Maximizing all of our employees' capabilities and putting them into action is essential to realizing a sustainable society. At Dentsu, where we consider people to be our greatest asset, we believe that the development of an environment where employees can maintain high morale and motivation and can take on their work enthusiastically is an extremely important agenda. To this end, Dentsu implements detailed measures from the perspective of developing capabilities, work/life balance, and a structure for managing health and safety.

Promotion of Work/Life Balance

The Company believes that a fulfilling personal life improves the quality of one's working life and that satisfying work increases one's level of self-fulfillment in life. The object of Dentsu's work/life balance (WLB) program therefore is to generate synergy between the two. The most important factor in creating a work friendly environment is health management, particularly in relation to the issue of long working hours. Dentsu has established a special in-house Human Relations Management Department, which is developing and implementing programs to reduce overtime working hours and to make it easier for employees to take holidays.

In addition, the Company has set up Consultation desk that employees can access any time, which specializes in responding to employee concerns and ensures that their feedback is reflected in its internal systems.

In spaces facilitating one-on-one consultations with outside career counselors regarding future careers, and at approximately 60 directly owned dentsu Japan subsidiaries, we have established Group-wide committees to promote the active participation of women in the workplace. This has been done through collaborative efforts, to share best practices and other activities, made by each company from a wide range of industries throughout the Group. We also provide opportunities to think about careers at an early stage, hear about a variety of experiences, and attend career seminars held by lecturers invited from outside the Company.

Employee Health Care Systems

Dentsu strives to provide employees with advanced healthcare management, from preventive measures to return-to-work support, so that staff members can enjoy good mental and physical health. Dentsu also conducts periodic health screenings of all employees and actively urges those who haven’t participated in health screenings. In addition to the regular health screenings, the Company also provides for employees who are over 30 years of age examinations for lifestyle-related diseases, including cancer testing. Moreover, helical CT scans are provided for employees 45 years of age and older.

In recent years, the Company has been enhancing measures for mental health, which is an essential health management agenda, and it has held mandatory training on that subject for managers since fiscal 2009. In cooperation with industry-specialized physicians, public health nurses and other medical staff members, Dentsu also provides support for employees returning to work following long periods of convalescence. The return-to-work support system is designed to ensure that excessive pressure is not placed on returning employees and that their illness will not recur.

At the Tokyo Head Office Building, we have set up a Dentsu Healthcare Management Center, available for use by employees. Besides internal medicine, the center provides scheduled orthopedic, ophthalmological, and ENT services, as well as psychiatric counseling.

Employees Encouraged to Take Vacation Entitlements

It is crucial that employees are able to refresh themselves through vacation. Doing so helps fuel their ability to approach each new task with vigor, apply their strengths to achieve outstanding results, and generate new ideas.

Dentsu provides various vacation and leave systems for employees, who are encouraged to take their full vacation entitlements. In addition to regular annual paid vacation, the Company each year grants employees two consecutive days off that can be used to take vacations of five or more days by combining them with Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays, annual paid vacation, and compensatory days off. In April 2010, Dentsu introduced a system to take annual paid vacation in hour increments, enabling a flexible way of working. The Company has also created a system whereby "culture leave" is granted separately to employees who are invited to compete in skiing, American football, and other sports events at national or international levels.

Each employee is aware of working hour quality and makes an effort to establish their own plans for work and rest, and optimize their schedules. In addition, as a measure to encourage people to take paid vacations, we established a day for encouraging paid vacations, designed to create an environment that makes it easier for employees to rest.

Holiday System Summary

Type of Vacation Number of Days
Paid Annual paid vacation days Three or more years of service: 20 days
More than one but less than three years of service: 15 days
Less than one year of service: 11 days
Special consecutive vacation days 2 days each fiscal year
Accumulated vacation days Up to 120 days can be accumulated of unused annual paid vacation days that cannot be carried over. They can be taken under the following circumstances.
  1. Non-work related accidents and sick leave (when taken for 7 or more consecutive days)
  2. Family nursing care leave - After family nursing care leave is taken (up to 15 days per year)
  3. Community service leave (up to 5 days per year)
  4. Infertility leave—For employees who receive infertility treatment. Number of days: No fixed number within the range of accumulated leave (half-day paid leave is also available).
Marriage leave Seven consecutive days within two years from day marriage was registered or partnership began.
Note: Only one separation is allowed.
Maternity leave Within 6 weeks before due date, and 8 weeks after birth
Childbirth leave In principle, five days from the day before the due date.
Note: Up to five days in total can be used within two months of childbirth.
Mourning leave
  1. Death of spouse, parent or child: 7 days
  2. Death of sibling or spouse's parent: 5 days
  3. Death of grandparent or grandchild: 3 days
Culture leave Number of days approved
Disaster leave Number of days approved
Relocation leave
  1. Appointment to job at different location: up to 7 days
  2. To bring family after transfer: number of days for round trip + 2 days
Long-service leave 10 days within 2 years after receipt of 20-year service award
Menstrual leave Necessary number of days (but with a maximum of 2 days paid holidays)
Family nursing care leave 5 days
Jury-duty leave Necessary number of days
Unpaid Union leave Number of days specified by labor-management agreement
Preschool child nursing care leave 10 days
Family care leave 10 days
Maternal care leave Necessary number of days

A Workplace Environment that Fully Utilizes Employee Talent

For Dentsu—a company whose sales-point is its ideas in the field of communication—human resources are recognized as the Group's greatest asset. Hence, Dentsu is introducing a personnel system to enable the creation of a workplace environment in which the diverse potential of its employees can flourish.

