We would like to announce that we have acquired a patent related to Call Center Virtualization, a next-generation workstyle solution based on mixed reality (MR) technology.

About the acquired patent

Name of the invention: Customer support supporting device and wearable information processing terminal based on mixed reality technology

Patent number: Patent No. 6823688

Patent holder: BELLSYSTEM24 Holdings, Inc.

Call Center Virtualization is a next-generation workstyle solution based on the state-of-the-art digital technology. BELLSYSTEM24 Holdings, Inc. and its client De'Longhi Japan Corp. have partnered with Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd. and DataMesh Japan Co., Ltd. to achieve this solution. The solution will reproduce a product as a perfect 3D image in a real space. Communicators can inspect details of the product as if the real product were in front of them as they handle customer inquiries. The goal is to create new workstyles not bound by time or location for working at call centers.

On October 26, 2020, we presented a lecture at Employment Summit 2020 organized by the Ittounokai Medical Foundation's Chubu Employment and Livelihood Support Center. The goal of the seminar is to learn more about the employment, lives, and job retention of people with disabilities. In the lecture, Yukina Gushiken, a manager in Customer Solution Business Division 2, explained example initiatives for the employment of people with disabilities at Okinawa Solution Center 2. About 80 participants attended remotely or in-person at the venue in Chatan-cho, Okinawa.

Her presentation explained the points they considered when people with disabilities work at a contact center. For instance, they segmented an array of processes to identify work, and established a system enabling workers to begin with relatively simple tasks and learn other work gradually.

On August 28, 2020, a cafe produced by Mi Cafeto, which pursues the achievement of the SDGs through coffee, opened in our call center as the first location in Okinawa to provide coffee services for call center employees. It is the Company's third cafe operated by people with disabilities following cafes in Tokyo and Sapporo.

Our Okinawa office is one of the facilities promoting the employment of the physically challenged. They are working to establish an environment that enables diverse human resources to work successfully while cooperating closely with a local independent living support center for people with disabilities. In these circumstances, we decided to open the third cafe at Okinawa Solution Center 2 in Chatan-cho, Nakagami District, Okinawa Prefecture as a participant in Sustainable Coffee Challenge.

The cafe, like the locations in Tokyo and Sapporo, uses Doi Tung, a high-quality, sustainable coffee varietal. The Mi Cafeto experts train our employees with disabilities to brew and serve coffee. The goal is to create challenging and satisfying jobs for people with disabilities and increase employee engagement at the call centers.

National University Corporation Shimane University provides a course on student employment and careers as a part of their core curriculum for all students of all school years. We have participated in the course for four consecutive years. Group Manager Ai Kanto from BellSystem24's FHR provided a lecture titled Basic Knowledge for Working. This year, to prevent infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, we provided about 70 students with the opportunity to remotely learn detailed business etiquette.

In the lecture, business etiquette was defined as attitudes, forms and ways of expressing an awareness of others, kindness, and gentleness. The lecturer emphasized that paying attention to customers' backgrounds when talking or writing was the most important point, while also pointing out important matters in the handling of customer by telephone or e-mail based on the knowledge we have cultivated as communications professionals.

Prior to the revised Labor Measures Comprehensive Promotion Act being enacted in April 2020, we will establish the BellSystem24 Group Harassment Prevention and Elimination, and Appropriate Responses to Harassment Cases Rules (hereinafter, "Harassment Prevention Rules") and enhance initiatives to eliminate all kinds of workplace harassment, including power harassment and sexual harassment.

On January 29, 2020, we held KidZania Bell Day 2020 at KidZania Tokyo to increase employee satisfaction. BellSystem24 exhibits a call center pavilion as an official sponsor at KidZania Tokyo where children are able to experience working. A lottery was held to invite our employees and their families. Began in 2017, this year marks the forth year the event has been held. Employees were urged to apply to attend, regardless of where they work. To encourage more people to apply, the company bore travel expense in addition to charges for using the facilities for those working outside the Tokyo metropolitan area. About 800 guests, the lottery-winning employees, contract employees, and their families, came to the event, which was such a great success.

