[First in Japan] Higashi-Mikawa Companies and Startups Collaborate on a Demonstration Project to Create Sustainable Workplaces Through Bereavement Support

SALA CORPORATION (Headquarters: Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture; President & CEO: Goro Jinno) is the holding company for a corporate group of 48 companies that develop various businesses supporting life and business. With eastern Aichi and western Shizuoka prefectures as our core area, we handle comprehensive life-related businesses, including energy supply centered on gas and electricity, housing, infrastructure development, and imported car sales, as well as urban infrastructure development. Under the basic philosophy of "making living spaces more beautiful and comfortable," we contribute to the realization of a prosperous society by providing products and services tailored to customer needs.

【emCAMPUS STUDIO】

emCAMPUS STUDIO is a hub for creating a rich future for Higashi-Mikawa through 'co-creation.' The fact that local companies responded to the significant social challenge of 'supporting working chief mourners' and came together as one team is the very form of co-creation that this facility aims for.

As a hub connecting the passion of startups with the aspirations of regional companies, we will strongly support this project so that this 'Higashi-Mikawa Model' can grow into a new social infrastructure that supports working people.

The main players in logistics are 'people.' An environment where our drivers and on-site staff can work with peace of mind leads to the highest quality logistics. We will take on this challenge as a pioneer within the group.

SMEs, which account for 99.7% (approx. 3.3 million companies) of Japanese enterprises, are in the midst of a transformation for survival. The strategic options to break through this difficult situation are either to expand in scale through M&A, or to share resources and knowledge through strong collaboration between companies. We have believed that the latter, 'collaboration,' is an extremely effective survival strategy for regional companies. This project is an attempt to embody this very strategy in the land of Higashi-Mikawa.
The attempt for a metropolitan startup, a regional core company, and SMEs like us to work on a joint demonstration as 'equal partners' is an extremely rare case. For a company of our size, with about 50 people, there are limits to discovering advanced services and verifying their implementation effects. However, we are convinced that by taking on the challenge as 'one entity' of regional companies, we can create new value that could never be reached alone.
Our company has walked the path as an 'unsung hero' supporting industry from the manufacturing floor. However, what is being questioned in the coming era is the attitude to move beyond existing frameworks on one's own. As a 'first penguin,' we will fearlessly dive into unknown territory first, demonstrating our identity and resolve.
This initiative is also a challenge to build a unique, region-originated ecosystem that provides an attractive demonstration field for startups. We will join hands with new partners to co-create and orchestrate a future full of hope.

As an authorized SUBARU dealer, we deliver 'peace of mind' and 'enjoyment' to our customers daily. That value is supported by the efforts of many staff, including sales, maintenance, and reception. The physical and mental state of each employee directly connects to the overall strength of the dealership.

That is why how we support our employees when they face difficulties or lose a loved one is not just a matter of welfare but a management issue itself. However, there are limits to what we can systematize on our own for this theme.

Therefore, we have decided to incorporate external expertise and collaborate with regional companies this time. Through this initiative, we will elevate our company's philosophy of 'maximizing the happiness of our employees and their families' into a concrete and sustainable system. Starting from this alliance, we will build a new corporate model where regional companies collaborate to address social issues.

We currently have about 40 employees, and bereavement is not a frequent occurrence at this time. However, we believe it is important to have a system where we can introduce experts as an appropriate consultation point when an employee loses a close relative. We participated in this initiative as one way a company can 'be there' for its employees.

We also feel that supporting employees in their time of grief ultimately leads to protecting the quality of our craftsmanship.

At our company, 45% of employees are in their 50s or older, and 25% are in their 40s, meaning about 70% of our staff will face 'parental end-of-life care' in the near future. However, current support is limited to leave and funeral offerings. We want to establish a support system that goes one step further for the mental aspects and complex procedures that employees tend to handle on their own. We believe expanding our welfare benefits not only increases employee peace of mind but also demonstrates our stance as a 'company that values its employees' externally, and we expect it to strengthen our recruitment branding.

Our company upholds a 'Human Resources First' policy and aims to create a workplace where employees can work with a sense of purpose. Within this, we believe that building a flexible corporate support system that corresponds to employees' life stages is of great value, and we decided to participate in this initiative thinking it would be a step toward that.

It is a great honor to participate in a challenge to create new value that cannot be achieved alone, and we expect that through the collaboration of diverse local companies, this initiative will take root in the region and become a model case for sustainable regional development.

At our company, which currently has about 70 employees, issues related to the senior generation, such as nursing care and inheritance, are steadily becoming more apparent as the age range of our workforce expands. With no one in the company, including myself, having specialized knowledge, we believe that securing a reliable consultation destination for our employees is extremely meaningful for the organization, and we decided to participate in this project.

While cases are limited within our own company, we see the ability to verify the necessity of the service from multiple perspectives through collaboration with other companies as a very valuable opportunity. This alliance brings together companies of various industries and sizes, and we expect to gain an understanding of needs that we couldn't obtain on our own. By accumulating verifications and experiments within this framework, we hope to contribute to the further revitalization of the Higashi-Mikawa area.

In Higashi-Mikawa, we found the best partners to tackle the unexplored territory of 'bereavement and productivity,' an area that has not been in the spotlight until now. The essence of this demonstration experiment is not merely to collect numerical data. It is to present concrete solutions based on scientific evidence to the question of how companies should support 'working chief mourners' during the most difficult times of their lives. We believe this area holds immeasurable potential to make Japanese organizations stronger and kinder.

Together with the companies of Higashi-Mikawa, we will create a 'new normal' from here to save working people all over Japan.

Recent research has revealed that the loss in labor productivity due to bereavement grief is enormous. However, in Japanese companies, it has been made invisible as a personal problem. This demonstration experiment, in which the companies of Higashi-Mikawa are addressing this issue as an organization and attempting to visualize the data, has the potential to become a world-leading case. I wholeheartedly support this courageous first step.