[Excerpt translation from Japanese to English provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

"'A happy workplace for minorities is a happy workplace for everyone': Thinking about diversity and inclusion from the perspective of LGBTQ initiatives", 19 Dec 2019

Many companies have been using the concept of “diversity and inclusion (D&I)” in their human resources strategy.

In October Huffington Post Japan sent a questionnaire to companies asking them about their D&I initiatives. In their responses, many human resources managers said they are struggling to embed D&I within their organizations.

They reported that D&I initiatives in their companies are left on the backburner…

...An urgent issue facing companies is how to effectively communicate D&I in a workplace where employees are preoccupied with their own day-to-day responsibilities and their company’s profitability.

Offering advice from their own companies’ experiences are human resources representatives from Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. [(JAL)] and Lush Retail Ltd. Japan [(Lush Japan)]— both of which are known for their progressive LGBTQ initiatives. While these two companies differ in terms of industry, scale, and corporate culture, they provide surprisingly similar suggestions on how to embed LGBTQ initiatives in a workplace.  

...In August 2019, JAL became the first Japanese companies to implement an “LGBT Ally Charter."

...Hiroshi Momota, who serves as the Director of JAL’s Human Resources Strategy Division, says, “We’re still in the process of making sure our entire company understands our LGBTQ measures.” He continues that to thoroughly embed this knowledge within an organization, it is important to “clearly communicate the company’s stance to employees.”

...With the basic mission of “making all people happy,” Lush Japan has prioritized LGBTQ individuals’ human rights as a social issue and directly communicated its stance to customers at it retail stores. At its core, the company’s attitude is “as a business, we prioritize ethics over profitability.” 

Lush Japan’s LGBTQ policies include an internal system that recognizes employees’ same-sex partners as spouses regardless of the sex listed on their family registry. The company has also established a progressive system that allows medical leave for employees who are recovering from gender reassignment surgery...