Employment and Diversity Employment and Diversity

Materiality in Employment and Diversity

• Approach to Materiality in Employment
• Approach to Materiality in Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Approach to Materiality in Employment

The heart of corporate activities are the people. Advantest continually employs diverse human resources and considers the provision of a workplace for employees to reach their full potential an important measure even for improving corporate value.

Supervising division	Human Resources Department
KPI	Re-employment rate following maternity and parental leave
FY2018 target	100%
FY2016 result	100%
Boundary (scope)	Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated) in Japan
Relevant policies	Advantest Group Basic Human Resources Philosophy
Relevant commitments	Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children
Responsible department/division	-
Relevant complaint processing policy	Human Rights Protection Committee, Human Resource Grievance Committee
Assessment	✔

Approach to Materiality in Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Advantest recognizes the acceptance of diversity in each and every employee, the elimination of discrimination, the facilitation of each individual to reach their full potential, and the provision of an enthusiastic workplace everyone can participate as vital to earning trust from society and improving corporate value.

Supervising division	Human Resources Department
KPI	Ratio of female employees
FY2018 target	To promote the employment of women and steadily increase the ratio of women in management roles.
FY2016 result	13.5%
Boundary (scope)	Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated)
Relevant policies	Advantest Group Basic Human Resources Philosophy
Relevant commitments	Act on Promotion of Women's Participation in Their Working Lives
Responsible department/division	-
Relevant complaint processing policy	Human Rights Protection Committee
Assessment	△

Human Resources Basic Philosophy

We treat our employees — each one an important asset — with respect and fairness. We also support our employees’ diverse lifestyles and individual development, and we are committed to having them grow along with the Company. To protect these valuable assets and increase their value, we drafted our Human Resources Basic Philosophy in September 2000. This document supports proactive human resource development with consideration for fairness and soundness.

Advantest's Human Resources Basic Philosophy

At Advantest, we consider our employees to be indispensable business assets. We have established the following philosophy that underpins our personnel-related policies, and we are constantly working towards the realization of this philosophy.

1. Focusing on results

   We promote a human resources system that values and emphasizes fair treatment of employees who exhibit a can-do spirit with which they overcome challenges and achieve outstanding results.

2. Taking into consideration the needs of fairness and soundness

   We take constant care to ensure that all of our policies and systems are objective, fair, and sound, so that we can achieve the biggest and best results with our employees as a result.

3. Pro-actively supporting human resources development

   We actively support personnel that strive for self-development through persistent hard work in order to acquire advanced specialist knowledge and a broader education.

Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Diversity Management

Advantest accepts the diversity of its workforce and strives to create a workplace where every employee can achieve their potential and participate to the fullest. As stipulated in the Advantest Code of Conduct, we respect human rights and are determined to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, creed, gender, nationality, religion, or physical disabilities.

Status of Employment

The Advantest Group pledges in its basic policy to respect the human rights of every employee and eliminate all forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, gender, nationality, religion, physical disability, etc. Moreover, we are eliminating discrimination from recruitment and employee compensation practices, and striving to hire, cultivate, and promote personnel who will shine on the global stage.

The changes in the number of Advantest Group employees have been as follows.

Employee gender and female employees’ share of job categories

	Male	Female	Total	Female employees as % of total
Total	3,793	772	4,565	16.9%
Managers	1,061	74	1,135	6.5%
General employees	2,732	698	3,430	20.3%

* Scope of data: Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated)

* As of March 31, 2017

Employee age breakdown

	20～29	30～39	40～49	50～59	60～69
Total	378	918	1,840	1,144	134
Male	268	740	1,554	1,018	116
Female	110	178	286	126	18

* Scope of data: Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated), regular employees only

* As of March 31, 2017

Employee breakdown by employment category

		Male	Female
Total		3,793	772
Regular employees sub-total		3,696	718
Non-regular employees sub-total		97	54
	Contract and temporary staff	83	42
	Agency workers	14	12

* Scope of data: Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated)

* As of March 31, 2017

* Scope of data: Japan and overseas - all employees

* As of March 31, 2017

Number and Percentage of employee breakdown by region

	Japan	Asia	Europe	North America
Total	533	231	179	193
Of which, number and percentage recruited locally and promoted	533 100%	215 93%	176 98%	180 93%

* Scope of data: Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated)

* As of March 31, 2017

* Managerial staff is defined as staff at Grade 7 or higher on the company's 10-grade scale.

