Human rights
Human Rights Management
Based on its "Human Rights Policy," the Mitsubishi Electric Group identifies "respect for all people" as materiality and promotes the following initiatives.
Human Rights Impact Assessment
The Mitsubishi Electric Group periodically carries out "Human Rights Impact Assessments" in order to identify and assess the impact of the Group’s business activities on human rights.
In fiscal 2019, we conducted the first "Human Rights Impact Assessment" and discovered that such issues as "preventing harassment," "controlling long work hours," and "giving consideration toward women and people with disabilities" were high risks at a total of 336 sites, including Mitsubishi Electric, its offices, domestic family companies and overseas family companies. We then provided feedback of the results to relevant departments and requested them to promote improvement activities.
With the understanding that it is important to continuously strive to perceive current circumstances accurately and take on the issues, we will carry out the second "Human Rights Impact Assessment" in fiscal 2022. To carry out the assessment, we will also devise an assessment method to further define issues that the Mitsubishi Electric Group has.
Initiatives Related to Employees’ Human Rights
We will respect the human rights of employees and implement initiatives, such as embracing diversity, maintaining a favorable working environment, and ensuring occupational safety and health and mental and physical health, in order to create a work environment where all employees can work actively with a sense of security.
Human Rights Initiatives in the Supply Chain
Since fiscal 2019, we have been seeking consent from suppliers to agreement on initiatives for social issues including human rights issues. In addition, we have continued to promote efforts and give instruction to understand human rights violation risks by suppliers (i.e., forced labor using foreign laborers, dangerous and hazardous labor).
Response to the UK's Modern Slavery Act and Australian Modern Slavery Act
In fiscal 2017, Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. and Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioning Systems Europe Ltd. issued a statement in response to the Modern Slavery Act that was enacted in the UK with the aim of eradicating forced labor, human trafficking, and other such acts that constitute "modern slavery." We update the content of the statement and disclose it every year. Continued efforts will be made to ensure information disclosure and strengthen relevant initiatives. Due consideration is also given to the UK Gender Pay Gap Report.
Likewise, Mitsubishi Electric Australia submitted a Modern Slavery Statement to the Australian authorities in response to the Modern Slavery Act enforced in Australia in January 1, 2019.
Statement by Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V.- Statement by Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioning Systems Europe Ltd.
Ensuring Personal Information Protection
In order to balance the usability of personal information while respecting the right to privacy, namely a key human right, the Mitsubishi Electric Group is promoting personal information protection initiatives as per rules based on the eight privacy principles defined in the OECD Privacy Guidelines.
Human Rights Education
Human rights training
- At Mitsubishi Electric, in addition to the implementation of the second "Human Rights Impact Assessment," we will create and distribute educational materials with the themes of the circumstances surrounding the implementation of the assessment and fundamental knowledge related to human rights for employees involved in sustainability at Mitsubishi Electric and at domestic family companies to deepen their understanding on global trends regarding human rights issues as well as international human rights norms. For overseas family companies, we also create training materials in English and Chinese.
- For new employees and newly appointed managers, we provide ongoing training programs regarding human rights. In fiscal 2021, we conducted a group training session related to human rights and harassment in each office for 833 new employees and 478 newly appointed managers.
E-learning
Since fiscal 2019, we have been conducting a sustainability-related e-learning program that includes themes on human rights for employees of Mitsubishi Electric and domestic family companies. In fiscal 2020, we created the English version of contents and conducted the program at overseas family companies as well. We plan to continue to conduct the program on a regular basis while revising the contents based on sustainability and human rights trends.
Company and group newsletters
We publish commentaries with the theme "What are human rights?" in the company and Group newsletters several times a year. The latest commentaries, "Provision of human rights consultation" and "Impacts of the Japanese government’s ‘National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights,’" were published in the August 2020 and April 2021 issues, respectively. We will continue raising employee awareness of human rights at the Mitsubishi Electric Group.
Mitsubishi Electric Going Up Seminar
Employee Seminar
Since April 2018, we have been conducting an awareness-raising seminar for internal employees aimed at promoting understanding on diversity and practicing actions respecting human rights.
