Breaking down the barriers of bias together

Media & Solutions SBU is dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across all business activities and initiatives in Japan. Mio Kashiwamura, Corporate Executive Officer of HR, PR, and Sustainability at Recruit Co., Ltd., describes how our DEI team is prioritizing and fostering diversity to challenge the status quo and create new value.

“Bet on passion“ is a Recruit Group core value that has been cherished since the early days of our company. It represents the idea of looking for and believing in the potential of every person, and working together to foster innovation powered by individual curiosity and pursuit of passion. This concept has remained steadfast and proven fundamental to our growth as we have navigated over six decades of changing times. It is with this core value in mind that today, we at Recruit must step up to fully embrace and celebrate diversity, so as to successfully meet tomorrow’s challenges.

When it comes to diversity, Recruit Group believes that betting on passion means bringing more voices to the table. In order to continue providing products and services that society will value in the future, it is important that we foster an inclusive environment where diverse talents can collaborate and co-create — all while having the space to celebrate the value in their individuality. This means uplifting historically marginalized groups, such as women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals, and placing them in positions of leadership. These efforts also include expanding access to work for persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and job seekers from other countries.

However, current systems and hiring practices, such as employing seniority systems and batch hiring new graduates, do not extensively support diversity in the workplace. Some work cultures unknowingly promote overexertion by  expecting employees to be available at all times— hindering work-life flexibility, and, at a larger scale, labor mobility. At Recruit Group, we believe it is vital to update the roles and requirements of leadership — long based on past practices — into ones that embrace diverse perspectives and are critical for innovation. Together, with our stakeholders, we must transform our future by challenging standard labor market practices.

Recruit has been particularly hard at work  providing more leadership roles for women in Japan, who have long been excluded from opportunities for upward mobility despite making up over half of Japan’s population. In 2006, Media & Solutions SBU established a dedicated diversity and inclusion organization to introduce various measures that encourage work and family life balance, especially for women. Since then, we’ve refined these measures to ensure that everyone can be present for essential family events and responsibilities, including childcare and nursing care, along with training on DEI for management layers. We have seen some positive change within Recruit: as of April 2021, nearly 30% of Recruit managers were female. While we continue to educate our management teams on DEI and encourage male employees to take childcare leave, we’re still striving to reach Recruit Group’s FY2030 goal of achieving gender parity within the company.

It’s clear that Japanese society is ripe for change. As we continue to weather the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognize that society is closely watching and holding companies and organizations accountable on their promise to proactively embrace and welcome diversity. In order to continuously deliver new value to society, we will continue to update and deliver on what diversity means to us.

We walk this journey together with our Group employees, allies, and stakeholders. Media & Solutions SBU is closely collaborating with Japan-based companies in the HR Technology SBU and Staffing SBU on these efforts toward achieving gender parity in Japan, and realizing a society where everyone can freely choose how they work and live. Together, we challenge the status quo as one Recruit Group.