Promoting Occupational Safety and Health

At Sharp, “maintaining and improving health” has been added to the framework of safety and health activities. In order to show Sharp’s commitment to maintaining and improving health, it calls the names of its organizations and activities “safety, hygiene, and health” instead of “safety and health,” and it has established an organizational system to promote safety, hygiene, and health.

In order to ensure that activities for the maintenance and improvement of safety, hygiene, and health go smoothly, Sharp holds Central Safety, Hygiene, and Health Committee meetings that bring the management and the labor union together to discuss and decide basic policies for the entire company. The Committee establishes and rolls out annual company-wide policies, objectives, and priority action items related to safety, hygiene, and health. At each business site or affiliated company, the Safety, Hygiene, and Health Committee consisting of labor and management representatives meets every month to report and discuss safety, hygiene, and health activities and decide on improvement measures in accordance with the corporate policy. The outcomes are shared with the heads of the departments, who are responsible for putting them into practice at the workplace level. At production sites, the occupational safety and health management system is in place to help employees identify potential risks of accidents in the workplace and to firmly set in motion proactive safety activities aimed at eliminating or reducing such risks. Under the system, they renew the OHSAS 18001 certification and work to enhance the occupational safety and health levels at the site. Meanwhile, Sharp is preparing for transition from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001, which has been issued to replace the OHSAS standard.

Sharp is committed to making its employees healthier. Our activities include having employees with lifestyle diseases or overweight receive the industrial physician’s interviews or health guidance to overcome their health problems based on their health check results, an anti-smoking campaign to make the entire company buildings smoke-free by closing the smoking rooms, and a program to encourage regular exercise through a competitive walking campaign among workplaces via a health-promotion smartphone app.

Sharp uses its employee stress check system, which is required under the Japanese law, to let employees realize their level of exposure to stress. The system is expected to lead to the prevention, early detection, and early treatment of mental disorders. Stress check results are also analyzed for each organization so that we can identify workplaces with high stress risks and help them improve the situation.

Sharp also offers comprehensive mental health services to employees, including counseling with mental health doctors and industrial counselors at business sites and counseling at outside specialized institutions. Mental health information is also made available to employees on the intranet.

Our return-to-work support program also demonstrates our commitment to supporting reinstatement after absence and prevention of a recurrence of mental problems. Employees returning to work will have a preliminary talk with their supervisor, general affairs department manager, and industrial physician and can choose to return to work on a trial basis and work shorter or flexible hours.