The DVD you just watched mainly focused on the cartel incident.
However, as you know, compliance involves much more than this―it relates to everything we do as a company.
There are many examples of compliance violations, such as unpaid overtime, various types of harassment, violation of subcontractor law, insider trading, falsification of quality data, and leakage of corporate secrets or personal information.
When compliance violations such as these occur, it is critical that we do not just ask ourselves why this happened, wonder whether similar problems might exist at other sites, or question how to prevent the incident from recurring. What is most important is that we find the true root causes of the problem, and take action to address them.
In my speech before, I discussed the idea that the two pillars of compliance enhancement an open, transparent workplace environment and ceaseless improvement and innovation of work practices.
Did you take the opportunity to discuss how to make your workplace more transparent or improve the way you work?
My impression is that on the task of creating a more transparent, open workplace, there is now a greater awareness of why this is important, and some actual steps are starting to be taken.
But what about ceaseless efforts to improve and innovate our work? Even if our workplaces have become more open and people are sharing their problems and frustrations, if we put off taking action to improve the situation by making excuses, for example “it’s too much work,” “it costs too much,” or “other departments are uncooperative,” the people who made the effort to speak up will feel that “the company won’t listen or change, no matter what I say.” People will feel powerless, and opinions will gradually dry up. This will take us back to a culture with a high risk of compliance violations.
We aim create an open workplace environment to ensure that we continue to maintain the trust of the many stakeholders associated with NSKs’ business, as well as address the many issues currently facing the company.
Next, as was mentioned in the DVD, please remember that compliance includes not only upholding laws and regulations but also the NSK Corporate Philosophy and social expectations.
There are currently more than 30,000 NSK employees around the world. The NSK family includes people who grew up in different environments, with different cultures and customs, all working together. When we are from such diverse backgrounds, working as a team is not always easy. This is why I believe the NSK Corporate Philosophy is so important, as it unifies us as a company and gives us a guideline to base our actions on. Please take this opportunity to review the meaning of the NSK Corporate Philosophy once more, and think about how it can guide your actions in your day-to-day work.
Finally, I’d like to talk about improper behavior related to quality.
Falsification of quality data by a certain well-known Japanese automaker has recently been widely reported in the media.
Although the company in question had been involved in a major scandal in the past, it failed to change its corporate culture, and now its very existence is threatened.
So what about NSK? In the Compliance Awareness Survey held in August last year, we received many opinions in relation to quality.
We subsequently investigated the facts, studied the background, and worked to find the root causes.
Although our investigations did not find any evidence of deliberate falsification, fabrication, or organizational cover-up of quality data, we discovered that in some cases testing methods were vague, careless measurement mistakes were made, or that criteria for quality assessment were insufficient.
I can only conclude that this is unfortunately due to a lack of compliance awareness. It is evident that our operating style places excessive priority on meeting delivery deadlines and production plans at the expense of quality, and that there is lack of awareness of quality ethics.
The first step we need to take is to change this mindset by ensuring that all NSK members have a thorough understanding of our “quality first” philosophy.
Our work is delivered to customers in the form of NSK products, and eventually benefits society when the customer’s products are sold around the world. This is why I believe it is so important for each of us to have pride in our work and the role it plays in society.
I am sure you can see that if you work sincerely with this mindset, turning a blind eye to products that are slightly out of range of the specifications, or only reporting the data that suit your story will represent a betrayal of our customers and ultimately the wider society.
Without this awareness in your day-to-day work, you may be tempted to be slightly less strict on quality when faced with pressure to meet delivery deadlines or sales targets.
In these types of situation, an open, transpare