Initiatives for Empowering a Diverse Range of Talent

The Kewpie Group positions Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) as one of its key strategies for human capital management, and aims to achieve sustainable growth and contribute to society by leveraging the diverse values and capabilities of all employees. Based on this policy, we value dialogue between employees, provide opportunities for employees to understand and experience DE&I, create workplaces where a diverse range of employees can thrive, and devise career and learning schemes that give employees a sense of growth. To maximize the value of human capital, we respect Group employee individuality and motivation to grow, while striving to cultivate a corporate culture in which they can maximize their capabilities.

We will promote DE&I so that the diverse perspectives, capabilities, and skills of each and every employee will create new value that leads to the growth of the entire Group. We strive to create a culture that promotes psychological safety while encouraging employees to take on challenges to achieve their goals.

We conduct personnel exchanges within the Group to diversify individual skills and experiences. We also proactively recruit mid-career professionals to incorporate new perspectives from outside the company.

Every year, we conduct a diversity engagement survey to gauge employee awareness. The survey results are fed back to each company and organization, and used to encourage employee engagement and foster a better organizational culture.

We are accelerating the promotion of diversity through seminars and study sessions in which Group employees participate.
In FY2024, we held universal manners certification exams in Shibuya and Sengawa, during which approximately 150 employees learned the appropriate mindset and behaviors for interacting with diverse people.

We employ the “KEEP20” initiative, in which over 20% of participants at important meetings comprise diverse human resources (in terms of age, gender, skills, and careers) to draw out different perspectives and stimulate discussions. This provides regular participants with new insights, and diversity participants with learning opportunities and exposure to management information and business decisions.

As it does for all its employees, the Kewpie Group aims to create an environment in which those with disabilities can demonstrate their potential and experience the joy of work and purpose.
In support of this aim, the employment of persons with disabilities is not undertaken at the Group level. Instead, each Group company, including Kewpie Corporation and Kewpie Ai Co., Ltd. (a special subsidiary), employs people with disabilities in their respective regions, thereby creating diverse employment opportunities in a broad range of communities.

The special subsidiary Kewpie Ai Co., Ltd. handles a wide range of operations, including in-house logistics, cleaning, and the production and distribution of marketing materials. Persons with disabilities make up 3.05% of employees (Kewpie Corporation + Kewpie Ai, as of June 1, 2024).
Besides supporting the hiring and retention of persons with disabilities, we are also proactive in seeking to create better communities and society. Some concrete examples include accepting internships for the employment of people with disabilities, providing speakers for universal design classes at elementary schools, interacting with special needs classes, and offering company tours.

Group companies are also hiring people with disabilities, mainly to work at plants, and they account for 3.74% of the Group's total workforce.

The Kewpie Group human resources policy, which serves as a guideline for its approach to human resource development, states that “we will engage with each individual's way of life and position the challenge of self-actualization as the driving force behind growth.”
To encourage each individual to play the leading role in their life, maintain mutual respect for the ways others live life, and strive to achieve self-realization through work, we are expanding various career support systems, specialized training, and self-development programs, including those listed below.

To further enhance career-related interviews with key supervisors and subordinates, we introduced self-directed career checkups in FY2024. This system enables employees to thoroughly consider their career paths through career training and career consultation interviews with external, nationally certified professionals.
Additionally, employees can utilize the Career Self-Declaration Scheme and In-House Recruiting System to report their aspirations and desired career paths to the Company. We are also significantly expanding self-directed learning opportunities enabling employees to realize their desired career paths. Specifically, we systematized skills training, which teaches employees the basic skills required for their roles, and we provide environments in which they can autonomously and continuously acquire the skills necessary for their careers.
We will also continue to expand personal development support content encouraging each individual to achieve self-realization.
Through these initiatives, we are working to realize our human resources policy and develop human resources demonstrating maximum performance and increased engagement.

Kewpie Career Assistance Framework

As a way to support our employees' active challenges and learning, and to encourage them to voice suggestions for the sake of the company's future, the Kewpie Group has established a variety of award schemes, including the President’s Award.

We have established the Kewpie Start Up Program with the aims of realizing individual employees' ideas and creating new businesses. Participants in the program have the opportunity to form networks of mentors that transcend divisions, which will help them upgrade their skills and advance their careers.

The Kewpie Group actively supports individual growth and success by offering flexible work styles that allow employees to continue working through various life stages and by preparing environments in which they can reach their fullest potential.

The working environment at Kewpie allows employees to pursue productivity while selecting flexible work styles that best fit their individual roles and the characteristics of their jobs. As such, we offer flexible working hours (flextime) with no core working hours, and employees can choose to work from home or a satellite office so that they are not confined to a particular place or time.
Employees working shorter hours can also use the flextime system to balance work and child-rearing.

ESG Data Sheet