Global Site

Displaying present location in the site.

Inclusion and Diversity

Governance
Strategy
Risk Management
Metrics and Targets

Governance

Framework for Inclusion and Diversity

NEC’s Inclusion and Diversity Group, a dedicated organization for promoting inclusion and diversity, works with related departments within NEC to promote various measures, such as providing support for and promoting the understanding of women’s career advancement and active participation, and the employment of people with disabilities and sexual minorities (LGBTQ). In addition, this group is engaged in measures related to smooth onboarding of non-Japanese employees working in Japan and mid-career hires. In this way, the Company is fostering an in-house culture that helps these diverse internal human resources make full use of their individuality and uniqueness, and to work and participate at their full potential.

We believe that fostering an inclusive culture is essential for creating an environment in which diverse talent can come together and continually generate sustainable innovation through “new combinations of knowledge.” This is why we put “inclusion” before “diversity.”

In April 2025, we established our I&D Policy, which is guided by the mission: “The NEC Group will continue creating social value by leveraging the power of diverse talent and technology based on its policy of equity and fairness.”

Female corporate officers have participated as speakers in career development programs for women, and officers other than those in charge of HR have been appointed as executive sponsors for promoting I&D, advancing these efforts with support from top management.

NEC appoints a lot of local talent to important positions including the presidents of local subsidiaries.
The top performing local hires are appointed as corporate SVPs, to create a structure that reflects local voices.

Strategy

NEC believes that creating a culture where diverse talent can thrive and where a broad range of perspectives and ideas are respected is essential and strategic for driving innovation. To that end, the Company is advancing initiatives such as global talent utilization, expanding mid-career hiring, promoting women’s advancement, encouraging the employment of people with disabilities, and fostering understanding and support for sexual minorities. Furthermore, the NEC Group established its I&D Policy in fiscal year 2026 to ensure workforce diversity.

The NEC Group’s I&D Policy states: “The NEC Group will continue creating social value by leveraging the power of diverse talent and technology based on its policy of equity and fairness.” We have defined five pillars to realize this policy.

  1. An equitable environment empowering everyone
  2. Fair systems and rules
  3. Organizations where individuality flourishes
  4. Responsible execution and communication
  5. Creation of social values by tackling social issues

Risk Management

As a global company, NEC believes it is preferable to have more female employees participating in management decision-making and in leadership positions. Accordingly, the Company has set three goals—ensure diversity in leadership, recruit and employ people with disabilities, and ensure psychological safety—and is conducting various initiatives to achieve these goals. (Refer to “Medium- to Long-term Goals, Priority Activities and Progress, Achievements, and Issues”)

On the following website, the Company publishes its results in connection with indicators relevant to its initiatives for women’s active participation in the workplace.

We regularly compile results on women-related indicators and monitor gaps between actual performance and our targets. We are taking the following measures to close these gaps.

  • Conducting unconscious bias training for the predominantly male director and senior director levels to ensure fair, unbiased evaluations

See below for indicators on inclusion and diversity, such as the promotion of women’s active participation in the workplace and the employment of people with disabilities.

Promoting Women’s Active Participation in the Workplace

Initiatives to Enhance External Presence

Joining the 30% Club Japan

NEC joined the 30% Club Japan in 2020 with the goal of improving the gender balance among its corporate officers.As a member of the TOPIX President's Council, NEC will tackle a range of measures to improve the gender balance among its corporate officers.
Since fiscal year 2025, NEC has served as the TOPIX President's Council representative on the partnership platform with the university working group.

Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)

As stated in a report by the UN Human Rights Council, women’s roles in Japan have traditionally been stereotyped, and the impact of this is visible in the promotion of women to management positions in Japanese companies. In view of this situation, NEC has recognized that ensuring diversity, including gender equality, and creating an environment in which diverse human resources can play an active role are important management issues, and became a signatory to the WEPs in 2023.