A One Day Seminar, The Basics and Measures for the Employment of People with Disabilities, was held in Sapporo, Hokkaido organized by LITALICO Inc. Naoki Tachikake, a Corporate Officer and HR Division Deputy Manager, and Kazuki Yoshida, the HR and FHR North Area Director, both lectured. They talked about examples of our initiatives for the employment of the physically challenged in a lecture titled, "The Acceptance Reform for the Employment of People with Disabilities" to people in charge of recruitment at companies that planned to employ people with disabilities.

Ai Kanto from BellSystem24's FHR lectured at the Practical Training for the Support of the Employment of People with Disabilities seminar organized by the Japan Organization for Employment of the Elderly, Persons with Disabilities and Job Seekers in the Chugoku area in 2019. The lecture discussed our initiatives and examples of them that support the employment of people with disabilities focused on the approach to corporations, which was the common seminar in the course. It provided a learning opportunity to about 20 participants, including employees of the employment support bureau and the living support center.

Naoki Tachikake, a Corporate Officer and the HR Division Deputy Manager of BellSystem24, presented a lecture about SUDAchi, our employment support facilities, as a case example at the seminar discussing the latest trends and examples of the improvement of working conditions of non-regular employees to ensure equal pay for equal work. The seminar was organized by Benefit one Inc.

On October 28, 2019, BellSystem24 gave a lecture at the Diverse and Reassuring Workstyle Symposium. The symposium was organized by JMA Research Institute Inc. (head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Masaaki Yuzurihara) on behalf of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The goal of the Diverse and Reassuring Workstyle Symposium is to promote and improve diverse workstyles that enable workers to have peace of mind by organizing keynote speeches by experts and presenting examples of businesses operating diverse systems as for regular employees. HR personnel and others from about 80 companies attended the symposium.

BellSystem24 launches a Call Center Workstyle Innovation Project aimed at creating new call center workstyles not bound by time or location by leveraging the latest digital technologies. The partners have jointly developed Call Center Virtualization as a next-generation workstyle solution that leverages mixed reality (MR), and launched test operat

Call Center Virtualization is a solution for providing De'Longhi product customer support services from locations other than call centers by combining Microsoft HoloLens 2, a mixed reality head-mounted display, with an MR application that utilizes DataMesh's 3-D hologram technology.

This enables people whose ability to work is constrained by location or available time, such as those living in rural areas or needing to balance work with childrearing or nursing care, to undertake work of the same level as an operator working at a call center.

BellSystem24 opened a premium cafe produced by MI CAFETO Co., Ltd., a company pursuing the achievement of the SDGs through coffee. At the cafe within the Sapporo call center, staff with disabilities brew and serve coffee using high quality beans. This is the second cafe, following the lounge at the head office in Tokyo opened this February and the first location in Hokkaido.

The coffee beans are grown as a part of a project implemented by Mae Fah Luang Foundation under the Royal Patronage of Thailand and Mi Cafeto. The goal of the project is to support the independence of minorities living in poverty in the mountainous areas of Thailand. Previously, the minority groups had grown poppies which are used to make opium. The poppy fields were converted into coffee farms to produce coffee beans. The cafe uses selected quality coffee beans with high social significance.

BellSystem24 is advancing the establishment of an environment that enables diverse human resources to work with a sense of security. As a part of this, our goals are to create jobs that enable people with disabilities to engage with a sense of satisfaction while creating a place where communicators can enjoy their break time comfortably.

BellSystem24 held the Kids & Family Chocolate Academy for employees with children between the ages of preschool and the sixth grade of elementary school at a chocolate factory in Toyohashi, Aichi. We operate the chocolate factory jointly with Quoan Chocolate which has created a business model for the employment of people with disabilities and enables employees to have diverse workstyles. The event included a lecture using real cacao and a seminar about chocolate processing in which participants watched how chocolate was made. The employees with disabilities supported children as teachers in chocolate production experience. The finished products were displayed at the real store, and children and their parents experienced selling and buying there. The event was planned as a part of our CSR employee training. We will continue to provide our employees with the opportunity to learn CSR by, for instance, introducing it in internal training for executives or newcomers.

