Occupational Health and Safety

Toshiba Initiative:Toshiba's Oita Operations achieve a Type-5 no accident record (35.5 million hours)

On March 27, 2011, Toshiba's Oita Operations was awarded a Type-5 no accident record (35.5 million hours) by the Director of the Labour Standards Bureau of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Continuous efforts have been made at Oita Operations by various job safety expert committees and by Oita Operations as a whole, which independently designate special health and safety weeks. As a result of such efforts, since July 25, 2005, Oita Operations has been continuously operating for 68 months without any work-related accidents resulting in employee absences from work or more serious damage. This is the 23rd time that a Toshiba Group factory has received this award.

Periodic Medical Checkup System

In 1997, Toshiba developed a company-wide integrated system to support periodic medical checkups for all employees in order to standardize medical checkups and remedial measures as well as to improve the efficiency of related administrative procedures. The system was upgraded in 2004 so as to link to HR-related database and to provide intranet access to data. At present, the system is being used throughout the Group.
Employees can access the system over the intranet in order to complete questionnaires, change scheduled times for checkups or follow-up interviews or view the results of checkups. Industrial physicians and healthcare staff can have access to medical checkup data, as necessary, for use in formulating health management programs.
To facilitate swift and effective remedial action if required, medical test results and responses are compiled, on a priority basis, to draw health checkup report charts or graphical illustrations presenting five risk areas such as diet, alcohol, smoking, exercise and mental heath. These charts or graphs are designed such that they are readily understood by employees.

Interview Guidance for Employees Working Excessive Overtime

Long working hours or excessive amounts of work can be detrimental to health, leading to cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. Toshiba Group employees working for more than 80 hours of overtime per month are required to go through an interview guidance with an industrial physician. This is in line with the revised OH&S legislation that came into force in Japan in April 2006, which entitles any employee working over 100 hours of overtime per month the right to request a medical check. In compliance with this law, Toshiba has instituted clear safety standards and initiated measures to prevent any work-related damage to the health of employees.

Overseas Medical Service Visits

Overseas medical service visit to Toshiba Home Appliances Manufacturing (Nanhai) Co., Ltd.

Employees assigned to work overseas have to cope with drastic lifestyle changes. In order to ensure sound health of these employees as well their accompanying families, Toshiba assigns medical doctors to those parts of the world with inadequate medical care to provide healthcare services and consultations. These industrial health specialists have been assigned to countries and regions around the world, including Mexico, China, Taiwan, UAE, India, Indonesia and some parts of Europe.

On-site Health-related Consultation System

Industrial physicians and occupational health nurses at Toshiba respond to onsite health-related inquiries and coordinate with sites, households and medical institutions as required. They also respond to inquiries from workplaces as well as from individuals

Helpline for Mental and Physical Health

Toshiba offers an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in conjunction with its in-house health insurance association to provide counseling for both mental and physical health issues by external specialists. The program ensures privacy of the individuals seeking help. Employee family members can also avail of the helpline.

Self-care

Mental health awareness and educational activities are conducted through a special magazine “Kenpo information” published by Toshiba’s health insurance association, and via the company website. A self-care pamphlet is covering topics on mental health related to “workplace,” “female health,” “families,” “children” and “elderly people.”

Employee Education

Toshiba is among the first few companies in Japan to conduct training of “listeners” for managerial ranks first since 1977. At present, each site of Toshiba offers health-related self-care education programs to employees as well as courses for managers. An in-house training center provides optional management seminars on mental health-related topics.

Convalescence Support Program

In 2003, Toshiba was the first company in Japan to introduce a convalescence support program to facilitate employees to gradually resume full-time work following a lengthy absence from work due to mental health problems, and reviewed a program in 2011. Industrial physicians and occupational health nurses coordinate with the employee's doctor, workplace members and family to devise proposals for appropriate working hours, place and time.

Promoting communication by encouraging employees to pay attention and talk to their co-workers

Employees are encouraged to pay attention to their co-workers and talk to them in order to detect any unusual signs that imply poor health. This practice has become the norm in the workplace.
In order to raise health and safety awareness at each workplace, we have been promoting communication by holding periodic informal workplace meetings.

Introduction of the mental health survey

Since FY2011, we have been conducting a mental health survey as a part of our effort to protect employees’ mental health in order to promote stress management for individual employees and workplaces.

Future Challenges: Comprehensive Program to Supplement Primary Prevention

Comprehensive program to supplement primary prevention

While Toshiba already has an advanced mental health program in place, stress remains an inevitable part of doing business. Toshiba aims to create a working environment where employees are able to develop the capabilities to handle stress effectively. This helps to keep employees motivated, while equipping them with valuable skills applicable throughout their lives.

Toshiba Health Insurance Association's Healthy Lifestyle Support Website

This website provides tips on developing healthier lifestyle and management of health on a daily basis.

The website also offers health-related information and lifestyle improvement programs to the employees and their families.

Available Services:

• Walking program: This helps to develop the habit of walking by comparing the daily steps recorded against the targets set. The webpage also allows to manage such data for the entire family.
• Checks on lifestyles: This helps to manage data such as weight, rate of body fat, blood pressure, abdominal measurements, and sleeping hours as well as helps to check habits such as brushing teeth, washing hands and gargling.
• My challenge : This helps to monitor one's lifestyle and reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome. It is a tool to support people who are diagnosed as well as who are likely to be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome to challenge for a certain period of time.
• Health information corner: This corner provides tips on treating metabolic syndrome and information related to mental health.

Countermeasures for Influenza

With regard to the global outbreak of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 in April 2009, Toshiba Group adopted a uniform measure for the Group as a whole. The Group specifically initiated measures such as 1) safety measures at each business site (washing hands properly, gargling, strict monitoring at the entrance gate, etc.) and 2) appropriate measures based on the warnings issued by WHO and the government, such as restrictions on foreign visits.

Keeping in view of the possibilities of the influenza strain (H1N1) of developing into more deadly form or the more deadly avian flu (H5N1) developing into H1N1, Toshiba Group will continue to update its measures to ensure employee health and safety, such as formulating guidelines at each stage of outbreak.

Toshiba Group Business Continuity Plan provides explicit guidelines on the priority businesses and the continuity of activities based on the nature of the business for each business domain, in the event of large-scale absenteeism owing to the outbreak of the influenza strain (H1N1).

Raising Awareness on Infectious Diseases

Toshiba organizes provides orientation to family members accompanying employees assigned overseas, on medical, safety and other lifestyle-related issues pertaining to the relevant country. Once the overseas assignment is confirmed, an orientation is held, including prior medical checkups and courses of vaccination.

New recruits in Japan are provided with booklets also containing information about HIV AIDS. Other awareness-raising programs also cover topics such as the prevention of HIV infection and the prohibition of unfair discrimination due to insufficient knowledge about the disease.

In addition, at the time of the outbreak of the influenza H1N1, all employees were notified of the appropriate countermeasures and were asked to adopt them on a daily basis.