Education, Awareness, and Promotion Activities in and Outside the Company

Talent Management Program for Female Employees

NEC has developed and implemented a systematic, position-based development program for its personnel, with the aims of encouraging their further contribution as leaders who epitomize its Code of Values and producing corporate officers in-house.

  • Ensuring that promising female employees are selected for participation in personnel development programs at every level
  • Holding leadership development programs and forums for employees at the assistant manager level
  • Holding roundtable discussions with officers and the CHRO regarding promising personnel
  • Holding career interviews with HR based on Individual Development Plans (IDPs), assigning challenging assignments suited to the individual across group companies. Three female talents have been appointed as group company executives.

Events. Training, and Promotion Activities Inside and Outside NEC

Talent Management Program for Female Employees to Secure and Develop High-potential Talent

NEC compiled a list of management candidates by name and conducted training sessions for both supervisors and the candidates themselves. For the candidates, all female executives took the stage, delivering powerful messages.

Unconscious Bias Training

NEC provides unconscious bias training by external experts for all directors and senior directors (approximately 800 people in fiscal 2023 and 1,200 people in fiscal 2024). The Company also provides information about unconscious bias in training for new managers and all people managers and in mandatory online training for all employees.

Career Development for Female Employees

In fiscal 2025, a total of 95 female employees (including 28 NEC employees) from various professions voluntarily participated in a networking event organized by NEC and four other companies. The event was conducted in person.

Activities to Promote Diversity Led by Female Employees

  • Continued to hold dialogue events and study sessions for female employees through Scarlet Elegance in NEC (SELENE), an association of volunteer women in management positions at NEC.
  • W-Canvas was established in 2021 as a Women's Employee Resource Group. With the vision of “enhancing the Quality of Life and Career for everyone working at NEC,” it shares various useful information for employees and hosts events.

Involvement of Senior Management

President Morita, Corporate SVP Shigesawa (Chief Diversity Officer), and Corporate SVP Aoyama spoke at the International Conference for Women in Business held in July 2024, and 40 employees of NEC Corporation and group companies participated.

Initiatives to Reduce Gender Disparities

Efforts to Promote the Use of Childcare Leave among Male Employees

  • In October 2024, we transitioned to a new system called the “NEC Baby Smile Package” to provide support across all phases from pregnancy through return from childcare leave, regardless of gender.
  • To address the societal challenge of “enhancing childcare support,” to realize a society where men taking paternity leave is the norm and to foster a corporate culture that treats this as standard practice we have set the goal of achieving a 100% male paternity leave uptake rate by fiscal year 2025 as part of our management strategy.
  • In November 2024, we conducted “Work-Life Balance” outreach training session hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
  • Working to encourage male employees to take advantage of childcare leave by conducting interviews with both employees who have taken leave and their supervisors and then sharing their experiences within the Company
  • Published childcare leave guidelines for male employees in October 2022, and for supervisors and female employees in March 2023

Initiatives to Reduce the Wage Disparity between Men and Women

  • In order to increase the proportion of women in senior positions (management and above, decision-making levels), the Company has made improved female hiring and promotion a KPI for executives and other leaders.
  • In April 2024, the Company introduced a job-based compensation system that determines compensation based on position, eliminating the influence of personal attributes such as gender and years of service.

Details about measures to promote the active participation of women in the workplace are presented in the following sections.

Promoting Employment of People with Disabilities

NEC currently employs 477 people with disabilities, which is the total for NEC Corporation, NEC Friendly Staff, Ltd., and NEC Business Intelligence, Ltd., as of June 1, 2025. These employees work based on the principle of “each individual employee taking ownership of their career, regardless of any disability, and bringing innovation to the world by expressing their individuality (values, experience and strengths).” As of June 2025, NEC Corporation exceeded the statutory employment rate of 2.5%, but some Group companies have yet to reach this level. NEC will promote an increase in the employment rate for the overall Group through the following initiatives.

