Efforts to Promote Diversity

Employment and Utilization of Global Human Resources

Advantest has consistently strived for success and growth by attempting to leverage our talented human capital on a global basis. One of the most notable examples of this is the integration of Verigy, acquired in 2011. This integration resulted in a major change in our workforce composition, with nearly half of our employees located overseas at that time. Today, this trend is even stronger, with approximately 60% of our workforce now located in our overseas bases. In the recent years, in order to further expand its business globally, Advantest has been recruiting personnel who have deep cross-cultural understanding and communication skills and can work in a global arena.

For instance, Advantest will continue personnel exchange among group companies so that employees can experience working in a global environment, and share their skills and know-how through routine work and training in each organization so that individual employees can acquire more advanced skills, including skills to adapt to various business environments.

In order to make personnel exchange easier, Advantest has been globally implementing the "Global Transfer Policy," a system that offers fair treatment and enables personnel exchange on a global level, regardless of job type.

In addition, as competition for human resources intensifies on a global scale, we are striving to retain excellent human resources by expanding the scope of stock compensation and grant.

As of July 2023, 13 out of 25 executive officers, who are management personnel, have foreign nationalities, and employees from 10 countries are currently working for Advantest Corporation. Advantest will give fair opportunities to talented personnel, regardless of their nationality, and promote global personnel development and organizational globalization through borderless personnel recruitment and exchange.

Support for Diverse Workstyles Through a Second Job System

Advantest acknowledges diverse workstyles for the sake of our employees' diverse lifestyles and individual growth. As part of this effort, in November 2022, we established rules for second jobs for all employees with the aim of improving employee skills and acquiring and retaining a wide variety of talents.

Advantest has a diverse group of employees with special skills. We believe that second jobs not only provide employees with opportunities to improve and develop their skills, but also help to create innovation within the company by giving the company a grip on these talented skills.

On the other hand, second jobs naturally come with risks. For this reason, along with requiring employees to obtain approval to engage in second jobs, the company also requires that both the employee and his/her supervisor read the manual thoroughly and take an e-learning course to guarantee that they fully understand the precautions before starting a second job.

While due consideration is to be paid to the risks involved, second jobs are attractive not only to employees but also to the company itself as a way to develop and improve employees' skills and produce innovation within the company. We will endeavor to make the system meaningful while developing rules in response to the changes over time.

Promotion and Utilization of Female Employees

Advantest always accepts diverse values and is promoting the creation of a corporate culture where everyone can work regardless of race, gender, age, and nationality.

As of March 2023, the percentage of female employees to total employees is 21.2% (20.8% in the previous fiscal year), and the percentage of female managers to total managers is 9.0% (9.6% in the previous fiscal year). For Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated), the percentage of female employees is 16.1% (16.5% in the previous fiscal year), and the percentage of female managers is 3.6% (3.4% in the previous fiscal year). Although many indices show improvement over the previous fiscal year, increasing the number of female employees and managers still remains an urgent task.

Advantest has been recruiting students with a technical background, which has not motivated female students to take entrance exams for Advantest in recruitment activities. In light of these circumstances, Advantest has been strengthening public relations activities for women with a focus on conveying the attraction of Advantest to female students, particularly those with a technical background. Information on active female employees in the workforce has been disseminated through corporate websites and recruitment brochures, and at recruitment events, Advantest has explained about programs and career plans for women and introduced how our female employees are working at Advantest.

In fiscal 2021, Advantest participated in a roundtable discussion titled "Listening to Young Employees in the Semiconductor Industry”, a joint project between SEMICON JAPAN and the manufacturing YouTuber “Monozukuri Taro” and asked one of our female technical employees to share her experiences working at Advantest. This video of a female employee freely offering her opinions on the content of her work creates an opportunity, especially for young people, especially women, to take an interest in the semiconductor device materials industry, including Advantest.

