Efforts to Promote Diversity

Employment and Utilization of Global Human Resources

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, and in response to the increasingly borderless business environment, Advantest has also been committed to building systems and hiring, nurturing, and assigning personnel through a global perspective to promote the globalization of human resources development and organizations through personnel exchange among group companies.
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.

As of July 2022, 11 out of 24 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.

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 2022, the percentage of female employees to total employees is 20.8% (20.2% in the previous fiscal year), and the percentage of female managers to total managers is 9.6% (8.3% in the previous fiscal year). For Advantest Corporation (non-consolidated), the percentage of female employees is 16.5% (16.3% in the previous fiscal year), and the percentage of female managers is 3.4% (2.8% in the previous fiscal year). Although improvements can be seen in both cases from 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 FY2021, of the 74 individuals who started with our re-employment program, two employees are working shorter hours and eight 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.

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 June 2021, Advantest’s employment rate of the disabled is 2.83%, 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 Satisfaction

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 satisfaction," 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.