Groupwide Committee for Promoting the Employment of People with Disabilities

The committee shares employment challenges and initiatives among NEC Corporation and its affiliates in Japan to enhance the expertise and organizational capabilities of those in charge of employing people with disabilities, while also planning and developing groupwide measures.

Signatory to The Valuable 500

NEC has agreed with and become a signatory to The Valuable 500 initiative for promoting active participation of people with disabilities in the workplace, which was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2019. In addition to continuously promoting initiatives to create environments that allow employees with disabilities to demonstrate their full potential, the Company will also strive to realize safety, security, fairness and efficiency to enable a rich range of social activities by promoting the active participation of people with disabilities through employment and contributing to society through support for para-sports.

Other Specific Initiatives

Introduced “Challenge Points”

NEC introduced “Challenge Points” in the cafeteria-style benefits program “Will be” to better support employees with disabilities in maximizing their performance.
Employees who have notified their company of their disability certification will now receive annual points. These points can be used for purchasing, renting, or repairing assistive devices such as prosthetics and daily living aids; obtaining or renewing disability certificates; covering travel expenses for bringing in caregivers; attending seminars or exchange meetings to learn coping strategies; and utilizing household assistance services.

Initiatives in the Employment Liaison Service for Persons with Disabilities

  • In the recruitment process, every attempt is made to ensure applicants can understand information during written exams or interviews through real-time audio transcription, braille exams, or the use of large-print versions. In addition, each candidate’s disability is ascertained in cooperation with a specialized agency and then reasonable accommodations are investigated1.
  • Develop promotions that merge recruitment activities, para-sports and other forms of branding to acquire high-quality talent.
  • Before a prospective employee with a disability joins the Company, they receive special support according to their disability that includes confirming (with them) that their assigned workplace and other frequented locations are barrier free.
  • 1.
    Measures to overcome issues that are barriers for disabled workers so that they can exercise their abilities effectively

Promote Inclusion through Technology

NEC Group leverages its advanced technologies to develop new job fields and create environments where employees with disabilities can perform to their full potential.
In fiscal year 2025, we will implement measures to enhance the in-house experience by linking digital employee ID cards with Mirairo ID (a digital certificate for people with disabilities).
This initiative incorporates inclusive design by actively involving numerous employees with disabilities, thereby leveraging their perspectives and experiences.

Promoting Global Recruitment of Human Resources

To achieve global business expansion, NEC is hiring foreign nationals in its research, technology, sales, and administrative categories.(In fiscal year 2025, we hired 11 new graduate foreign nationals.) We also promote diversity and enhance global competencies by welcoming employees from international subsidiaries.

  • In addition to accepting foreign nationals studying in Japan as new graduate hires, NEC also conducts recruiting activities targeting researchers at universities outside Japan.
  • NEC works proactively to recruit employees of subsidiaries outside Japan for employment at the NEC head office, to facilitate interactions with these individuals and to develop personnel.
  • NEC has a system that enables international students, Japanese students enrolled in universities outside Japan, and other students studying outside Japan to join the Company in October instead of April, when new employees usually join Japanese companies.
  • A prayer room has been established in the head office building for employees who need to make religious observances.

Details about measures for promoting global talent recruitment are presented in the following sections.

Inclusion of Mid-career Hires

Details about measures for mid-career hires are presented in the following sections.

LGBTQ Initiatives

We believe the most effective way to ensure a safe and inclusive workplace where LGBTQ individuals can be themselves is to foster greater understanding of LGBTQ issues and to increase the number of “Allies”2.
Also, to provide LGBTQ employees with equal opportunities to use its systems, since fiscal 2020 the Company has provided training for management to better understand LGBTQ issues as well as training for employees who work at the Company’s primary consultation desk to ensure LGBTQ employees who use the service can do so with a sense of safety and peace of mind.

