TOPICS - Social Aspects of CSR

Print
Print Help
Change Text Size

TOPICS1
Establishing an empowerment project for women

Omron’s goal is to achieve both individual development and development of the company by motivating all employees to fully demonstrate their capabilities without regard to gender, nationalities or other non-performance related attributes. To further promote gender equality, Omron Corporation set up an empowerment project for women in October 2008.

The project team consists of nine women selected from the head office and business companies. As a first step, the project team conducted an internal questionnaire survey to assess the present status in fiscal 2008, and analyzed the results of the survey. Based on this analysis, the team identified factors that prevent women from demonstrating their capabilities to the fullest, and sought solutions.

Meeting of empowerment project for women

The survey was conducted in December 2008 targeting 5,400 employees at Omron Corporation in Japan. It was designed to seek their opinions and assess the workplace conditions in seven areas, including workplace culture, career development support, employee awareness, and availability and implementation of employee support initiatives. Issues extracted from the results of the survey were then classified according to the concerned party’s perspective.female employees, the company, and workplace/management, and the direction of measures to solve them was determined for each category. Focus was placed on balancing environmental factors including the company’s stance, various support initiatives and workplace culture; and the employees’ own motivation and capabilities to achieve rewarding work at high levels. This in fact is the key concept for Omron in empowering women in the workplace.

From fiscal 2009 and beyond, Omron will draft an action plan and promote its implementation.

TOPICS2
Omron donates “Smile Scan” to Wakayama Prefectural School for the Blind

Maintaining a smile is one of the main challenges for students at a school for the blind who wish to become acupuncturists. Although warm smiles are essential for any business involving communication with customers, many students who were born blind find it difficult to smile. In February 2009, Omron donated a “Smile Scan” system to the Wakayama Prefectural School for the Blind for use in emotional education such as smile training.

Designed for objective and quantitative evaluation of smiles, “Smile Scan” utilizes Omron’s “OKAO Vision” face sensing technology. The technology relies on facial data gathered from over 1 million people, accumulated through over 10 years of study of the human face. The system measures the degree of a person’s smile from a camera-recorded facial image based on its original criteria using facial key point movements. The resulting data is displayed onscreen with a percentage reading from 0% to 100%.

The Wakayama School for the Blind plans to use “Smile Scan” not only for emotional training for students but also for helping faculty members maintain their smiles on a daily basis, aiming to create a more pleasant educational environment.

Students practicing smiling in front of computer screens