Teruyuki Masaka
Vice President, Chief HR Officer
We asked Teruyuki Masaka, who is promoting DE&I as CHRO, about the future DE&I that Eisai should aim for from an HR perspective, and what we should do to achieve that goal.
We Want to Work with a Focus on “Women’s Participation in the Workplace”
The Current Status of DE&I
Since the Diversity Declaration in 2012, DE&I has gradually become more widespread within the company, and I feel that awareness has increased particularly over the past four or five years. We have been addressing the gender gap as a top priority, especially in Japan, but we still have a long way to go. I believe that women experience more constraints in terms of time, physical and psychology condition when building a career. We would like to change this situation where inequality in growth opportunities occurs. We believe that creating an environment that accepts individuality, regardless of gender, and allows employees to continue to take on challenges is important for the sustainable management of our company. As women’s participation in the workplace is just one of many DE&I topics, we need to move to the next stage quickly. Even if DE&I advances, it is meaningless if it cannot be implemented in the actual workplace, so an important challenge is applying it to organizational management. I feel like we are gradually transitioning, but we are still just halfway there.
“By 2030, increase the ratio of women in management staff to 30% and increase the rate of men taking childcare leave” has been adopted as a company-wide materiality. However, there is no limit to how far DE&I can go, and we believe that the goal is for employees to feel that implementing DE&I will produce tangible results and improve work efficiency.
With the Current Method,
We are Unable to Innovate in a Changing Society.
Why is DE&I necessary?
DE&I should be a natural part of society and companies. The world continues to change at breakneck speed. In anticipation of changes, Eisai has amended its Articles of Incorporation in 2022, expanding the focus of our corporate concept from "patients and their families" to "patients and the people in the daily living domain," and aiming to realize "social good". However, if we stick only to traditional ways of doing things and fail to adapt to change, it will be difficult to create innovation, let alone achieve our ultimate goal of social good. DE&I is a concept that is necessary to respond to change, and is not actually a concept that is far away from us. There are many things that are familiar to us in our daily work, and some of them can already be put into practice. DE&I will not be achieved immediately by doing something but will be a long-term activity. We need to keep DE&I in mind and keep practicing it to achieve our goals. I believe that an organization is not the sum of its individual abilities, but rather the combination of those abilities. Therefore, organizations can accomplish things that cannot be done individually, and innovation can be created We recognize that DE&I is a management agenda that should continue to be put into practice.
I Want to Adopt thehhcThought Process for DE&I.
What are DE&I Initiatives that only Eisai can do?
Eisai is a company that seriously pursues corporate concept-based management. We spend 1% of our business time socializing with patients and the people in the daily living domain, and apply what we learn from this experience to our work. That's why everyone is able to think for themselves "for whom" and "for what purpose". The same goes for DE&I. I would like to adopt the thought process of thehhcconcept. Thehhcphilosophy does not have one answer; each person has their own answer. But if you ask them what their purpose is, I think everyone will answer something similar. With DE&I, each person has their own answer, but in the end it’s best to be heading in the same direction. Multiplying the strengths of individuals to create a greater power will lead to the creation of innovation and the realization of social good. I believe this is the kind of DE&I that Eisai can achieve. Obtaining approval for LEQEMBI (generic name: lecanemab) was an event that convinced us that we can accomplish great things with DE&I as the driving force. This was possible not only because of the power of science, but also because of changes in the mindset of organizations and employees through DE&I. There is an environment where DE&I can become a climate and culture. It is important to set the goals you want to achieve and the problems you want to solve, and then consciously incorporate the DE&I concept into your activities and put them into practice to achieve them.