  • 2.
    Someone who understands the situation of, and strongly supports, LGBTQ individuals

Efforts to Increase Allies

  • Corporate Executive Vice President (Executive Officer) Amemiya appointed as LGBTQ Ally Community Executive Sponsor
  • Establishment of a visible Ally consultation desk within the Company to provide a direct consultation channel
  • A volunteer Ally community (ERG) within the NEC Group actively works to increase the number of allies

Participation in DIVERSITY CAREER FORUM 2024 as a Sponsor

For the eighth consecutive year, NEC exhibited at the DIVERSITY CAREER FORUM to introduce its inclusion and diversity initiatives. University students and others with a strong interest in diversity came from all over Japan to participate in the event.

NEC Awarded “Gold” in PRIDE Index 2024

For the fifth consecutive fiscal year (since fiscal year 2021), NEC received the highest “Gold” rating in the PRIDE Index 2024, developed by the organization “work with Pride,” which evaluates initiatives for LGBTQ and other sexual minorities at companies and organizations in Japan. NEC met all the evaluation criteria for the five indicators: declaration of conduct,” “community of concerned parties,” “awareness-raising activities,” “human resource systems and programs,” and “social contributions and liaison activities.”

Revision of Internal Regulations

In October 2019, the Company revised 14 internal regulations, such as adding “a person who is a de facto marriage partner or in a partner relationship” to the definition of “spouse” in order to give de facto marriage partners, including same-sex marriage partners, equal treatment to legally married couples.

Fair Recruitment Practices

The Company added the following items regarding LGBTQ issues in interview manuals. Since then, it has been promoting awareness so that recruiters can carry out interviews appropriately. The Company also took out the field for stating gender on the entry form.

  • Absolutely do not conduct interviews that discriminate or violate human dignity from the perspective of human rights
  • Even if a person comes out as LGBTQ, for example, during an interview, do not ask questions only concerning LGBTQ issues
  • Judge a candidate only by the person’s capabilities and suitability for the job

Initiatives to Broaden Eemployee Uunderstanding of LGBTQ

  • Hosting an online event featuring LGBTQ persons from outside the company
  • During Pride Month (every June), the cafeteria offers a special lunch featuring LGBTQ rainbow-colored ingredients.

Supporting Diverse Workstyles for Employees with Many Years of Experience

Continued Employment

  • Introduced a continued employment system for employees who wish to work beyond the age of 60. The system’s maximum age for continued employment increased to 70 in fiscal year 2024.
  • NEC has operated a recruiting system and flexible treatment based on the system for continued employment that matches the needs of individuals and hiring organizations, based on the type of work, job description, employment terms, and other conditions.
  • From fiscal year 2025, we revised the evaluation system for continued employment and integrated it into the same annual evaluation process used for regular employees. By standardizing the processes from goal setting to performance evaluation and bonus decisions, we strengthened performance management for continue employment and ensured that evaluations are reflected in employee treatment.

Provide Support for Job Assignment and Placement both within and Outside the Company

Launched in fiscal year 2022, NEC Life Career, Ltd. provides a career consultation and matching service to boost employees’ sense of career ownership through a lifelong career at NEC, creating opportunities for employees with many years of experience to make long-term contributions to society in ways suited to their lifestyles.

Metrics and Targets

Medium- to Long-term Goals, Priority Activities and Progress, Achievements, and Issues

Medium- to Long-term Goals, and Priority Activities

(Scope: NEC Corporation unless otherwise specified) Period: April 2021 to March 2026
M: Indicates the main non-financial targets related to materiality.

  1. M: Ensure diversity among leadership
    Achieve the numerical targets below by the end of fiscal year 2026 (including decisions on transfers that are to take place on April 1, 2026)

    • Achieve the numerical targets below by the end of fiscal 2026 (including decisions on transfers that are to take place on April 1, 2026)

      • 20% ratio of women and non-Japanese among officers2
      • 20% ratio of women in all management positions
      • 30% ratio of women among all employees
  2. Recruit and employ people with disabilities
    • Continue to maintain statutory employment ratio (including special subsidiaries)
  3. Ensure that opinions can be expressed without fear of discrimination regardless of gender, age, career path, or job title
  • 2
    Directors, executive officers, Corporate SEVPs, Corporate EVPs, and Corporate SVPs