Respecting Diversity

As the communications domain expands, Dentsu is striving to create a work environment with a wide range of capable people, regardless of nationality, educational background, gender, and age.

At approximately 60 directly owned dentsu Japan subsidiaries, we have set up Group-wide councils to promote women’s advancement, coordinate efforts at each Group company, and share best practices and other information from the wide range of industries represented by the Group.

As part of its efforts to promote the employment of people with disabilities, the Company established Dentsu Solari, a wholly owned Group company in April 2013, which was designated as a special-purpose subsidiary in November. Our promotion of a diverse work environment is ongoing. Dentsu Inc. promotes awareness of LGBTQ+ issues and regularly revamps its internal systems accordingly. In 2023, the Company received a Gold rating in the Pride Index, set up by the organization Work with Pride to assess initiatives that address LGBTQ+ issues in the workplace. Dentsu also had received Gold ratings in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022.

Pride Index gold award

Work/Life Balance Support System

Dentsu has established childcare leave, modified working hours for employees raising young children, and other systems in compliance with the revised Childcare and Nursing Care Act (the Act on the Welfare of Workers Who Take Care of Children or Other Family Members, Including Child Care and Family Care Leave). It has also established a consultation office to support work/life balance.

Post-retirement Reemployment

Employees who have reached mandatory retirement age but wish to continue working and meet the recruitment standards may be reemployed as 'senior employees,' until they are 65 years old. They can use their experience in a supportive role as well as to help train younger staff members.

Support for Human Resource Growth through Data

Dentsu Inc., which is committed to helping client companies and wider society grow sustainably in advertising and other domains, is ready to adapt. It will continue contributing to social development and supporting the growth of the Company and its corporate clients, while maximizing the value of its employees.

In a bid to fully understand the wellbeing of its employees and organizations, the Company has been collecting and analyzing a wide range of human resources-related data. To this end, Dentsu has been focusing on employee working conditions, attributes, values, engagement, work experience, and skills.

Based on what it has found, the Company has been identifying issues that employees face, and has been devising, implementing, and verifying action plans aimed at attaining solutions. The data also is being applied to map the Company’s human capital.

In recognition of these efforts, Dentsu was awarded a top prize in the Learning category of the 2022 HR Technology Awards. Presented for the seventh time by the HR Research Institute, these awards recognize outstanding efforts in Japan to apply technology and big data analytics to human resources management. Dentsu also received the Grand Prix prize in the People Analytics category of the Digital HR Competition 2022, which was sponsored by the People Analytics & HR Technology Association.

Company-wide Measures

Dentsu is developing the INPUT! 365 initiative, supporting learning and growth among all employees with the aim of enabling the diverse range of employees to maintain the motivation to grow on their own and be proactive in everyday activities based on this motivation.

To gain insight from the latest trends in digital technologies, globalization, and leadership, in order to transform the company, clients, and society, we are designing and implementing programs supporting the employees’acquisition of the necessary knowledge, skills, mindset, and career autonomy. We aim to make independent learning a habit among our staff, to support the accelerated expansion of individual learning and activities (growth cycle).

Further, we will enhance our management perspective and skills to support the growth of employees in the interests of being an organization that can succeed as a team. We also identify short-, medium-, and long-term issues, implementing programs supporting management’s ability to create teams and lead members to fulfill their potential.

In addition, with startup programs for new employees and annual programs for younger employees, we are focusing our efforts on laying the foundations for careers at Dentsu through training, as well as onsite collaboration, inculcating action guidelines, mindset, and basic skills that must be acquired by employees.

Selective Training Measures

To create new business, profits, and value, as well as contribute to the sustainable growth of the Company, Dentsu is focusing its efforts on developing human resources able to drive business while collaborating with other Group companies to become next-generation leaders.

To develop Dentsu's core competence—which, in a broad sense, is creativity—in an integrated, systematic, comprehensive, and practical manner, the New School director development program was launched in 2011. In an environment that is changing rapidly and in which uncertainty is on the rise, we are designing and implementing a Business Strength Enhancement Program to train human resources who will lead Dentsu’s transformation. The people will learn to think for themselves, involve others, and act autonomously.

Confirming Employee Safety in Emergencies

From the standpoint of our obligation to ensure safety, and based on our business continuity plan, Dentsu Inc. has a rapidly deployable system in place for emergency situations. Groupwide, the system allows contact with employees to be established, employee survival to be confirmed, and injuries to be ascertained.

Emergency situations that affect Dentsu Group locations worldwide include earthquakes, storm damage, fires, air and rail accidents, outbreaks of infectious disease, and terrorist incidents.

Internal emergency contact networks and a special system are used in each workplace to ascertain the safety of its members. The system sends safety confirmation messages to employees—via their previously registered email addresses and telephone numbers—and compiles data based on their responses.

Confirmed results are immediately reported to management through the department in charge, response desks are established for the continuation of operations, and appropriate activities are commenced with respect to the emergency situation at hand.

Related Links

Personnel data