Infertility Treatment, Pregnancy, Childcare, and Career—Towards a Society Where Women Can Prepare for Work-Life Balance Challenges with Companies

Our company endorses April Dream, which aims to make April 1st a day for sharing dreams. This press release is a dream of "Miss L Co., Ltd." Miss L Co., Ltd. (Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture; Representative Director: Manami Hamano; hereinafter "Miss L") offers "Miss L Map," a service that accompanies working women from concrete health management and career plan development to execution, enabling them to achieve work-life balance. Miss L's dream is to create a society where life events such as infertility treatment, pregnancy, and childcare are not "reasons to give up on one's career," but "opportunities to think about one's future together with the company." ## ◾️ The Origin of Miss L Representative Hamano began her career in the medical field as an occupational therapist. In hospitals, she deeply understood the values and goals of each patient with illnesses or disabilities and professionally accompanied them towards their realization. Through that experience, she began to feel that "the knowledge and perspective of an occupational therapist could support many people, regardless of the presence of disabilities." This coincided with a period when she herself was struggling with work-life balance, leading to the desire that "if the social system doesn't change, more people will continue to suffer in the same way." Utilizing the skills cultivated in the hospital, she founded Miss L Co., Ltd. when she was 8 months pregnant. Miss L believes that a new system is necessary where "life events are not just individual problems," but where "companies and employees can share future plans (life design)" while protecting the individual's intentions and privacy. ## ◾️ Background for Realizing the Dream — Structural Challenges for Companies Regarding "Work-Life Balance" ** Inability to "hear" employees' true feelings** Companies currently find it difficult to delve into sensitive life events such as pregnancy or treatment due to privacy considerations, making it challenging to provide support tailored to individual needs. ** Lack of work-life balance plans tailored to individual needs** With diverse values spreading regarding work-life balance, many people, despite wanting to continue working, choose to resign due to a lack of concrete plans on "how to balance." ** Reactive measures due to sudden leave or resignation** Sudden resignation due to life events causes significant damage to companies, including confusion in handover, concentrated burden on the workplace, and deterioration of important human capital indicators. ## ◾️ Miss L's Initiatives — What is Life Design Support? Life design support is an initiative that helps individuals draw their own life plans for balancing life events such as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, and nursing care with work. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also promotes companies to engage in life design support. This is because if employees can balance their careers and lives while feeling "job satisfaction" and "ease of work," it is expected to not only improve individual well-being but also increase productivity through employee engagement and lead to an improvement in corporate value. "Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry" What is Life Design Management? ▶︎