Health and Safety

  The Yamaha Group believes that its most important management issue is ensuring the health and safety of the people we work with, our employees, based on the principle of valuing people. In 2009, we created the Group Health and Safety Management Policy to lay out our basic philosophy on health and safety issues for the Yamaha Group. We aim to enhance the level of health and safety through ongoing companywide initiatives.

  Yamaha Corporation formed in 1987 an Industrial Safety and Health Committee, headed by the Director in Charge of Industrial Safety and Health, with membership comprising branch managers, area leaders, and the chairs of various subcommittees including occupational health and safety, health promotion, traffic safety and international safety. This committee engages in a variety of activities related to managing health and safety.

  Each year in April, Yamaha regularly holds a Group-wide Health and Safety Convention, attended by managers and employees in charge of occupational health and safety, to share basic policies, specific measures and annual plans regarding health and safety.

  Approximately 300 people participated in the regular Group-wide Health and Safety Convention held in April 2011. In addition, Health and Safety Committees were convened at each of our business locations to discuss Groupwide policies and address issues unique to each business venue.

(1)Risk assessment (mainly at Yamaha Corporation)

  As the number of work-related accidents is on the decline, management should start emphasizing measures to prevent accidents from happening in the future instead of measures in response to specific accidents. At Yamaha Corporation, risk assessment is the fundamental tool used to prevent accidents from happening. In fiscal 2010, we revised our evaluation methods in order to more clearly identify risks in each work process, and held risk assessment seminars with the aim of establishing a standardized methodology Groupwide. Beginning in June, these seminars were held a total of 13 times, and 343 people participated including leaders and employees responsible for health and safety at their business locations.

(2)Comprehensive Health and Safety Audit (mainly at group companies in Japan and abroad)

  Under the guidance of the Groupwide Health and Safety Management Lead Office (Health and Safety Promotion Office in Human Resources), comprehensive audits of health and safety are conducted at group companies in Japan and overseas. Audits were carried out at 14 bases in Japan and 3 bases overseas in fiscal 2009, and at 13 in Japan and 7 overseas in fiscal 2010.

  The audits use a health and safety management analysis table designed to quantitatively assess the level of health and safety at each base, quantifying more than 100 items examined including the level of compliance with rules and standards, and it also clarifies health and safety management systems and policies. At bases with problems identified in the results of the audits, and at bases with frequent work-related accidents, we provide thorough guidance and instruction on all physical and intellectual aspects of health and safety and assist the bases in finding a solution to their own health and safety issues.

  The basic policy of our Eighth Three-Year Plan for Comprehensive Safety Management to promote health during fiscal 2009-2011 states that the Yamaha Group will strive to precisely assess workplace health risks to employees, and plan and execute measures to address these risks, in order to proactively protect the health of its employees and create comfortable and highly productive work environments.

(A)Health checkups

  We take a proactive stance on the prevention of lifestyle-related disease and work-related illness. Our aim is to effectively offer general and specialized health checkups as opportunities for employees to create healthier lifestyle choices, think about the relationship between their health and the workplace, and improve their work environment and way of working.

  In fiscal 2010, we offered individualized training on health and sanitation to employees working the late shift, for example, based on the results of questionnaires about sanitation during their health checkups and data compiled for each workplace. This way, we were able to identify health risks specific to employees working late-night shifts, raise awareness of preventative measures to mitigate these risks, and further improve work methods and environments.

(B)Mental healthcare

  We continued to further enhance mental health care by providing internal training for production-line workers through training for production-line supervisors, individual services from our own industrial physician and counselors, a mental health counseling desk staffed by psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, and counseling provided by outside institutions through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP)*.

• * EAP provides counseling to employees and their families for mental health issues, helps employees return to the workplace after leave for mental illness, and is also an employee support program that utilizes external specialists, such as ones that offer health-related training for managers in charge of production-line workers.

(C)No smoking policy

  To protect the health of all of our workers, smokers and non-smokers alike, since 1998 Yamaha Corporation has continued to advise employees to stop smoking at their health checkups, reduce the number of designated smoking areas, promote no-smoking days, and help employees quit the habit.

  In fiscal 2010, in addition to ongoing efforts, we reiterated to all employees that took a health checkup during their birth month the importance of not smoking and the dangers of passive smoking.

  As of April 2011, four out of ten business locations (including at some group companies) at Yamaha Corporation have prohibited smoking throughout their entire premises. As a result of these initiatives, the percentage of smokers at Yamaha factories has declined to 17% (20% of male employees), which is roughly half the national average. Heath indicators have improved as a result of fewer employees smoking, and the average white blood cell count has steadily declined (see note).

  These aforementioned initiatives form the foundation of our Groupwide activities to promote health and safety. We are reassessing contracts with part-time industrial physicians in order to enhance their effectiveness at remote business locations and affiliates, doing video display terminal (VDT) health checkups, taking thorough countermeasures after an accident occurs, and conducting surveys of visits by industrial physicians at overseas affiliates.