BellSystem24, Inc. opened SUDAchi in Sapporo on August 5, 2019 to be an employment support facility securing labor and supporting employment. The goal of the facility is to train job seekers that fall short of our recruitment standards without rejecting them when previously we would have.

In the Hokkaido area, SUDAchi provides conventional skills training for working in a contact center, such as computer skills and ways of speaking politely. Additionally, if the trained staff do not fit assigned jobs, they can return to SUDAchi for re-training to enable them to do other jobs. With the addition of this new scheme, SUDAchi is creating an environment that encourages employees to continue to work over the long term. If there are any places an employee and a job are not aligned, a trainer who has established a trust-based relationship during training will interview the employee. This will mentally support the communicator and the communicator receive an offer to transfer to another position. Additionally, SUDAchi will listen to opinions to identify the reasons for the mismatch to accumulate information and provide it to the center while at the same time improving the working environment.

We have revised our human resources management regulations, adding same-sex partners and partners in common-law marriages to the definition of spouses as stated in office regulations. The goal of the revision is to improve the working conditions of the employees in diverse relationships, regardless of the legal status of marital relationships, in aspects such as the payment of marriage, childbirth and death allowances, treatment regarding job relocation or overseas transfers, and nursing care or childcare leave. BellSystem24 commenced its diversity initiatives in 2011. We are promoting many different initiatives, including the creation of opportunities for female employees to develop their careers, the encouragement of male employees to take childcare leave, and measures for the elimination of discrimination against LGBT people and the promotion of the understanding of LGBT issues under the leadership of Diversity Promotion Group established in 2016. In 2018 BellSystem24 received the PRIDE Index's bronze award. The index assesses corporations and organizations initiatives addressing the issues faced by LGBT and other sexual minorities formulated by work with Pride.

BellSystem24 has joined the Sustainable Coffee Challenge (hereinafter the "SCC"), which is calling for coffee beans to be a truly sustainable farm product, as advocated by Conservation International (Arlington, Virginia; CEO: M. Sanjayan), an international NGO.

In February 2019, a cafe was opened in a lounge in the head office under the direction of MI CAFETO Co., Ltd. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and Chief Executive Officer: Yoshiaki Kawashima), a company engaged in the achievement of the SDGs through coffee. At the cafe, employees with disabilities brew and serve coffee. BellSystem24 expressed its intent to open at least three more cafes serving sustainable coffee by 2021 as a part of its commitment to participate in the SCC. We will contribute to environmental conservation, an important challenge (material issue) that we recently defined and disclosed, and at the same time, to the themes of the SDGs by increasing our opportunities to enable people with disabilities to provide sustainable coffee.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Cabinet Secretariat, and Cabinet Office hold Telework Days 2019 in collaboration with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and related organizations. BellSystem24 is again participating in the campaign this year. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has certified BellSystem24 as one of the 100 Telework Pioneers with a sufficient track record of the introduction and utilization of teleworking. We will participate in this campaign for the third consecutive year.

Telework Days is a nationwide teleworking campaign based on the concept, "The Day You Change Your Working Style." It was triggered by the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics with the 24th of July chosen to be Telework Day.

Participants in Telework Days 2019 will telework for about 1.5 months from Monday, July 22 to Friday, September 6 in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
We will divide this time into two periods, the former and the latter halves, and set a mobile work recommendation period. Our commuters living in the Tokyo metropolitan area will telework during the period for the 2020 Olympics and those living outside the area will telework during the period for the 2020 Paralympics.

We will open Bell Kids Sapporo at BellSystem24's Sapporo Solution Center 1 on July 1, 2019. The goal of the in-house day care is to support employees returning to work after maternity or paternity leave, to support their healthy work-life balance and to be able to hire job seekers raising children that reside locally.

