core hours, we have introduced a flextime system without mandatory core hours at the head office and for a portion of Isohara Works, with the aim of promoting more autonomous work styles among employees. We have also defined our flextime system as covering 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., excluding late-night hours, to create a system where employees can flexibly choose their work hours.
With the establishment of JX Nippon Research Institute for Technology and Strategy Co., Ltd., we introduced a flexible employment system that is not bound by the Group’s existing personnel system, and launched efforts to secure and utilize highly specialized and senior citizen personnel. In fiscal 2021, we hired a number of senior citizen employees with a high level of expertise and a broad range of knowledge to launch our business.
The Group provides legal standard systems related to childbirth and childcare, and offer our own unique systems as well.
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We have provided support for childcare for some time, and in recent years the percentage of male employees taking childcare leave has been increasing. In addition to providing presentations about our system, we are working to spread awareness of support measures by holding panel discussions with employees who have taken childcare leave or are balancing work with child-care in our Career Design Training that has been held since fiscal 2020.
Since joining my company, I have always been engaged in administration and human resources work, but despite that I honestly was unable to imagine myself using this system. Still, in order to raise my children with my spouse, I have taken childcare leave and successfully returned to work twice, most recently for almost a year in fiscal 2021. I was able to do this with the support of the people in my workplace. One good thing about taking leave was that I got into the habit of managing tasks better than ever before, but most importantly, I feel that the best thing to come out of it was the sense of camaraderie I gained with my spouse as we raised our children together.
JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation
Hitachi Works, Administration Department
Koyanagi Takuya
The following programs are available if an eligible family member requires constant care.
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We are creating a workplace that understands and fulfills the desire of disabled people to go out and play an active role in society.
In the head office, we have worked to improve environments as well as assign and train dedicated staff in order to hire not only those with physical disabilities but also those with mental disabilities (intellectual and developmental). As a result of these efforts, we welcomed four new team members in January 2022 (this number has since increased to six). These team members’ main duties are internal mail reception and distribution, as well as cleaning. Going forward, we will continue to expand their range of activities. The name of the team was chosen as Cheerful Support Office, selected in an open submission process from employee suggestions. This name is designed to impart the team’s nature as a group supporting the workplace with brightness and energy.
We will continue to actively support and develop various measures to enable disabled persons to lead fulfilling social lives, and by welcoming people with various disabilities as colleagues, we will enhance our corporate culture of caring and mutual support among employees.
Each member is working with a strong desire to be useful and active as a member of society and a friend to the Company, and the speed of their growth amazes me every day. They are able to check each other’s work thoroughly, confirm with their mentors what they do not understand, and proceed with their work carefully one by one to ensure that there are no mistakes. Going forward, they are planning to take on new challenges, including creating business cards for the entire Group, expanding their cleaning responsibilities at the head office building, and operational support requested from various departments.
Our members have every potential for growth. We hope you will look out for their further success in the future. We are committed to supporting our members so that they can lead fulfilling social lives and enjoy their work for the organization for many years to come.
JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation
Administration Department
Fukuodori Naoya
In order to achieve becoming a technology-based company set forth in the 2040 Long-Term Vision, the JX Nippon Mining & Metals Group is working to secure and develop human resources capable of creating added value.
Since fiscal 2016, our basic policy for human resources development has included the primary goal of energizing individuals and organizations, and we have been striving for broad-based human resource development by providing various educational programs to develop five key areas: managerial skills, specialist skills, skills for global readiness, self-development, and other skills and awareness. In addition, in order to raise awareness and improve capabilities for each employee, we offer Career Design Training as well as training to learn about our company’s DNA, and various other support programs.
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We provide a wide range of training programs in stages for university and graduate school graduates up to five years after they are hired, including New Employee Training for teaching basic businessperson skills, and Fifth Year Training to help them gradually build a vision for their career
We promote education to globalize our talent so that they can play an active role on a global scale. In our Overseas Language Training program for second-year employees with undergraduate and graduate degrees, employees are sent to overseas language schools for about eight weeks, not only to learn the local language but also to experience different cultures and values, and to develop flexible thinking that can be applied globally. Although some of the training sessions in fiscal 2021 were postponed due to COVID-19, we are preparing to resume this training.
DNA Training: Training for employees in their third year to understand our DNA, cultivated from our founding to the present, and to recognize the role they should play as leaders of change in the future.
Education for mid-career employees: Mid-career employees are given a tour of the Nippon Mining Museum to learn about JX Nippon Mining & Metals’ history.
A DNA Training session
A tour of the Nippon Mining Museum
Employees may apply to any eligible external training program. On completing the program, half of the expenses will be subsidized (up to 500,000 yen per program). This is a highly flexible system because we want to address employees’ wishes for self-development more than ever before.
In fiscal 2020, we launched our systematic career development education. As part of this effort, we provide Career Design Training for young employees to learn how to envision their future careers.
As part of a training program for mid-career hires, we visited the Nippon Mining Museum, located on the site of the former Hitachi Mine. Since the founding of JX Nippon Mining & Metals, the organization has a history of working together with local residents to protect the environment in keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals. Visiting the site where we were founded, seeing up close the ruins of the large smokestack and rows of cherry trees that have become a symbol of environmental protection measures, and experiencing the many exhibits and detailed presentations in the memorial museum, I felt that we had faced extraordinary difficulties and made great effort in our history.
There was a deep, moving sense of reverence that reassured me that our continued commitment to “community involvement and development” and the idea of “the mine as one big family” comes with a historical context and pride built through the accumulated desires of many people involved, including generation after generation of employees and local residents. I felt that this was the foundation for continuing to face the difficult challenges that lie ahead.
JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation
Internal Auditing Department
Sekiyama Aya
In June 2020, we relocated our head office to the Okura Prestige Tower (Toranomon 2-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo). In order to transform ourselves into a technology-based company as stated in our 2040 Long-Term Vision, it is important to create mechanisms for making flexible organizations and people without being bound by conventional frameworks, and the purpose of this head office relocation is precisely to realize that goal. Expanding shared space, setting up places where people can greater interact with technology, and promoting communication among employees—these are just a few examples of our goals. With these intentions in mind, a variety of mechanisms have been set up at the new head office.
Increasing individual autonomy and, by extension, the productivity of the entire organization by introducing ABW*1, using advanced ICT tools, utilizing BPO*2 services, etc.
〈Openness in Discussion and Focus on our Core Work〉
Increasing sensitivity to new value creation by presenting the organization to visitors in a way that exposes them to the changing environment around the organization and industry
〈Greater Interaction with Technology, Learning from History〉
The penetration of ABW will naturally increase opportunities for employee interactions between various departments, creating the foundation for flexible response to major changes in the organization and business format, etc. In addition, we began operating the Group Portal Site to contribute to Group-wide optimization by fostering a sense of unity and improving productivity not only at the head office but also among Group members, and promoting the deployment of ICT tools such as digital signage, electronic approval, and business card management systems at each operating site
〈Knowing People〉
With our relocation in 2020, we have made significant changes to our office. At the beginning of the relocation, many employees expressed confusion about the new working style and facilities, but through the support of our concierge counter teammates, they became accustomed to the new environment and found it easier to work there than ever before. Two years after the relocation, office improvement efforts are still ongoing on a daily basis. Especially with regard to facilities, we have reflected employee opinions and social changes, installing private booths, adding decorative plants, and revising the layout. The office as it is today is not in its final form, and we will continue to make improvements in order to create an office worth coming to.
JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corporation
Administration Department
Yumoto Teppei
