In the entire Seven & i Group, more than 160,000 people work. Workplaces include part-time employees, foreign nationals, and employees working short hours due to childcare and family care responsibilities. With this diverse workforce, we recognize that we have a duty as a corporation to support diverse working formats. We support the careers of our diverse employees and strive to create appealing workplaces that make work worthwhile. This enables us to steadily acquire diverse human resources, and also drives us to incorporate completely new ways of thinking and generate new value. It is therefore a source of competitiveness.

With the productive-aged population in decline, it is essential to promote active participation by women. However, many women are denied the opportunity to work, for example, because it is not possible to balance work with childcare, or because they have been unable to return to work after childcare. Furthermore, in Japan, the ratio of women in management - at 12.4%* (2020) for those in positions equivalent to section manager and above - is relatively low by international standards. Creating workplaces where women with high capabilities can play active roles is, therefore, an important task.

Most workers spend much of their day working at their companies. However, it is said that the motivation to contribute to the company is lower in Japan than in the rest of the world, and the challenge is how to make workers feel more motivated.

It is believed that there is a positive correlation between the Work Engagement Score, in which people feel pride and satisfaction in their work and are lively and enthusiastic about it, and customer satisfaction. Improving work engagement and environment for people working in Group businesses will lead to higher satisfaction not only for the Group itself, but also for its customers.

By addressing this material issue, the Seven & i Group will contribute to achieving goals 5, 8, and 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by improving work engagement and environment for people in the Group's businesses regardless of gender or age.