Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Management Approach

Against the backdrop of factors such as the growing number of businesses seeking to expand globally and stronger international competition, as well as addressing the lack of people in the labor force due to a decline in the population of developed countries, including Japan, people’s views regarding careers and workstyles have become more diverse than ever before. We are promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) based on our belief that bringing together personnel from diverse backgrounds regardless of nationality, gender, age, religion, or disability; encouraging each employee to fully realize their diverse capabilities while maintaining a mindset of mutual acceptance and recognition of others; and creating an organization that maximizes these efforts, are crucial for the Kawasaki Group to sustainably improve its enterprise value in such an environment.

At the Kawasaki Group, we declare our commitment to respecting diversity and striving to build a workplace in which all employees can live up to their full potential in our Kawasaki Group Code of Conduct. Furthermore, in September 2025, we established our DE&I Policy, clearly setting out our “DE&I Vision (what we aspire to achieve through our DE&I),” “Why Having a DE&I Policy Is Important,” and “What Is Expected of Employees, Leaders, and Managers.” Of these, our “DE&I Vision” is as follows:

Under our DE&I Policy, the Kawasaki Group respects the diverse knowledge, experiences, values, and personal life of all individuals and actively provides support closely aligned with the challenges and growth of each of our employees while aiming to move away from homogeneous organizational structures. This policy applies to all personnel who work at the Kawasaki Group. We will use the establishment of the DE&I Policy as our prompt to increase our active promotion of DE&I.

People with a variety of attributes, including those with disabilities, non-Japanese, and senior staff work at the Kawasaki Group. We are undertaking activities to “eliminate gender disparities,” “support employees balancing work with childcare, nursing care, and medical treatment,” “support the active participation of non-Japanese employees,” “promote understanding of LGBT issues,” and “realize workstyles with an awareness of work-life balance, results, and efficiency,” in order to bring together the capabilities of employees with these various attributes and to realize our Group Vision 2030. Furthermore, our newly established DE&I Policy specifically outlines the behaviors we expect of all employees and line managers while declaring our commitment to building an organization of mutual respect in which everyone can maximize their individuality and potential.

The Company established the DE&I Management Section within the Head Office Human Resources Division to undertake various measures for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Various measures are discussed by the Management Committee, HR Management Committee, or other bodies and then reported to the Board of Directors. In addition, the Head Office Human Resources Division maintains various meetings and committees in which division managers in charge of human resources and labor at the business segments convene to gather views and opinions on the drafting of detailed human resource initiatives and communicate Company-wide policies.

Promoting DE&I

The Company is focused on promoting the active participation of women and continuously encourages active recruitment of women with targets of raising the proportion of women in career-track administrative positions to at least 40% and in career-track technical positions to at least 15% among newly hired graduates. We also set a target to increase the proportion of women in managerial positions to 10% by fiscal 2030. With the aim of facilitating the retention and fostering an awareness of career enhancement for female employees, we host the “DE&I Forum” for female managers to exchange views on the active participation of women at the Company through a message from the President and a panel discussion among female officers. We also gain insights on facilitating growth from role models outside the Company, and host the “Female Leadership Development Program,” “Networking Session for Female Engineers,” and “Cross-Industry Networking Event for Women Working in the Kansai Region” in cooperation with Kobe-based companies, toward building human networks outside the company. Furthermore, the Company is actively undertaking activities for the recruitment of female engineers. This included conducting workshops as part of the “Training Program for Female Engineers,” in collaboration with universities. Starting in fiscal 2025, we introduced the Kawasaki Women’s Advanced Program for all women in section manager equivalent positions and formulated individualized development plans tailored to each person in order to accelerate measures for building a development pipeline for women who can become candidates for managerial positions and even officers. In addition, we plan to expand the scope of the program to senior manager equivalent and assistant manager equivalent positions starting in fiscal 2026 to expand support for career enhancement of women even further.

* As of April 1 of each fiscal year.

Kawasaki launched a regular hiring program for non-Japanese new graduates in fiscal 2012 and continues to recruit from countries around the globe, including Korea, China, Sweden, and India. To improve communication between non-Japanese employees and their supervisors and co-workers, as well as to enable supervisors and co-workers to better understand non-Japanese employees who have different educational, cultural, and other backgrounds, Kawasaki creates and distributes guidebooks for workplaces that non-Japanese employees will be joining and organizes seminars on multicultural understanding for supervisors as well as training programs to help employees from other countries understand the Japanese business environment.

We are committed to hiring more people with disabilities, and they participate in a wide range of workplaces. In September 2013, we established our special subsidiary Kawasaki Heartfelt Service Co., Ltd., which promotes the active Group-wide employment of people with disabilities in order to maintain and improve our employment rates, with the employment of persons with disabilities standing in excess of the legally mandated employment rate, at 2.69% for fiscal 2026 (as of June 1). We are additionally working actively to create barrier-free workplaces, and will cultivate an environment in which people with disabilities are able to develop to their full potential.

*1 As of June 1 of each fiscal year. Respective results include those for special subsidiary Kawasaki Heartfelt Service Co., Ltd.

*2 People working short hours are calculated as 0.5 persons. One person with a severe disability is counted as two persons.

