Occupational Safety and Health Management

Policies and Concepts

Eliminating Accidents and Maintaining and Improving Employee Health: Policies and Concepts

Health management is pursued as a key corporate strategy with the understanding that initiatives for maintaining and improving employee health also enhance motivation and productivity and ultimately lead to higher corporate earnings.

The NTT Group has developed a personnel system that responds to diverse work styles and provides generous benefit programs for employees and their families.

We also believe that giving due consideration for the health of our employees as well as their families will motivate and invigorate each of them and lead to the growth and development of the Group as a whole.

We believe that ensuring employee safety should be the top priority of business management.

To ensure occupational safety and health, the NTT Group has established its own Safety Management Rules and Health Management Rules to facilitate safety and health management in addition to observing relevant laws and regulations such as Japan's Labor Standards Act and Industrial Safety and Health Act.

Moreover, offices with 50 or more regular employees are provided with a health and safety committee and an onsite health management physician (industrial physician). The respective committees assess and address risks related to individual tasks at each workplace, ensure mandatory health checkups for all employees, and implement measures to monitor, manage, and reduce long working hours.

The NTT Group's businesses include telecommunications-related construction and maintenance involving high risk operations such as aerial work. Therefore, we continually implement measures to prevent accidents and enhance safety awareness across the NTT Group, including subcontractors and other corporate partners.

Organization for Implementation

In addition to establishing and maintaining safety measures and safety management systems based on relevant laws and internal rules, we have set up a health and safety committee for preventing industrial accidents across the NTT Group. Also, we are working to prevent accidents during telecommunications-related construction and maintenance that serve as the foundation of the NTT Group's businesses and create a safe working environment.

Each health and safety committee consists of worker representatives and company representatives such as health and safety managers of the organization, a neutral chairperson (general safety and health manager), and an industrial physician. Committees hold monthly meetings to review health and safety initiatives, identify priority risks and set goals, and develop specific action plans.

The NTT Group also established the Health Management Promotion Committee to promote health management through a collaborative effort between Group companies and the NTT Health Insurance Union. General managers of human resources department who are responsible for personnel at each Group company, including executive officers, and directors of the NTT Health Insurance Union are appointed as officers in charge of promoting health management. The effectiveness of the initiatives is ensured by implementing PDCA cycles (formulate health management plans + set health targets → formulate and implement health-focused actions → identify and confirm health results → verify the effectiveness of health-focused actions).

We have also designated KPIs for wellbeing using health data, and we endeavor to achieve them by planning and implementing initiatives for raising awareness and promoting health-focused activities.

As part of our safety and health efforts, the NTT Group also holds a health award event to recognize and horizontally deploy good practices from its various companies and make its workplace environments better.

Targets and Performance

(17-3) Number of occupational injuries
Fiscal 2023 results: 4 cases
Fiscal 2024 target: 0 cases

(17-4) Presenteeism loss rate
Fiscal 2023 results: 5.5%
Fiscal 2024 target: 6.0% or lower

Main Initiatives

Comprehensive Employee Benefits

A cafeteria plan is being introduced across the entire NTT Group.

The plan includes health promotion measures such as comprehensive medical check-ups, assistance for acquiring health IT devices, and support for asset accumulation. Employees can use their allocated points to freely select from these menu options.

A core menu is also available, offering a range of options that do not require points, such as comprehensive medical check-ups and genetic testing for the early detection of diseases such as lifestyle-related illnesses and cancer, the risks of which increase with age.

We also offer a range of options that can be chosen at any time, such as fitness club subsidies and smartphone app-based health improvement programs.

Major Items on the Cafeteria Plan Menu

Core Menu Items for All Employees (Points Not Required)

Physical Healthcare

The NTT Group also takes steps to help employees fortify their physical health by using ICT. Specifically, we focus on the two measures below.

