Empowering Female Employees

Marubeni is working to strengthen recruitment and training of women for career-track positions, to station them overseas proactively, and to create an environment where they can play an active role regardless of life events. As of April 1, 2024, there are 496 women (14.8% of all career-track positions) working in Japan and overseas. Many women in this track are either relatively early or mid-career and are expected to play an even more active role as candidates for future managerial positions.
In accordance with the Act on the Promotion of Female Participation and Career Advancement in the Workplace, we have formulated Phase 2 of the General Employer Action Plan for the next five years starting from April 1, 2021. Under this action plan, we have set targets for the ratio of new female graduates hired for career-track positions, the ratio of female employees in all career-track positions, the ratio of female employees in all management positions, and the annual paid leave usage ratio, we will focus further on encouraging the success of women in the workplace.
In addition, Marubeni has established “Female Empowerment at Work 2.0” as our new policy in August 2022.
In addition to the various initiatives taken to create an environment where female employees can continue thriving at work, “Female Empowerment at Work 2.0” aims to create an environment where women are more deeply involved in corporate management and business decisions making at Marubeni. Also, we will focus further on “expanding the talent pipeline” to enhance growth opportunities for women and strengthen their career paths towards positions that involve decision making.

Action Plan for Empowering Female Employees (Phase 2: April 1, 2021-March 31, 2026)

Click here to view Action Plan (Japanese only)

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Database (Japanese only)

Goals

I. Providing equal opportunities for women Ratio of new female graduates hired for career-track positions will be raised from the current 20-30% to around 40-50% within three years (joining the Company by FYE 3/2025). Ratio of females in all career-track positions will be at least 15%. Ratio of females in all management positions will be at least 10%. II. Establishing an environment conducive to balancing work and family life Increasing the annual paid leave usage ratio to at least 70%.

Female Empowerment at Work 2.0 (Established in August 2022)

Marubeni International Women’s Day

March 8 is designated as International Women’s Day by the United Nations and since FYE 3/2018, we have held Marubeni International Women’s Day (MIWD) on this day each year to support active working women.
In FYE 3/2023, the program included a Top Message by the President, a Talking Event by an external advisor, and interviews with female employees working actively on the global stage. MIWD provided opportunities for employees to rethink and act on the promotion of diversity and gender equality, through various measures to make the event more exciting such as the Purple Dress Code Project, in which photos of employees wearing purple items, the symbolic color, were introduced on the Company’s SNS, and the MIWD collaboration menu which was offered at the employee cafeteria, ○Café.

■Talking Event “Embrace Equity”
An external executive working active globally spoke about the importance of promoting diversity from various perspectives based on her own diverse career.

■Message 1 “How I Felt Throughout My Career”
Female leader employee who joined Marubeni through mid-career recruitment and had a wealth of external experience shared her various experiences, the tips and advice she felt through these experiences for the promotion of empowering female employees.

■Message 2 Voices from Japanese Female Employees Stationed Overseas
We shared powerful video messages from Japanese female employees currently working globally.
The messages will not only promote understanding of diversity and gender equality, but will contribute to a better awareness of these issues in their own career.

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Measures to Support Overseas Postings After Childbirth

To provide support to employees stationed overseas where they will also be accompanied only by their children, Marubeni introduces various measures to provide allowances for accompanying a spouses and assistance towards childcare cost of relatives, etc. With the diversified workstyles and family situations, we ensure that the right people can be placed in/promoted to the right positions and that these individuals can achieve ongoing career and skills development.

External Training Participation for Females

With the aim of providing growth opportunities that cannot be gained internally and networking opportunities with female employees from external organizations, we have sent a total of 64 female employees to external training programs.

BENInovation Program

We have been implementing the “BENInovation Program,” a program that primarily targets early to mid-career female employees in career-track positions and their immediate managers, to encourage these employees to take on greater challenges and to strengthen diversity management.

Creating an Environment and Network to Promote the Participation of Diverse Human Resources

Marubeni Global Mobility Program

Through the Marubeni Global Mobility Program, Group employees from overseas offices, who are also future candidates for executive positions at their respective offices, are seconded to Marubeni Headquarters in Tokyo and Group companies in other countries for a set period of time. By expanding opportunities to gain experience at Marubeni Headquarters and overseas/domestic Group companies, Marubeni promotes the active participation of diverse human capital across the world.

