Empowering Female Employees

Marubeni is working to strengthen recruitment and training of female employees, to second them overseas proactively, and to create an environment where they can play an active role regardless of life events. As of March 31, 2024, there are 1,209 women (29.8% of all full-time employees in Marubeni Corporation) working in Japan and overseas.
Furthermore, in accordance with the Act on the Promotion of Female Participation and Career Advancement in the Workplace, we have formulated Phase 2 of the Action Plan for Empowering Female Employees for five years starting from April 1, 2021. Under this action plan, we have set targets for the ratio of new female graduates hired, the ratio of female full-time employees, 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.
In 2024, we revised the job classification system by eliminating the distinction between the career track and administrative track job classifications in order to achieve competence-based placements. At the same time, we expanded the Mission Rating system, a system that determines compensation based on the scale of one’s mission, to non-managerial positions after its initial introduction to managerial positions. Administrative track employees, who were primarily responsible for clerical and admin-related work in the organization, were all female, but with the revision of the job classification system, we are aiming to make the further advancement of motivated female employees and the creation of a more diverse organization a reality.

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

Click here to view the Action Plan (Japanese only)[93KB]

Click here to view the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Database (Japanese only)

Goals	I. Providing equal opportunities for women Ratio of new female graduates hired will be raised to around 40-50%. Ratio of female full-time employees will be at least 30%. 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 3/2024, the program included a kick-off message by the CHRO, video messages from a female CEO leader at one of our Group companies, and a panel discussion featuring female employees who have had diverse career paths. Also, we implemented various initiatives and activities to enhance the event and encourage employees to reflect on and take action towards promoting diversity and gender equality. These initiativeas and activities included a project inspired by mimosa, the symbolic flower of gratitude and International Women’s Day, and a Purple and Yellow Dress Code event, where photos of employees wearing purple and/or yellow items (the symbolic colors of International Women’s Day) were featurned on our internal Company SNS. Finally, we offered a special MIWD collaboration menu at ○Café, our employee café, that featured purple-colored dishes and food that promoted women’s health.

■Video Message on “Inspire Inclusion” by Ms. Ana Flávia, CEO at Adubos Real
Drawing from her diverse career and corporate management background, Ana shared with Marubeni Group employees her thoughts and experiences on how promoting an inclusive culture leads to innovation and organizational success.

■Panel Discussion
Through this panel discussion featuring female employees with diverse career paths, including panelists who have excelled in key company positions, balanced life with work while taking on management roles, and transitioned from administrative roles to expand their career possibilities, we provided an opportunity for female employees to consider their visions for their career and hear from role models.

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Measures to Support Overseas Postings after Childbirth

For employees stationed overseas who will be accompanied only by their children, Marubeni implements various support measures such as providing allowances equivalent to the case of an accompanying spouse and supplementing the costs of childcare and childcare support by relatives. As working styles and family circumstances diversity, we ensure that the right people can be placed in/promoted to the right positions so that these individuals can achieve ongoing career and skills development.

External Executive Development Programs for Female Employees

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 84 female employees to these external development programs.

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 senior managers from Japan-based and overseas Marubeni Group companies to deepen their understanding of the Marubeni Group and share information regarding their respective businesses. As an opportunity to promote collaboration and exchanges beyond one’s company and organization, this workshop also encourages 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, 2024, 235 employees are currently working under the Continuing Employment System.) For the HR system reforms in FYE 3/2021, in addition to realizing mission-based compensation, enhanced measures to support senior careers have also been implemented.
To ensure 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 2022. 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 June 2024, the company has a total of 80 employees with disabilities and 13 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 June 2024, Marubeni Corporation and the Marubeni Office Support employ a total of 106 people with disabilities, an employment rate of 2.93% that exceeds the legally-prescribed minimum employment rate.

Marubeni Corporation and Marubeni Office Support will continue striving to create workplaces where everyone can work together, 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 accepting applications through open recruitment, we are implementing a job-based hiring program entitled “Career Vision Recruitment,” where applicants specify the department and job responsibilities they want to apply for within the company. Employees in the Recruiting Section lead the advertising and assessment processes, which includes planning advertising campaigns to the actual candidate selections, and approximately 22 departments participated in FYE 3/2024.

2. Mid-career Hiring

We are strengthening mid-career hiring and acquiring talent who can become the drivers of new value creation by leveraging their expertise, abilities, and individual experiences cultivated outside of the company. Each year, over 30% of all new employees are hired through mid-career recruitment.