All employees, including both regular and contracted employees, are eligible to use Bell Kids Sapporo. Subsidization enables the childcare fees to be low while the day care provides high-quality childcare services equivalent to a licensed day care.
We create a working environment that supports both childcare and work, realizing high-quality childcare services while minimizing the financial burdens placed on employees.

We continue to support diverse work styles and improve the working environment by introducing a mobile work system available for all employees of all genders in any circumstances and a flextime system without core hours and by opening in-house day cares for all employees like this recently opened day care.

Opening ceremony

BellSystem24 served as a guest speaker in Career and Psychology Seminar, one of the required classes for third-year students in the Department of Human Welfare at Otsuma Women's University's Faculty of Human Relations. The curriculum aims to review past learning and plan future initiatives. We titled the second of the 15 sessions "Learning career from businesspeople 1: Learn the manners required for work." Our lecture focused on how others perceive your behaviors as a basic perspective for business manners based on the knowledge cultivated through our contact center business, not limited to general knowledge.

We commenced farm operations conducted by employees with disabilities at the farm facilities for corporations organized by S-Pool Plus, Inc. The new initiative aims to provide opportunities for successful careers for the achievement of the SDGs and for diverse human resources to achieve diverse work styles.

Our six employees with disabilities will grow many different crops, which will be provided to our employees and organizations supporting needy people, conduct a questionnaire survey of the employees who the crops are provided to, and train employees at the farm. We will create opportunities to promote the understanding of CSV by creating opportunities for employees with or without disabilities to communicate with each other within our organization that includes over 30,000 employees.

Following our corporate vision, "Supporting Enrichment of Society through Innovation and Communication," we will improve the environment to create a human-friendly workplace (community) so that over 30,000 diverse employees can work in security for a long term.

BellSystem24 served as a special lecturer, lecturing sophomores at Faculty of Culture and Languages and Faculty of Human Life Science as a part of their Spring Career Guidance - Presentation Skills Improvement Seminar at Shosei University Junior College and Shokei Gakuin University (President: Masato Mori).

The lecture, Presentation Ability: How You Should Convey Your Thinking and Ideas to Others, consisted of two parts, the importance of conveying your thinking and ideas to others and specific techniques. The goal of the lecture was to increase interest of students in an accessible way by showing examples of real people and fictional examples from well-known movies, fully leveraging the diverse knowledge cultivated over more than 30 years of operating a contact center business.

One of our principles of conduct is that "we contribute to realization of a beautiful future by returning the value we create to society." We will widely share the importance of communication with society through an array of initiatives.

BellSystem24 began operating a cafe in the lounge within its head office under the direction of MI CAFETO Co., Ltd. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and Chief Executive Officer: Yoshiaki Kawashima), a company engaged in the achievement of the SDGs through coffee. The new initiative is to achieve the SDGs for the realization of diverse work styles by diverse human resources and part of a diversity project with the goal of providing opportunities for diverse human resources to have successful careers. At the cafe, employees with disabilities brew and serve coffee to visitors and our employees. The expert from Mi Cafeto instructed employees with disabilities on the brewing of coffee, and the trained staff will brew and serve coffee at the cafe.

BellSystem24 has promoted this initiative for the achievement of the SDGs focusing on people and on the creation of an environment that enables diverse human resources to work in security. The coffee beans are grown as a part of a project implemented by Mae Fah Luang Foundation under the Royal Patronage of Thailand and Mi Cafeto. The goal of the project is to support the independence of minorities living in poverty in the mountainous areas of Thailand. The minority groups previously grew poppies used to make opium. The poppy fields were converted into coffee farms to produce coffee beans. The cafe uses selected quality coffee beans with high social significance. The goal of the cafe is to create jobs leading to the satisfaction of employees with disabilities. For instance the cafe will provide coffee to visitors at BellSystem24's head office and sell coffee in the office space.

