1. Sustainability Report
   • Introduction
   • Reaching for Sustainability
   • TEPCO's Corporate Governance
   • The TEPCO Group's Environmental Initiatives
   • The TEPCO Group and the Community
     • Interaction with Customers
     • Environmental Communication
     • Interaction with Local Communities
     • Communication with Shareholders and Investors
     • Interaction with the International Community
     • Interaction with Business Partners
     • Interaction with Employees
   • TEPCO and Nuclear Power Generation

Creating a fair and secure working environment

TEPCO respects the personality and individuality of each and every employee, and is committed to creating a fair and secure working environment.

Labor-management relations

Based on our labor agreement, TEPCO has adopted a union shop system, in which all employees who do not hold a management position become members of TEPCO's labor union. We maintain good labor-management relations through the Labor-Management Committee, which meets regularly to discuss working hours and changes in working styles, and the Safety Council, which also meets regularly to ensure employee safety.

Human rights

TEPCO has established Human Rights Education Committees and Human Rights Education Promoters for promoting human rights awareness. In fiscal 2009, a total of 35,170 employees received human rights training provided by the committee. We have also organized the Human Rights Association of Power Suppliers, as a Group-wide effort to promote human rights awareness. The association shares human rights information among Group companies, and provides lectures and support for human rights education, as necessary.

• Anti-harassment measures

To create a bright and comfortable workplace, we promote awareness of sexual and power harassment, and have also established consultation offices inside and outside the company to prevent harassment by and among TEPCO employees, temporary workers, and everyone related to TEPCO's businesses, and to resolve any problems should they occur.

Health management

To help employees maintain and improve their health, TEPCO provides regular health checkups as required by law. We also engage our employees in healthcare guidance under industrial physicians and provide personal counseling to those who work prolonged hours. Employees who have mental or physical concerns may receive counseling by telephone or e-mail or through face-to-face counseling sessions with the cooperation of external specialist institutions. In FY2009, we focused on improving mental health with particular emphasis on disease prevention and health improvement. In addition to conventional seminars, we included a lecture on mental health issues and implemented a workplace stress diagnosis test. We also created a website on the services provided by external specialist institutions, to create an environment that encourages employees to take advantage of those services whenever necessary.
We also took measures against the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus and otherwise directed our efforts to protecting the health and safety of our employees.

Embracing human resource diversity

TEPCO practices fair and equal employment, with respect to human resource diversity.

Employment of people with disabilities

TEPCO actively promotes the employment of individuals with disabilities. To create new employment opportunities and to further support their social participation and independence, we established a company called TEPCO Humming Work Co., Ltd. in July 2008. The company mainly undertakes printing/copying, cleaning, and gardening (growing flowers and planting flowerbeds) work. Since its establishment, it has not only employed 50 individuals with disabilities, but it has also made wide-ranging efforts to promote the employment of such people, such as by receiving vocational interns from special education schools and assistance organizations, inviting some 1,500 visitors per year to the company, and giving lectures at various speaking engagements.
People with disabilities make up 2.1% (610 employees, as of June 1, 2010) of the entire workforce of the TEPCO Group, including TEPCO and our 13 affiliated companies. This percentage already surpasses the 1.8% statutory requirement, but we will continue to actively include people with disabilities in our employ.

TEPCO Humming Work Co., Ltd. : www.t-humming.co.jp (Japanese only)

Employment of older persons

In response to the revision of the Law for the Stabilization of Employment of the Aged (June 2004), we reviewed our existing employment system and introduced a new system that lets older workers work until they are 65 years old.
Under this system, employees ages 55 to 57 may choose to either work until the age of 65 through a re-employment or transfer scheme, or to work until the mandatory retirement age of 60, as suits their work-life plan.

Empowerment of female employees

To support the empowerment of female employees who make up approximately 12% of TEPCO's entire workforce, the Diversity Development Office plays a central role in establishing measures and conditions that promote the participation of female employees. Workshops for the development of female managers and leaders have also been held on a continuous basis since February 2004, and have been attended by about 300 female employees so far.
As a result of these initiatives, 9 women were promoted to managerial positions in FY2009, thus raising the total number of female managers to 63. Furthermore, cross-industrial exchange seminars are also held jointly with other interested companies, as awareness-raising opportunities for middle-level and young employees.

Promoting good work / life balance

TEPCO believes that achieving a good work/life balance leads to greater productivity among employees and improved performance by the company as a whole. In fiscal 2007, we introduced a special flextime system, to create a comfortable workplace for expecting female employees and employees who must care for children or other family members. Through these efforts, we have achieved our target of 80% on the Work/Life Balance Index*.

