Toyota to Open On-site Child Care Facility "Bubu Forest"

Toyota City, Japan, March 20, 2018―Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has always been committed to the promotion of diversity, a component of its management strategy, and is continuously working to establish a workplace environment and culture that values its employees, enables them to attain greater work-life balance, and to reach their full potential.

As part of these efforts, in order to address employee concerns about child care and to establish a workplace environment that fosters greater understanding of the challenges associated with child care, TMC plans to open the "Bubu Forest," an on-site child care facility, on Monday, April 2.

Features of Bubu Forest

Increasingly, society understands that work styles are becoming ever more diversified. At the same time, work styles are diversifying at TMC as well, and greater numbers of employees require support to balance both their work and child-rearing responsibilities. Currently, TMC has three on-site child care facilities that can accommodate a total of approximately 140 infants and young children. The new 320-child capacity Bubu Forest brings the overall capacity of all four on-site facilities to approximately 460.

Hours of operation of Bubu Forest include early morning as well as overnight hours to accommodate employees with a diverse range of needs such as shift workers at plants and nurses who work the night shift. Newly available bus transportation is also provided for children to/from all plants in the TMC Head Office area to ease the burden of pickups and drop-offs for shift-work employees and to enable group care.

The facilities also accept new enrollees throughout the year, to accommodate the needs of employees including those who intend to return to work after child-birth, mid-career employees, and employees returning to Japan from overseas assignments.

In cooperation with Toyota Memorial Hospital, located on the same premises as Bubu Land, the forthcoming opening of Pipo Land, a child care facility within Toyota Memorial Hospital, will be made available to take in sick children. This facility will employ professionally qualified daycare staff and nurses who can provide care and monitor the health condition of children, making it possible for TMC employees to work when their children fall ill. This child care facility for sick children will be available to TMC employees as well as Toyota City residents and allows TMC to build stronger ties with the local community in support of promoting work-life balance and child-rearing.

Opening Ceremony

Prior to the start of operations of these facilities, TMC held an opening ceremony for Bubu Forest on March 20 at the site.

In addition to representatives of the Heiwa-cho area, Senior Managing Officer Tatsuro Ueda of TMC attended the opening ceremony and shared TMC's perspective on work style reform, stating that, "It's important to find ways to help employees attain greater balance in both their work and child-rearing responsibilities, through the expansion of on-site child care facilities that offer flexible services in the early morning and overnight hours in response to the unique work schedules faced by those in the manufacturing and automobile industries."

TMC will utilize new ideas and emergent challenges, both borne from diversified values and perspectives, to continue to further enhance competitiveness in pursuit of creating ever-better cars, while also aiming to be an attractive organization to even more people.

Operation / Facility Outline

Reference: Toyota Motor Corporation On-site Child Care Facilities