BellSystem24 will introduce a new personnel system for contracted employees to realize diverse work styles, create the working environment that allows employees to work in security for a long term and provide the opportunity for successful career. The systems are intended to upgrade job skills of contracted employees and maximize the operational efficiency if they work for us for a long term.

Overview of the new personnel system for contracted employees

1. Grade 11+ newly established as a job title prior to employment as a regular employee

We newly established Grade 11+, the job title for a candidate for a regular employee that is a level higher than Grade 11, the conventional one. For Grade 11+, we provide the opportunity for the employees to receive the performance review similar to regular employees and pay bonus twice a year according to results. The job title is applicable to those who opt to work as short-time workers due to childcare or other reasons.

Fig. Illustration of newly established Grade 11+

2. A specialist course newly established to have plural career paths

BellSystem24 newly established a specialist course in addition to the existing management course to support diverse career development. This will enable contracted employees showing their high technical skills in practical operations to choose and develop the optimal career path,

3. Introduction of a communicator evaluation system

The system aims to evaluate contribution to each job, the attitude to work (understanding of the importance of teamwork and the implementation), and attendance. The company pays lump-sum money twice a year based on evaluation results.

4. Introduction of a manager evaluation system

The system applies to the call center managers who respond to inquiries by communicators. It evaluates how they treat members of their team and their ability to execute their job.

5. Payment of performance allowance

The company will pay performance allowance to site managers if a yearly performance goal of the whole company is achieved.

6. Introduction of a long-service awarding system for contracted employees

The company pays reward money when contracted employees have worked for the company for 20 years and 30 years.

We completed various workstyle reforms by the previous fiscal year in consideration of "More Advanced Human Resource Management," one of the elements of the medium-term management plan unveiled on May 23, 2017. The reforms include employment of the term contracted employees in certain job grades or higher as regular employees and introduction of a restricted-area employment system without job relocation. We will respond to the policies such as correction of unreasonable treatment that divides regular and non-regular employees proposed by the government and reduce discrimination between regular and non-regular employees.

There are the employment support facilities called AlonAlon Orchid Garden in Futtsu, Chiba where people with disabilities grow moth orchids for ornamental purpose/sale. At the orchid farm, the supporting companies hire staff as employees who raise and sell orchids BellSystem24 have sent several employees with disabilities to the facilities as one of the supporters to the business of AlonAlon.

In Japan, workers with disabilities receive about 15,000 yen a month on the average today. The total income falls below the amount of public assistance even if a disability pension is added.
AlonAlon pays higher wages to staff while ensuring the quality of orchids. That is a great difference from other facilities. They aim for financial independence of the disabled. For this, they grow quality orchids equal to commercially available ones. They have developed sales channels for distributing orchids to the businesses and individuals supporting them and established a mechanism of distribution for orchids. AlonAlon monthly pays 100,000 yen to the staff. The staff employed by the supporting companies receive a salary as their employees. This ensures their more stable financial independence.

BellSystem24 creates a human-friendly workplace (community) where diverse human resources gather and try to improve the environment where employees can work in security for a long term.

Having established its business model for the employment of people with disabilities together with us, Quon Chocolate operates a diverse employment support businesses. To enable diverse human resources to achieve diverse work styles, they recruited 13 new employees including ten people with disabilities and opened a factory in Toyohashi, Aichi to commence chocolate production.

BellSystem24 is in charge of the recruitment and training of employees with disabilities, fully leveraging its recruitment and training expertise. We also support chocolate production, acquiring the chocolate making expertise of Quon Chocolate. Quon Chocolate provides its expertise in chocolate making to BellSystem24 and also takes charge of final product processing, quality control, and sales as the final product manufacturer of the chocolate. The chocolate manufactured at the Toyohashi factory will be sold at Quon Chocolate stores around Japan. In addition, we will provide chocolate to customers visiting us and give it to our clients as gifts. We are planning to use chocolate in many different ways as a symbol of the diverse work styles for diverse human resources that BellSystem24 Group is promoting.

Quon Chocolate and BellSystem24 will continue to support the work styles of diverse human resources and work to establish an environment where they can work in security for the long term.