FY2025 Goals, Progress, Achievements and Issues, and FY2026 Goals

FY2025 Goals

  1. Ensure diversity among leadership
    • In order to achieve the 20% ratio of female managers set in Mid-term Management Plan 2025, set goals for number of female managers for fiscal year 2025 and set goals for executive manager roles or higher
    • Set goals for the ratio of diverse human resources among new manager appointments for positions of executive manager and above
    • Expand the sponsorship management program to junior levels
    • Increase the ratio of female mid-career hires
  2. Recruit and employ people with disabilities
    • Promote employment of people with disabilities throughout the NEC Group to meet the increase in the statutory rate in 2026 and work to raise the rates for Group companies that have not yet achieved the statutory employment rate through the Groupwide Committee for Promoting the Employment of Persons with Disability and by sharing knowledge and experience
    • As a Valuable 500 company, promote inclusion of people with disabilities using the Company’s own technology and promote businesses that connect the employment of people with disabilities to the creation of social value
    • Further promote the development of job categories that are “unique to NEC” at the special subsidiary
    • Develop promotions that merge recruitment activities, para-sports and other forms of branding, and connect to acquisition of high-quality talent
  3. Ensure that opinions can be expressed without fear of discrimination regardless of gender, age, career path, or job title
    • Continue to provide opportunities to make people aware of unconscious bias
    • Promote knowledge and awareness of inclusion and diversity among directors
    • One NEC Survey Diversity Score: Achieve 45% or higher

Progress, Achievement, and Issues

  1. Ensure diversity among leadership
    • Set targets for the number of female managers and a target diversity ratio among new manager appointments for positions of executive manager and above. As of April 1, 2025, women accounted for 31% of newly appointed managers. The youngest new manager was 27 years old, and 9% of new managers were 34 or younger, accelerating appointments regardless of age or background.
    • The ratio of women among mid-career hires increased 0.3 points year on year to 24.9%
  2. Recruit and employ people with disabilities
    • While NEC’s employment rate for people with disabilities was 2.57% as of June 1, 2025, achieving the statutory employment rate, and 10 of 13 major Group companies achieved the statutory employment rate, employment initiatives will continue to be promoted across the NEC Group
    • Began examining an internal service that links NEC’s digital employee ID with the Mirairo ID (a digital certificate for people with disabilities) as a technology-driven initiative
    • Introduced “Challenge Points” in the cafeteria-style benefits program “Will be” to better support employees with disabilities in maximizing their performance
  3. Ensure that opinions can be expressed without fear of discrimination regardless of gender, age, career path, or job title
    • Incorporated unconscious bias into training curricula for new employees and new managers
    • In fiscal year 2025, conducted an external survey measuring I&D knowledge and awareness among 1,400 directors
    • Achieved a One NEC Survey Diversity Score of 46%

FY2026 Goals

  1. Ensure diversity among leadership
    • In order to achieve the 20% ratio of female managers set in Mid-term Management Plan 2025, set goals for number of female managers for fiscal year 2026 and set goals for executive manager roles or higher
    • Set goals for the ratio of diverse human resources among new manager appointments for positions of executive manager and above
    • Increase the ratio of female mid-career hires
  2. Recruit and employ people with disabilities
    • Strengthen the promotion framework for employment of people with disabilities throughout the NEC Group to meet the increase in the employment statutory rate in 2026 (2.7%)
    • Expand job categories by carving out tasks in business support areas and internalizing work previously outsourced
    • Roll out the Mirairo ID integration service across the NEC Group using a “Client Zero” approach (applying cutting-edge technology to NEC itself first), creating new social value
  3. Further Enhance I&D Literacy
    • Continue to provide opportunities to make people aware of unconscious bias
    • Make I&D training mandatory in web-based training for all employees
    • Conduct I&D training for executive managers and above