Kawasaki extended its mandatory retirement age based on the mandating of the amended Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons, and many of our veteran employees remain actively involved in operations while also passing down their skills by using the experience they have accumulated to date. Furthermore, we hold career seminars for employees in their 50s to assist them in identifying their strengths and allow them to rethink their workstyle options going forward.

Since fiscal 2020, the Company has held a total of 11 in-house seminars to consider diversity and inclusion for employees who wish to participate, and starting in fiscal 2025, this program was replaced with Cradle, a video distribution service for promoting DE&I and healthcare for all Group employees. Employees are able to watch seminar videos on a wide range of topics, such as unconscious bias, psychological safety, and health, at any time and from anywhere to deepen their knowledge of DE&I and healthcare. Through the introduction of Cradle, we will create workplace environments where Group employees can work with enthusiasm and link this to further enhancement of well-being.

Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is the foundation for promoting DE&I, allowing diverse employees to exercise their strengths. To sustainably increase enterprise value, it is crucial to create highly productive workplaces where diverse employees can creatively use their abilities while maintaining a good work-life balance. Within the Kawasaki Group, it is therefore important to create environments in which employees can do work that meets the expectations of the Company, those around them, and themselves while leading healthy, fulfilling lives, so that they can engage with their work at a higher level. By providing diverse workstyle options that enable employees to balance their professional and private lives, we will systematically improve work efficiency.

Kawasaki provides support in a number of ways to enable employees to continue working actively while balancing work with childcare and nursing care. We have established support systems that go beyond national government standards, such as a system of childcare leave available until employees’ children reach age three; a reduced working hours system available until employees’ children graduate from elementary school; nursing care leave available for up to three years; and annual paid leave taken in hourly increments for childcare or family nursing care. In recognition of these systems, in 2010 Kawasaki was certified as a company supporting childcare and awarded the Kurumin Mark. Other initiatives include the Supplementary Work Day Nursery Service, the Childcare Rescue System, and Nursery School Enrollment Concierge. We continue working to enhance such initiatives for employees with children. In addition to establishing these systems, we are also undertaking initiatives to foster a corporate culture which enables all employees to balance work with childcare and nursing care.

At Kawasaki, we believe that childcare is not solely the responsibility of the parents and their families, but rather that workplaces and companies should also share in supporting employees who are raising children. We introduced Tomoiku Leave,^*1 a special paid leave equivalent to one month, on a trial basis starting in fiscal 2026. We did so based on our conviction that having men devote themselves to childcare for a certain period with the support of the entire workplace will help foster a corporate culture where employees mutually support each other in balancing work and childcare. Going forward, we will work to normalize and instill the practice of male employees taking childcare or similar types of leave. We have also set a goal of achieving a 100% Tomoiku Implementation Rate,^*2 which is defined as the percentage of male employees taking 20 or more consecutive working days of leave, by fiscal 2030, and will continue to advance these initiatives. In addition, we hold seminars, including those to promote and support men’s participation in childcare and those for employees returning from childcare leave and their supervisors. We are supporting employees in taking childcare leave and other types of leave, while working to instill a corporate culture in which colleagues support one another in balancing work and childcare. Through these initiatives, we are fostering a corporate culture that supports the balancing of childcare and work. At the same time, by promoting participation in childcare regardless of gender, we aim to eliminate the gender gap caused by disparities in the burdens of childcare, and facilitate the creation of a workplace environment in which everyone can continue to play an active role and fully demonstrate their abilities.

*1 A system to allow employees to take 20 consecutive days of paid special leave for each child (including multiple births) until their child reaches the age of 2. This system is available to employees of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Railcar Manufacturing.

*2 The percentage of male employees who have taken 20 or more consecutive working days of leave for childcare purposes, including as shared parenting leave, before their child reaches the age of 2.

^* Accumulated leave refers to unused annual paid vacation days that cannot be carried over to the next year (up to 60 days) but can be taken in such circumstances as personal injury or illness, childcare, caregiving, or nursing.

Kawasaki encourages employees to take their annual paid leave to enable them to mentally and physically refresh themselves and to draw a clear line between work and private life by taking their leave in a planned manner. To this end, Kawasaki implements two programs: the Two Consecutive Holidays and the Anniversary Holiday programs. Under these programs, employees designate a total of three paid leave days at the beginning of the fiscal year and can take these days off without fail. Additionally, based on the labor agreement, three annual paid leave days that the Company designates are taken by most employees in August. The Company combines this midsummer break with other Company holidays and a national holiday to create a span of nine consecutive days off. Furthermore, the labor union and management have agreed to designate one day per week as an on-time exit day since fiscal 2006. The designation of this on-time exit day helps employees work efficiently and improve their work-life balance.

Other Initiatives

We have set up a DE&I promotion website on the Company intranet. This website provides information on DE&I, workplace examples, and systems related to facilitating a healthy work-life balance.

To accelerate social shifts related to DE&I and work-life balance, we proactively look beyond the framework of the Company to encourage employees to participate in outside seminars and advance activities together with other organizations and companies. One example is a work-life balance and diversity and inclusion promotion study project being jointly implemented by the Chuo University Graduate School of Strategic Management and private companies. This project broadly promotes the concept of healthy work-life balance in society through surveys and research. We also actively exchange information with DE&I promoters from various companies as a means to share challenges and best practices.