Previously, BellSystem24 rejected job applicants that fell short of the hiring criteria at that time. We opened the SUDAchi employment support facility within the Ikebukuro Solution Center to hire these human resources and give them practical training including in communication and typing skills to increase their efficiency before posting them to a position. Now, about 60 trained staff members are working. Sufficient preliminary training makes it possible to match people with jobs and working environments. It has resulted in a higher retention rate than for other employees. SUDAchi offers curricula that enable diverse human resources to systematically learn necessary skills. For instance, people of foreign origins who wish to work at multi-language contact centers can learn typing and take a trial lesson on call handling. Trained employees have provided positive feedback. A foreign employee said they learned how to type Japanese before beginning work, and were able to start working with no worries. Another employee said they were able to learn how to handle calls through practical training in addition to lectures."

BellSystem24 will continue to support the work styles of diverse human resources and work to establish an environment where they can work in security for the long term.

BELLSYSTEM24 Holdings, Inc. (Representative Director, President, CEO: Tsuge Ichiro; Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; hereafter "BELLSYSTEM24 HD") will open Bell Kids Tenjin Day Care at our Fukuoka Solution Center on June 1 to support employees returning to work after maternity/paternity leave and balancing caring for their children and work. All employees are eligible to use the day care which has a capacity of 19 children regardless of their gender or form of employment.

Many of our employees with preschool-aged children have said they want to keep their children near their workplace, and they want to return to their workplace after the birth of their child. Now, they can leave children between the ages of six months and preschool at Bell Kids Tenjin Day Care. This enables them to resume working after a minimal absence.

Bell Kids Tenjin Day Care was established with the approval of a subsidy under the fiscal 2017 employer-initiated childcare project proposed by the Cabinet Office. It realizes quality childcare yet set a low charge for using to support employees' balance between work and childcare from financial and user-friendly perspectives.

BellSystem24 served as a guest speaker at the Career and Psychology Seminar, one of the required classes for third-year students in the Department of Human Welfare at Otsuma Women's University's Faculty of Human Relations. The lecturer talked about the business manners, appropriate communications skills, and presentation skills that students would need in situations they will encounter after starting to work.

Under the theme of our two classes, "Learning career from businesspeople," the lecturer talked about an essential idea for more profoundly understanding and learning the skills for communicating and sharing information and feelings using familiar everyday examples fully leveraging the diverse knowledge cultivated through over 30 years of operating a contact center business.

As part of specific elements of our corporate vision, "Supporting the Enrichment of Society through Innovation and Communication," we will disseminate the importance of the skills and communication to appropriately convey your will and ideas to others through an array of initiatives. p>

In February 2018, BellSystem24 commenced internships through a partnership with the Vietnam-Japan Institute of Technology in Vietnam and the Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Nonoichi, Ishikawa. BellSystem24 will take on interns from the two universities twice a year (in February and August). The initiative is funded by an AEM-METI Economic and Industrial Cooperation Committee (AMEICC) contribution project that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry established to secure talented human resources for Japanese businesses in ASEAN.

Purpose and outline of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry contribution project

BellSystem24 participates in the project as a corporate collaborator. In July 2017, BellSystem24 partnered with a Vietnamese corporation to form the BellSystem24-Hoa Sao joint venture and commence businesses for local and Japanese firms in both Vietnam and Japan.

Through the internship program, BellSystem24 will support the cultivation of human resources that can operate successfully in ASEAN countries using the advanced technology including AI used in new businesses and contact centers and through an IT system operation course featuring personnel training expertise.

Internship outline

Shimane University provides the Job Hunting and Careers for Students general education course to teach students about careers. BellSystem24 participates in the class that teaches the business manners, communications with stakeholders, and presentation skills that workers should have. We will share the many skills we have cultivated over 30 years of operating a contact center business, such as communications and presentation skills while giving actual examples in class.
We asked 80 students working at the Matsue Solution Center to answer a questionnaire survey about the connections between working in the contact center and job hunting prior to the class. In the results, many respondents talked about the usefulness of their experience in the working world. 98% of them said that the skills they obtained from working at the contact center were useful for job hunting, that they were able to have connections with many different people including customers and people from companies, and that they learned how to speak politely to be ready to work.

