Hello everyone, today, January 25, is the 12th annual Compliance Review Day.

What is Compliance Review Day?

As reported in last year's blog, on January 25, 2012, the company and an employee at our Matsusaka Plant (now Matsusaka Office) were referred to prosecutors for violating notification requirements under the Occupational Health and Safety Law.
The problems were that the company carried out construction without the necessary notification to renovate the facility, prioritized production over compliance, and delayed reporting and responding even after recognizing the legal violations.
In order to ensure that the lesson from the experience are not forgotten, we have designated January 25 of each year as "Compliance Review Day" and have been working on improving our organizational culture to ensure that "Safety, Environment, Compliance, and Quality (S.E.C.Q.)" is reaffirmed and reinforced and that "Bad News First & Thanks" is practiced.

This year's "Compliance Review Day" featured a lecture by Aiko Sekine, an Outside Audit & Supervisory Board Member, on the significance of the Compliance Review Day, the basics of compliance, and the importance of practicing compliance in your daily work while reviewing the content of previous review days.
We hope that you will watch the videos (Japanese only) posted on the intranet to learn more about compliance.

Reaffirming Compliance

Compliance is not just about observing laws and regulations.
Compliance includes not only observing laws, regulations, and internal rules but also acting ethically to meet the expectations and trust of society and stakeholders.
To ensure that compliance is practiced throughout our group, the slogan I have adopted since becoming president is "Building a team that responds flexibly to change without being bound by past concepts. "

Bad News First & Thanks Reaffirmation and Re-emphasis

For early detection and prevention of problems, the earlier you are notified of Bad News, the sooner you need to take action.
The longer the initial response is delayed, the greater the loss and the more time and effort are required to resolve the problem.
Looking outside of the company, there are many cases where insufficient implementation of "Bad News First & Thanks" has resulted in major social problems.
I would like to encourage everyone to think of this as a common issue that can happen to all companies and to consider it as our own personal problem, rather than someone else's.
The Sumitomo Riko Group encourages employees to practice "Bad News First & Thanks" in our workplaces on a daily basis, but the results of this year's questionnaire show that there are issues regarding the practice of "Bad News Thanks."
In order to encourage employees to practice "Bad News First," I would like supervisors to take the initiative in "Bad News Thanks" by valuing communication on a daily basis.
Whenever you are in doubt about a decision, I ask you to return to the Sumitomo Spirit of "Banji-nissei" "Shinyo-kakujitsu" and "Fusu-furi" and to always act in a manner that meets the expectations of society.
The reason for this is that as common sense and values change with the times, traditional ways of doing things, thinking, and making decisions may no longer fit the times.
It is necessary to regularly check internal rules and regulations related to your work.
I myself, of course, should always update my sense of ethics and values as times change and reconfirm whether my actions are in line with them.

*From the time I took office until 2022, the slogan was "Creating a culture that responds flexibly to change without being bound by past concepts. " Following 2023, the slogan for 2024 is "Building a team that responds flexibly to change without being bound by past concepts.”

Putting Compliance into Practice

This year marks the 12th annual Compliance Review Day.
In light of changes in public awareness of compliance, please take a moment to reflect on whether you are practicing compliance in your daily work.
If you are not able to do so, I hope you will consider why and how you can put it into practice, also referring to the contents of the previous review days.
Let's foster a culture where compliance is practiced as a matter of course in our daily operations and make a leap toward becoming a "Global Excellent Manufacturing Company" by 2029, the 100th anniversary of our foundation.

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