Our purpose is to "sustain the prosperity of society, through innovation and communication." To realize this purpose, we believe it is essential that our employees (all employees who work for the BELLSYSTEM24 Group regardless of their employment status including full-time employees and part-time employees) can work safely and with peace of mind. We have now enacted this basic policy for customer harassment against our employees. We have enacted this policy in line with the Call Center Association of Japan's "CCAJ Code of Ethics Guideline."
Our basic stance in our Human Rights Policy is that "we respect the rights of all people involved in any of our business activities and transactions." We consider it our basic responsibility to protect the human rights of our customers such as companies and consumers (hereinafter "Customers etc."). We prohibit all forms of harassment in our Human Rights Policy. We aim to create safe workplaces where our employees can work with peace of mind. As such, we believe it is our important responsibility to also protect our employees from the striking risk of customer harassment in running a call center business.
The orders and inquiries from Customers etc. that we handle as a call center also include grievances and complaints. Grievances and complaints are important to improve products and services. On the other hand, some grievances and complaints are malicious including excessive demands and unreasonable abusive behavior. Such maliciousness may infringe on the human rights of our employees and make it difficult for them to work with peace of mind. Under the assumption such cases of maliciousness will arise, we define customer harassment as follows in this policy based on the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's "Corporate Manual on Measures against Customer Harassment."
Definition: Customer harassment refers to complaints, words and acts by Customers etc. which employ a means and manner of realizing their requests that is inappropriate in terms of socially accepted standards in light of the validity in the requests of those complaints, words and acts and which, through such means and manner, infringe upon the human rights and the safe and secure working environment of our employees.
We will continue to respond in good faith to the various inquiries we receive as before to achieve our purpose. However, we will work to prevent harm caused by customer harassment to ensure we do not sacrifice the human rights of our employees. If there is a risk of the human rights or working environment of our employees being violated due to customer harassment, we will work to resolve that as an organization. At the same time, we will seek the understanding of those involved including our Customers etc. for our response to our Customers etc. and the continuation of transactions.
It is important to discover the risk of customer harassment early to protect our employees from such harassment. Accordingly, we have established and are appropriately operating a desk to receive inquiries and grievances from our employees. If we discover there is a risk of customer harassment through this desk or otherwise, we will work with lawyers and other external experts as necessary to protect and provide relief to our employees. Moreover, we will provide mental support to employees who have suffered customer harassment.
We will continue to inform our employees, spread awareness among them and provide them with education about the basic knowledge relating to customer harassment and the method of dealing with it when it occurs to prevent harm caused by customer harassment and to respond it quickly and appropriately.