Dentsu Integrated Report 2018

Respect for Human Rights

Human Rights Policy and Systems

The Dentsu Group is engaged in business activities that incorporate a respect for global human rights in all communications related to business activities, including advertising. We ensure that our activities maintain high ethical standards and reflect awareness of human rights, with the aim of helping to realize a sustainable and rich communication society. We recognize protecting employee human rights to be an important responsibility, and so strive to prevent harassment and honor the human rights and individuality of all our employees, in order to make the most of their abilities. Dentsu Aegis Network released the Group’s declaration with regard to slave labor and human trafficking, which echoes the stipulations of the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act 2015.

We will make an effort to prevent human trafficking, slavery, and forced labor by identifying and evaluating potential human rights impacts and risks in our business activities and supply chain.

Human Rights Promotion System

The Dentsu Group Human Rights Education Conference is held twice a year for those in charge of human rights education at the Company, and for human rights education managers at Group companies in Japan. In addition to fundamental human rights issues, topical themes are also covered.

Human Rights Awareness

To increase human rights awareness, the Group runs human rights awareness training programs based on both employee hierarchy and occupational field. The Dentsu Group Human Rights Education Conference is held twice a year for those in charge of human rights education at the Company, and for human rights education managers at Group companies. There are also various opportunities to raise awareness of human rights. Textbooks with information on human rights and explanations of their connection to advertising are utilized by employees.

The Human Rights College, a site that collects past examples of advertising expressions related to human rights, is posted on the Company’s intranet. This initiative enables continuous online learning that increases knowledge and realizes the pursuit of better communication. Further, a newsletter dealing with timely human rights-related topics is distributed within the Group twice a month.

In the area of advertising and human rights, the Group has a permanent consulting contact, to ensure that expressions communicated to the world are appropriate, and to respond to Group-wide inquiries. In addition to this, we cooperate with human rights-related seminars held at the Japan Advertising Agencies Association, and make efforts to raise awareness throughout the advertising industry.

Internal Reporting to Protect Human Rights

We established a contact desk that responds to inquiries from Group employees and allows the identification of possible human rightsrelated risks associated with the right of expression in advertising. During FY2017, the desk received 296 inquiries. These were handled individually, in a bid both to prevent any recurrence of the issues and to increase human rights awareness.

All harassment-related issues are centralized at the Harassment Counseling Section, which has contact points at Dentsu branches as well as law firms outside the Company, and provides consultation services. The section coordinates with harassment contacts at each Group company, in a bid to prevent harassment across the Group.

To ensure that employee education prevents both power and sexual harassment at Dentsu offices, we have issued an educational book entitled STOP! HARASSMENT. We also hold training sessions tailored to target audiences, including new employees and new managers, and post messages on bulletin boards calling attention to the Company’s anti-harassment policy as well as Human Resource Management Division manager’s assistant and CSR promotion committee members.