(1) Encourage healthy activities with smartphone app

Information about how to refresh oneself and eat and sleep better, as well as information about NTT Group's sports teams (Exercise Videos), are pushed to the smartphone app to get employees more engaged in healthy activities

(2) Guidance for specific health guidance via smartphones

Introduce ICT-based specific health guidance so that employees can conveniently receive specific guidance anytime and anywhere on their smartphone apps

In addition, Group companies, including the holding company, plan and implement their own walking events, seminars, and other measures in line with the health issues faced by their company.

[Reference figure] Participation in holding company walking event: 29.7%

Mental Healthcare

The NTT Group has established contact points for handling mental health inside and outside the Company and has been implementing mental health initiatives such as stress testing, counseling on work-related issues, and training for line managers.

As part of our initiative to promote remote work styles, we address mental health issues by periodically conducting simplified interviews to monitor changes in an employee's condition and their self-care efforts. Employees are also encouraged to communicate with superiors (line managers) by conducting pulse surveys that provides fixed point observations of employee awareness on a real-time basis.

[Reference figure] ¹. Ratio of stress checks: 95.3%

¹Scope of Disclosure:[B]

Activities to Eliminate Accidents

In fiscal 2023, there were zero serious accidents resulting in casualties^* in construction or maintenance work ordered by NTT Group companies (either directly managed or performed by contractors) regarding the establishment and upkeep of telecommunications and building facilities.

To prevent accidents involving human casualties, NTT Group companies will continue to work in concert to reaffirm standard procedures, reinforce adherence, and improve the safety awareness of all workers.

In light of past accidents involving traffic guidance personnel, and the large number of incidents involving experienced employees, especially team leaders, efforts continue to be made for not only NTT Group employees but all workers involved in NTT construction or maintenance work ordered by NTT Group companies, such as verifying details in meetings before starting work, ensuring comprehensive KYT activities, and re-training experienced employees including team leaders.

Furthermore, we continue to engage in activities to achieve a safe labor environment and ensure zero industrial accidents across the Group, such as exploring means to prevent accidents involving vehicles and pedestrians, and using advanced technologies such as AI.

^*Serious accidents resulting in casualties: accidents that led to fatalities or disabling injuries that would prevent the employee from working again

Efforts by the NTT Group and partner companies engaged in telecommunications construction and maintenance

Health and safety management in telecommunications construction and maintenance

As a telecommunications company, we manage safety for construction and maintenance work contracted out to business partner companies or carried out by NTT Group companies.

Efforts to Eliminate Accidents

Analyzing past accident data, we identified six types of incidents that are especially likely to lead to serious accidents, and continue to work on measures to prevent them.

We are prioritizing efforts to reduce the risk of these six types of incidents, working towards the goal of "zero accidents causing injury or death during telecommunications construction and maintenance."

Specifically, we are implementing initiatives with an eye to raising safety awareness and using advanced technologies.

To raise safety awareness, we implement initiatives, such as sending monthly safety reminder messages to on-site workers and distributing safety awareness videos created based on past accidents.

As an initiative to ensure safety through advanced technology, we remotely monitor on-site work from company offices to help eliminate hazards unnoticed on-site and ensure safe operations with two-way confirmation.

Onsite Safety Patrols for Construction and Maintenance Work

To prevent accidents, regional safety officers from NTT Group companies conduct safety patrols of construction and maintenance sites.

Patrols are conducted based on a checklist to verify work conditions, site conditions, proper worker placement, and correct use of safety equipment.

Responding to and Preventing Recurrence of Accidents in Telecommunications Construction and Maintenance

In the event that an accident occurs during telecommunications construction/maintenance, the company at which the accident occurred shares the accident situation, causes, and countermeasures with the various NTT Group companies and partner companies to prevent similar accidents from occurring.

The four accident reoccurrence prevention initiatives below are in place to reduce the number of accidents.

Safety Promotion System

In order to create safe working environments and prevent accidents in telecommunications construction and maintenance that supports the business of the NTT Group, we regularly exchange information and deploy countermeasures with safety promotion organizations established at NTT Group companies, in addition to constructing and maintaining safety countermeasures and management systems based on relevant laws and internal regulations.

