Labor Practices

Yamato Transport strives to ensure a rest period (interval) of at least 11 hours between the end of work on one day and the start of work on the following day to ensure that employees can have a reasonable amount of rest.

Yamato Transport encourages systematic utilization of annual leave, such as taking a week of continuous leave and taking leave on celebration days. We aim to see individuals use at least 90% of their annual leave.

At Yamato Transport, workers and management set the planned number of working hours in a year to curb long working hours and realize work-life balance (2,260 hours for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024). Each month, progress is checked at a meeting held at each regional branch with workers and management participating. If any workers are found to have particularly long working hours, improvement measures are considered as a first order of priority as part of a commitment to maintaining the planned annual working hours.

The Yamato Group has prepared 845 Documents for Definitions of Duties  specifying the work details, scope of responsibility, knowledge, and skills required of employees for each position. The documents clarify roles and duties for each individual employee. With these, we have crated a system for evaluating employees who reliably perform the roles expected of them. This increases their sense of acceptance and fairness and leads to greater job satisfaction.

In order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infections and facilitate various working styles, we have made it possible for call center personnel to work remotely. This has enabled workers to work at home and from satellite offices, and given them more options for working locations and times.
We offer this telework system not only to employees but also to part-time workers, to make work more comfortable for as many people as possible. We aim to enable workers to achieve a healthy work-life balance through flexible working styles.

In 2018, the Yamato Group conducted a survey on awareness and actual conditions related to childcare and caregiving, and is considering and developing group-wide support schemes and measures for employees with childcare and caregiving responsibilities, in order to improve the ease of working for these employees.

Major Group companies support the work-life balance of employees by allowing employees to work shorter working hours for childcare until the end of the sixth grade of elementary school, and take up to 365 days of caregiving leave, both of which are in excess of the statutory periods.
In addition, since September 2018, Yamato Transport has been working to create an environment that makes it easier to use these schemes, such as allowing employees with childcare and nursing care responsibilities to choose their number of working days per week, from three or four days.
We have created a handbook for employees with childcare and caregiving responsibilities (and their superiors) in order to support a healthy work-life balance, and have made it available for download from our intranet site. We are also introducing telework and flextime schemes. To make possible diverse work styles and increase operational efficiency and productivity, we have broadened the scope of the telework scheme to allow part-timers to telework. Since the number of male employees taking childcare leave is also increasing, we will continue to consider measures that lead to greater understanding in the workplace and from superiors, and continue to periodically communicate information on work-balance support schemes.

Support Schemes for Childcare and Caregiving (Yamato Transport examples)

As a result of these initiatives, Yamato System Development has obtained Platinum Kurumin certification from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) as companies that engage in efforts to provide childcare support, based on the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children. (As of March 2024)

Yamato Transport has introduced a “standby work system” under which Sales Drivers take turns to be on standby to respond to irregular situations.
This prevents workers from having to suddenly work on their days off and establishes an environment that enables them to rest during emergencies, such as health or family situations. In this way, the company has created a work environment where employees and their families have a sense of security.

We have been conducting Working Styles Awareness Surveys and Engagement Surveys with employees across the Yamato Group to understand the current working environment and make improvements.
In the survey conducted in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, although “employee-friendliness” increased, the other indicators all fell. The Group is positioning an increase in job satisfaction as the issue that we should prioritize. To enhance items that strongly correlate with job satisfaction, we are working to advance mutual understanding through smooth communication and create a working environment that respects diverse approaches and values. These efforts included implementing exchanges of opinions between Sales Office managers and management at all regional branch offices of Yamato Transport from January to March 2024, sharing values that reflect the direct connection between customers and employees, and implementing workplace discussions that aim to realize a working environment that encourages job satisfaction. The Group will continue to identify issues and take steps to address them based on the results of surveys to develop working environments in which employees can enjoy an employee-friendly environment, experience job satisfaction, and work energetically.

The Yamato Group has established these committees at each Group company to hold discussions on how to increase employees’ pride in their work and sense of satisfaction, and how to promote diversity, and then implement the ideas.

Yamato Transport has established a performance commendation system that recognizes examples of voluntary success that produce results in the first half and second half of each fiscal year, on an individual business location or project basis. The President's Award is presented to particularly outstanding Groups, with assessment criteria for selection including a clear causal relationship between purpose, efforts and results.
In FY2022 there were 126 entries, 15 of which received the President's Award. The Office of Excellence Award was presented to 103 offices that successfully achieved zero incident rates for traffic accidents, industrial accidents, work task accidents, and complaints over a period of six months, as well as receiving at least one or more compliments from customers.
The number of entries and awards is also increasing year by year, as a result of increases in awareness of improvements and reforms among individual employees and various initiatives being implemented on the front lines.

"Kuroneko Tamago" is a system that allows all Yamato Transport employees to make proposals for business improvements, new products and services. In addition to making their own proposals, employees can also vote and give their opinions on those submitted by other employees. Among the proposals and opinions received, the Hint Award is awarded to those proposals considered for actualization.
In FY2023 there were 268 proposal entries, 42 of which received the Hint Award.