New graduates hired

	FY2014	FY2015	FY2016	FY2017
Total	42	22	7	8
Male	34	17	7	8
Female	8	5	0	0

* Scope of data: Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated)

Number of new hires in fiscal year (regular employees)

	FY 2014	FY 2015	FY 2016
Japan	42	24	7
Asia	57	31	44
Europe	27	10	15
North America	28	23	22
Total	154	88	88

* Scope of Data: Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated; regular employees only)

Number of turnover employees

	FY 2014	FY 2015	FY 2016
Japan	113	77	85
Asia	93	68	45
Europe	21	12	8
North America	71	46	23
Total	298	203	161
Turnover rate	6.2%	4.3%	3.5%

* Scope of data: Japan and overseas - all employees (Consolidated)

Recruitment and Use of Global Human Resources

Advantest’s business has become more global in recent years, and we aim to secure personnel who understand other cultures, have high-level communication skills, and can see business through on the global stage. As the business environment becomes more borderless, it is increasingly necessary to use personnel exchanges with overseas affiliates to promote globalism in our human resources development and corporate structure.

We are putting more effort into hiring foreign students both overseas and in Japan in order to secure employees who can fulfill missions on the global stage. We continue to conduct personnel exchanges with overseas affiliates as a way of giving employees business experience in a global environment. Through everyday business and training in both organizations, technology and know-how are shared, allowing each employee to learn more advanced technology plus adaptive skills for a diverse business environment.

The human resources exchanges with overseas affiliates are implemented frequently at each division regardless of the type of job. Under this program, which is specifically designed to promote interaction among personnel in Japan and abroad, employees participate in the exchange either on a short-term or long-term basis.

These activities have enabled us to recruit a large number of foreign students studying in Japan. We now plan to extend the global reach of our recruitment activities going forward, through participation in events aimed at students studying overseas, etc. Although new employee training is generally geared toward new graduates who join the company in April, we are modifying this to allow all new graduates to take part in the training irrespective of when they start work.

As of March 2017, Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated), counted employees from 10 countries in its workforce, and eight of the Company's 22 executive officers were non-Japanese. We will continue to provide equal opportunities to all promising individuals regardless of nationality while underscoring the need to develop global personnel and global organizations through borderless promotion and personnel exchange.

Promotion and Utilization of Female Employees

We believe in always accepting diverse values and that there is a need to continue to promote change in the corporate culture to encourage active participation regardless of gender, age and nationality. However, as of March 2017 only 13.5% of overall employees and 1.8% of management are women and so expanding the employment of women is a key challenge for use. With the coming into effect of the Act Concerning Promotion of Women’s Career Activities, recognizing the importance of ensuring that employees do not work excessively long overtime hours, Advantest is implementing an action plan aimed at: (1) Bringing the number of people who work excessively long overtime hours (defined as working over 80 hours a week) over the course of a year down to zero; (2) Keeping monthly overtime hours within 30 hours.

At Advantest we hire mainly engineering students where there is a high ratio of men to women, and women were not motivated to take the entrance exam through our conventional recruitment activities. Given this situation we focused on demonstrating the benefits of our company to female engineers and strengthening our appeal to women. We make a special effort to use young female employees during laboratory visits and business facility tours, thereby reducing the distance between us and the female applicants, and we emphasize the activities of female employees in our website and hiring brochure. In addition, at employment events, we explain our systems and career plans for women and describe how Advantest’s female employees play an active role in the company.

Despite these efforts, we were not able to recruit a new female employee partly because we had lowered the number of new hiring in fiscal 2017. Advantest will continue to focus our efforts to increase the ratio of female employees in the future.

Active Use of Older Employees

Since April 2006, when the age at which national pensions are awarded was raised, it has been mandatory to take steps toward employing older workers up to the age of 65. Accompanying this change, Advantest has revised its re-employment system for older individuals and is responding flexibly to older persons’ desire for employment. Our re-employment activities entail deciding on the employment packages and job postings most suitable for actively taking advantage of the skills and know-how possessed by older adults.

Employment of People with Disabilities

Advantest Green Corporation (AGC) was established in September 2004 as a special subsidiary of Advantest for the purpose of promoting the employment of people with disabilities. Since then, AGC has been striving to offer job opportunities for, and continuous employment of, people with disabilities under the slogan, "Support employee independence and achieve social growth in partnership with the local community."

We provide AGC employees with a pleasant working environment in operations such as landscaping, cleaning, reception duties, selling bread, deliveries, and the management of dormitories. Advantest also actively takes part in various activities in partnership with local communities and relevant organizations to create workplaces where all employees, regardless of their disability status, can work comfortably.

To expand employment opportunities for the disabled, we are taking steps to make the workplace environment more conducive to their needs by, for example, standardizing work procedures, introducing equipment replenishment systems, and taking other initiatives to streamline tasks. We are also considering moves into new job categories, bringing vocational trainees on board, holding on-site workshops, and otherwise pursuing initiatives that will carry over to new employment.