Through Shimane University's Job Hunting and Careers for Students general education course, BellSystem24 will convey the importance of business manners which are necessary for working and communicating to express your will and ideas to others in work.

BellSystem24 will provide Benefit Station to approximately 25,000 contract employees who work at its 31 centers around the country, with contract employees who have been working at the company for more than three months being eligible, from October 2017. BellSystem24 is providing this new system in order to create environments where all employees can feel at ease while continuing to work for the company for a long time. Benefit Station is a service offered by Benefit One Inc. (Representative Director, CEO: Norio Shiraishi; Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo). The system is intended to raise employee motivation to stay longer and strengthen hiring and retention.

BellSystem24 is in the process of revising its HR system to get rid of distinctions step by step like those between regular and non-regular employees. BellSystem24 changed its HR system from one that only provided the benefits above to permanent employees to a system that allows contract employees who have worked at the company for more than three months to enjoy benefits as well, removing differences in benefit opportunities based on employment type. BellSystem24 will create environments where all employees can feel at ease while continuing to work for the same company for a long time, leading to greater employee retention. Furthermore, BellSystem24 will realize greater service quality improvements going forward through a more stable supply of human resources.

BellSystem24 began working on work-style reforms with the purpose of creating workplaces where all employees can continue to do their job for a long time with a sense of ease. As part of the first of the revisions to BellSystem24's HR system, call center supervisors and staff who have been continually employed for six months can become permanent employees without waiting for the five years it would normally take under the Revised Labor Contracts Act.(1) Employees can begin to switch over starting October 2017, with 22,000 people being eligible.(2)

• (1) For employees with limited-term contracts who renewed their contracts with the same organization for a total exceeding five years (employees who worked for five years or more beginning on April 1, 2018), they can switch over to a permanent labor contract based on their request.
• (2) This includes the approximately 8,500 people who would fit the requirements under the same act.

Currently, it is said hiring difficulties in the labor market are common. BellSystem24 believes one of the reasons is that the number of workers with limitations due to nursing, childcare, and more has increased, with there being a gap between people who want to work and actual opportunities to work. BellSystem24 will create an HR system that responds flexibly to the needs of each employee, maintaining human resources in a stable manner by providing an optimal work environment. Long-term employment will in turn deliver higher quality services and accelerate business expansion.

BellSystem24 will participate in Telework Day, a workstyle reform campaign being promoted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Cabinet Secretariat, and the Cabinet Office, taking advantage of the opportunity of Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications certified BellSystem24 as one of the Top Hundred Telework Pioneers because of its ample track record in the introduction and utilization of teleworking.

We are promoting workstyle reforms to enable employees to work in any place at any time, to respond to employees' diverse work-life balances which include the need to care for children and other family members. We carried out many different initiatives in the previous fiscal year. For instance, we opened an in-house day care to allow employees raising children to work with peace of mind and set up Small Office, the small-scale satellite office on the second floor of a DIY store in a suburb for employees wanting to work near home or work short hours.

BellSystem24 opened Bell Kids Toyosaki Day Care at the Toyosaki Solution Center in Tomigusuku, Okinawa on April 3, 2017. All employees of all types of employment and all genders are able to use the day care, whose goal is to support the healthy work-life balances of employees returning from maternity/paternity and other employees raising children.

Okinawa has the second highest number of children on day care waiting lists in Japan and the employment rate of women engaged in childcare in Okinawa exceeds the national average. Okinawan people need workplaces that permit workers raising children to have healthy work-life balances. In consideration of these circumstances, we keep the day care open from seven in the morning to eight in the evening on all of the Toyosaki Solution Center's business days, including Saturdays, Sundays, and national holidays, to support employees in their early return to work following maternity/paternity leave.