Responding to Construction/Maintenance Workers

We provide necessary safety equipment (such as protective gear) to workers in addition to ensuring the safety of work environments.

We also ensure that workers engaged in commissioned construction or maintenance work are fully familiar with the rules for using tools and equipment before they begin work.

Maintaining and Improving the Health of Employees

The NTT Group helps employees maintain and improve their health by providing a full range of regular health checks and offering health guidance based on the results of these checks.

Furthermore, as a measure for preventing lifestyle related diseases, we provide more extensive physical checkups for employees who request them and we require all employees to receive a comprehensive physical checkup every five years from ages 30 to 60.

We also provide support to help employees use sports gyms.

Together with the NTT Health Insurance Union, we are supporting employees' health-related activities by providing a portal site through which they can use a wearable device to record and check vital data such as the number of steps taken each day, as well as an app that uses health check data to predict and simulate potential future health risks related to metabolism and high blood pressure.

Additionally, business sites with a cafeteria prepare lunch menus with the help of a nutritionist, and certain business sites offer massage services that employees can freely free of charge.

Prevention of Overwork

To maintain workers' health, the NTT Group conducts overwork risk assessments and implements corrective measures, not to mention the compliance with Article 36 Agreements.

For example, computer logon and logoff times are recorded in a system to appropriately manage each employee's working hours, regardless of whether they work remotely or in an office. This helps to prevent overwork. Health management staff also conduct interviews with employees working extended hours and offer appropriate advice and guidance on personal health care.

These efforts are regularly reported along with overwork situations to the Health and Safety Committee, allowing NTT Group to verify the effect of risk reduction measures and further intensify efforts.

Disaster and Emergency Safety Measures

The NTT Group has systems in place to ensure employees' safety in the event of an emergency such as pandemic influenza, earthquakes, heavy rainfall, or terrorism. When an emergency occurs, a response headquarters is established as necessary, and appropriate actions are taken to ensure employees' safety in accordance with the Basic Act on Disaster Management and the Civil Protection Law, as well as the Group's own Disaster Management Operation Plan and Civil Protection Business Plan.

When a disaster occurs, safety status checks are conducted immediately to ensure that employees are safe, and the status of responses is swiftly collated. The collated data is promptly and appropriately transmitted from the response headquarters to management.

To prepare for emergencies, safety confirmation exercises are conducted biannually for employees, using the safety status confirmation system.

Moreover, we prioritize employee safety as part of regular safety measures by stockpiling essential supplies such as food and water at our locations nationwide. This ensures that employees have essential supplies for activity even when emergencies occur.

Responding to Occupational Accidents

If an occupational accident occurs, it is reported through a dedicated channel. Processes are also in place so that if the accident has a serious outcome such as death or severe injury, of if a violation of law is suspected, then it will also be reported through a compliance route.

We strive to prevent occupational accidents from reoccurring by analyzing accidents when they occur and taking appropriate action (investigation, responding to findings, etc.).

Health and Safety Management for Employees and Families Overseas

The NTT Group has various initiatives to ensure the health and safety of employees stationed overseas and their families. These include mandatory health checkups before departure, during temporary returns from abroad, and after returning to Japan. Personnel stationed abroad are also provided with overseas travel accident insurance, and all employees stationed or traveling abroad on business are subject to safety status checks, as part of a range of efforts to ensure that they can work abroad with peace of mind.

Labor-Management Relationship

Most NTT Group employees within Japan, excluding managers, are members of the All NTT Workers Union of Japan, which is part of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, and labor-management relations are stable.

During the past 30+ years, the All NTT Workers Union of Japan has not held a single strike (78.2% membership rate as of March 2024).

The Group engages in timely discussions with the Union not only on matters such as employment, working conditions, and occupational safety and health, but also on management-related issues that affect these areas, and other important matters unrelated to collective bargaining.

Layoffs

Organizational changes are made after discussion and negotiation with all labor unions.

No layoffs have occurred as yet.

External Evaluations