Marubeni Diversity Days

Marubeni Diversity Days is held with individual events under the themes of “Diversity as a Corporate Growth Strategy,” “Unconscious Bias,” “Disability Inclusion,” “Multicultural Co-creation in the Workplace,” and “Learning More about LGBTQ.” Through lectures and panel discussions by external speakers and Marubeni Group employees over the five-days event, employees have the opportunity to learn more about diversity and reaffirm its importance.

Marubeni Group Workshop

The Marubeni Group Workshop is held annually for selected managers from Marubeni Group companies to deepen their understanding of the Marubeni Group and share information regarding their respective businesses. This workshop also promotes networking among Group employees from diverse backgrounds who are active in Japan and other countries.

Opportunities for Senior Employees

The Continuing Employment System has been introduced to make full use of the abundant knowledge and experience possessed by our more senior personnel, covering in principle employees over the age of 60 years who wish to continue working after normal retirement age. (As of April 1, 2023, 222 employees are currently working under the Continuing Employment System.) For the HR system reforms for FYE 3/2021, in addition to realizing mission-based compensation, enhanced measures to support senior careers have also been implemented.
With the aim of ensuring that each senior employee can (1) define and choose their unique career path and (2) be able to grow and work actively with a sense of fulfillment both inside and outside the Group, and that the Company/organization (1) promotes the right people into the right jobs, regardless of age or years with the company, so that strengths and experience can be fully utilized and (2) supports employees who wish to pivot their careers outside of the Marubeni Group, the Career Counseling Section was established within the Human Resources Department to further the roles of senior personnel in the workplace.

Promoting Employment of People with Disabilities

In December 2020, Marubeni Office Support Corporation (Marubeni Office Support) became the first company in Tokyo to obtain the “Monisu Certification” mark, awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises that excel in the employment of people with disabilities. Marubeni Office Support was also certified by the Tokyo metropolitan government as a best practice company for Barrier-free Mindset in March 2021. This certification was awarded for Marubeni Office Support’s efforts toward creating a safe working environment for employees with disabilities and actively communicating the employees’ experience and achievements publicly.
As of April 2023, the company has a total of 73 employees with disabilities and 11 employees without disabilities who aim to help each other and improve together.
Employees with physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities engage in a variety of tasks, including business card printing, document PDF conversion, building cleaning, in-house logistics, general office work, and welfare support.

As of April 2023, Marubeni Corporation and the Marubeni Office Support employ a total of 99 people with disabilities, an employment rate of 2.67% that exceeds the legally-prescribed minimum employment rate.

Marubeni Corporation and Marubeni Office Support will continue striving to create workplaces where everyone can work, regardless of disabilities.

Fair Recruiting and Hiring Practices

Marubeni’s fundamental hiring policy is to select applicants according to their capabilities and competence based on a fair recruitment process in which no form of discrimination is tolerated.
For example, we use an “open entry” system that provides equal opportunities to anyone regardless of citizenship, home country, gender, disability, or alma mater. Moreover, the job application form does not ask for details such as home country, religion, family situation, or any other information not required for us to determine an applicant’s capabilities and competence. During interviews, we respect each applicant’s basic human rights by avoiding inappropriate questions and select employees based only on capabilities and competence.
To ensure that fair recruiting activities are conducted across the entire Marubeni Group, we have created the recruiting manual for fair recruiting and strive to ensure that our policies are thoroughly understood across Marubeni Group companies.

Recruiting Diverse, Top Talent

While incorporating distinctive hiring methods, we engage with a diverse pool of talent who can become the drivers of new value creation by leveraging their expertise, capabilities and individuality.

1. New Graduate Recruitment

In addition to the open recruitment to accept a wide range of applications, we incorporate hiring methods “Career Vision Recruitment”, which is a job-based hiring program for recruiting people who have indicated the responsibilities and department that they want to apply for within our company. Employees in the Recruiting Section lead the advertising and assessment processes, which includes planning advertising campaigns to the actual candidate selections, and approximately 27 departments participated in FYE 3/2023.

2. Mid-career Hiring

We are strengthening our mid-career hiring seeking to acquire talent who can become the drivers of new value creation by leveraging their expertise, capabilities and individuality cultivated outside of the company. Each year, we recruit and hire more than 20% of all hires through mid-career hiring.