* Work/Life Balance Index
An index created by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, for companies to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of their measures and policies in support of good work/life balance

Working hour regulation

We regulate working hours and promote well-balanced working styles from the three perspectives of "compliance (optimization of management)," "business reform (review of operational efficiency and working styles)," and "reform of employee awareness and workplace culture." We encourage our employees to principally work no later than 8 p.m., enforce a day of no overtime work, and make working hours "visible," so that each and every one of our employees may achieve a good work/life balance.

Support for employees' volunteer activities

TEPCO's volunteer leave program allows employees to take up to five days per year, in principle, to participate in social service activities at their own initiative. 1,156 employees used the program in fiscal 2009. Since April 2002, we have continued to implement wide-ranging activities to encourage employees to use the program. For example, we established the TEPCO Volunteer Center, provided information on volunteer activities via Intranet.

Maternity and child-raising support

Pursuing business activities with top priority on safety

As TEPCO's power facilities are distributed over an extremely wide area, the understanding of local communities and the wider society is essential to pursuing business activities. Based on this awareness, we give top priority to safety and promote company-wide safety activities, to prevent accidents.

Promotion and implementation of safety activities

To prevent accidents, our Head Office and other offices formulate and implement an annual Safety Activity Plan, based on risk assessments and other investigations. They also check and evaluate the status of safety activities and review them as necessary, to ensure the smooth flow of the PDCA safety management cycle and consistently improve safety.
Safety and Quality Officers in each office encourage employees to individually look for potential risks and issues hidden in their business activities, and to discuss them within each workplace, to eliminate all causes of accidents.
The Head Office supports the efforts of other offices, such as by upgrading company-wide safety rules, providing safety education, examining causes and countermeasures for major accidents, and verifying and assessing the status of safety management. Committees at Head Office and other offices also regularly evaluate and debate concerns such as how to go about safety activities and what points to emphasize.

Safety initiatives of the TEPCO Group

TEPCO performs a variety of onsite work in partnership with Group companies that undertake facility inspection as well as with cooperating companies in the power distribution and communications fields (36 companies). To maintain strong cooperation with these partners, we mutually exchange information on safety activity systems and implementation status, and share information on potential causes of accidents.
In FY2009, the number of accidents involving second-degree minor injuries or worse, which was one of our priority reduction targets, remained unchanged since the previous year, but the number of fatal accidents fell from six cases in the previous year to a single case. We will continue to strengthen risk assessments and other disaster prevention activities, and to further improve the safety management activities of the entire Group.

Active support of employee performance and capacity development

TEPCO supports employee capacity development and employs an appropriate evaluation system to promote employees' individual initiatives and creativity.

Skill and performance evaluation

We ensure proper evaluation of each employee's skills and performance by conducting multilateral evaluations by more than one senior employee, disclosing details and evaluation criteria of the evaluation system on the Intranet, and notifying employees of their evaluation in an interview with their superior, from the perspective of increasing objectivity, transparency, and acceptance of evaluations. The implementation status and content of the interviews are monitored.

Support systems that exploit employees' full abilities

TEPCO's Internal Recruiting System provides aspiring employees an opportunity to challenge themselves and realize their full potential. For employees who possess high professional knowledge, the Professional/Specialist System evaluates and accredits their technical expertise.

Training systems

TEPCO supports the capacity development of its employees in many ways. Although on-the-job training and employees' self-development efforts are the two main pillars of employee training, all TEPCO departments, offices, and the General Training Center offer diverse training programs designed to help employees acquire the latest in specialized knowledge and skills in a short period of time, and to promote friendly competition for mutual growth.
The General Training Center, in particular, provides a wide range of training programs designed for different employee levels, from new employees to upper management, in line with the third principle of TEPCO's Management Vision 2010, to "Foster People and Technologies." The programs enhance the skills of each individual based on the concept that three types of human resources are necessary for supporting front-line workplaces, where employees must make consistent and independent efforts to improve work quality and efficiency. They include front-line workers with advanced technologies and skills and the ability to discover and solve issues; managers who possess outstanding management skills; and innovative leaders who can promptly respond to environmental changes and initiate management reforms.
The PDCA cycle ensures the effectiveness and efficiency of training programs, and proper workplace support is provided to promote the effective application of skills and knowledge acquired through training to actual workplace practices.

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