Active Utilization of Senior Employees (Japan)

Following the amendments to the Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons in April 2013 and the increase in the minimum age for pension eligibility by the government, Advantest has revised its re-employment program for utilizing employees who retire at the age of 60. Advantest is actively utilizing the skills and know-how of experienced employees by employing senior personnel steadily and treating and assigning them to jobs with consideration towards their past experience and assigned positions during their working years. In addition, Advantest has established a system to reflect each individual's achievements in their wages to motivate senior personnel and expect them to produce results that match their wages. Furthermore, in FY2018, Advantest introduced a system where employees are allowed to reduce their working hours or days as desired and have a second job on non-working days.

In FY2022, of the 44 individuals who started with our re-employment program, one employee is working shorter hours and five are working shorter days. Advantest believes that this system will allow senior personnel to work more flexibly according to their lifestyles, contributing to further enhancing work-life balance.

Example

At Advantest, a senior employee with many years of experience in the Production Unit has begun holding a training course for employees at the Gunma Factory titled "What is a Tester?" since June 2022. When asked of his motives for developing this course, he mentioned that products are increasingly difficult to understand as they have evolved in complexity, and the psychological burden on employees has been swelling due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic as well as by the challenges faced in parts procurement with production volume increasing rapidly. The senior employee planned the event hoping that by learning about testers, it would teach people the relationship between their own work and products, as well as between products and society as a whole, and ultimately, everyone could find their work rewarding.

The training course is held in small groups, and the style of explanation is based on the level of understanding of the participants, making it an interactive learning experience for both the participants and the organizers. 47 sessions were held by April 2023, with 237 participants, more than half of the Production Unit employees.

With each session, the program has evolved to make it easier for employees to understand the relationship between their work and the products and how products are beneficial in society. We, too, feel that this has led to improved employee engagement.

From FY2023, employees who have shared their understanding of this activity through the internal newsletter have begun developing their own "What is a Tester?" courses for each of their tasks in and out of Japan.

Employment of the Disabled

In order to promote the employment of the disabled, Advantest established a special subsidiary company, Advantest Green Corporation, in September 2004. Since its establishment, this company has been working to promote stable employment of the disabled under the slogan of "Independence of individuals and growth of society."

Its core business includes landscaping, cleaning, front gate reception work, delivery, baking and sale of bread, and recycling promotion. Advantest Green is providing workplaces where its employees can work comfortably, and is also actively collaborating with local communities and relevant organizations to develop workplaces where disabled and non-disabled people can work together.

Currently, 13 highly motivated disabled employees are working at overseas affiliated companies.

As of March 2023, Advantest’s employment rate of the disabled is 2.91%, which exceeds the mandatory employment rate. However, Advantest will continue to actively promote the employment of the disabled to address future amendments to the mandatory employment rate.

Efforts to Explore New Occupational Fields

Advantest promotes initiatives such as standardization of work procedures and work visualization to create a work environment in which employees with disabilities will be able to work to their full potential, and also refer our workplace as one in which people with various disabilities can actively participate to outlets such as special-needs schools. We also actively accept training and visitation requests for employment as well as consider new job categories and more.

Advantest introduced a paper-making machine, which produces new paper from used paper such as rejected documents, in order to launch a business that manufactures and provides items such as copy paper, business cards, and calendars made from recycled paper. We continue to support initiatives that promote employment and contribute to environmental improvement.

For more information on recycling using paper machines, please refer to "Recycling Resources" on the Environment page.

Efforts to Enhance Job Fulfillment

We also foster a culture of mutual respect and recognition by actively implementing initiatives through a goal or commendation system to enhance their motivation, such as "meaningfulness" and "job fulfillment," and established a "Monthly MVP" award system that involves evaluation and praise by others.

Additionally, Advantest assigns qualified staff including job coaches, counselors for the disabled, and career consultants at each workplace, along with conducting regular four-way meetings with support organizations, the company, and family members for early detection and information sharing on issues, in order to offer workplace support catered to the characteristics of employee disabilities.

In FY2021, these initiatives and the many efforts made by our employees over the years were recognized by Saitama Prefecture, and two Advantest Green employees received the President's Award from the Saitama Prefecture Employment Development Association as excellent workers with disabilities.