Approximately 2,200 employees attended lectures, including online sessions, and approximately 38,000 employees participated in an e-learning program (as of the end of March 2021). We encourage the participants to ask people with disabilities if they need any help and to provide support. We also teach them the importance of understanding the difference between oneself and others (values and views) and engaging in appropriate communication.
Harassment training
Lecture on "Respect for human rights and the active participation of diverse human resources"
Mitsubishi Electric provides ongoing training programs regarding human rights to new employees and newly appointed managers, as part of its efforts to ensure a healthy workplace environment that is free of discrimination and harassment. In particular, starting in the second half of fiscal 2020, we have enhanced the content of harassment education and expanded the participants to include all employees in line with the Mitsubishi Electric Workplace Reform Program, which we are undertaking to prevent labor issues from recurring, and all employees participate every year. In fiscal 2021, we conducted a training session related to harassment, in each office, for 833 new employees, 478 newly appointed managers, and 819 recruit-training instructors.
Particular emphasis is placed on ongoing harassment prevention for newly appointed managers through training by encouraging them to have a correct understanding of instances of harassment and learn and implement appropriate communication skills for providing operational guidance, as they bear an important role as managers to create a workplace environment that will not cause harassment. Those who attended the program actively engage in creating a comfortable working environment for employees, by making certain there are no harassment issues in the workplace, as is their responsibility as managers.
The education of all employees includes not only providing information on power harassment and sexual harassment, including harassment against people of the same sex and LGBTQ people, maternity harassment, and so on but also introducing specific case studies of harassment. Lectures are given that allow each employee to identify any harassment issues in the workplace and report and communicate any issues that they have become aware of by communicating internal and external points of contact for consultation to everyone.
We have deployed this harassment training program to family companies as well and all the employees of domestic family companies participate in harassment prevention training programs that are implemented in line with the Mitsubishi Electric Workplace Reform Program.
Grievance Handling Mechanism
The Mitsubishi Electric Group has established multiple points of contact to respond to inquiries from various stakeholders, of which main points of contact are listed in the table below. We also receive consultation requests on human rights through them.
For each whistleblowing case on human rights risk, the responsible division quickly confirm facts according to the content of consultation. If a violation of human rights, etc. in business activities of the Mitsubishi Electric Group is confirmed, we appropriately respond to the instance by dealing with the victim and considering the punishment of those who engaged in the case in question, etc. as well as promptly making a correction and improvement. However, please understand that the Mitsubishi Electric Group may not deal with an instance for which facts cannot be confirmed as a result of confirmation and investigation or with a case which is determined as difficult to investigate due to being groundless, slander, and so on.
| Service available to | Name of point of contact for whistleblowing/consultation | Matters to be consulted | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various stakeholders (customers, people in the community) | "Inquiries on sustainability" and "Other Inquiries" on the Mitsubishi Electric Group official website | ・Inquiries regarding the Mitsubishi Electric Group’s sustainability ・Other various inquiries regarding the Mitsubishi Electric Group’s business activities |
<Japanese>Inquiries on sustainabilityOther Inquiries <Global (English)> Inquiries on sustainabilityOther Inquiries
|
| Mitsubishi Electric employees, family companies employees*1, suppliers to Mitsubishi Electric*1 | Ethics observance hotline | Whistleblowing or consultation regarding organized or individual employees’ fraud, legal violation, act of breach of ethics | Internal points of contact/external points of contact (lawyers) *2*3 |
| Mitsubishi Electric employees | Points of contact for consultation on sexual harassment, power harassment, etc. | Whistleblowing/consultation on various types of harassment in Mitsubishi Electric’s workplace | Human Resource Div. at each office of Mitsubishi Electric |
- *1 Limited to whistleblowing that is relevant to Mitsubishi Electric in personal and business aspects.
- *2 The points of contact are listed on Mitsubishi Electric’s intranet, internal posters, "Code of Corporate Ethics and Compliance," etc.
- *3 A whistleblowing system has been established at each domestic and overseas family companies of the Mitsubishi Electric Group.
Discussion with External Parties
In order to make the Mitsubishi Electric Group’s efforts for human rights issues effective, we have discussions with experts, human rights NGOs and other parties to receive advice on human rights initiatives.
In fiscal 2021, we had an opportunity to hold discussions with Takeshi Shimotaya from Sustainavision, where we received advice on assessment that includes supply chains and engagement with suppliers and employees.