"Safe Work is 'the gate' to all work. Let us pass through this gate."These are the words of a request made in 1957 to all employees by then Senior Managing Director Eiji Toyoda (now an Honorary Advisor).

These words were adopted as a principle of Toyota safety and health practice and have for many years formed the basis of our safety and health activities. The middle years of the 20th century were a period for adapting facilities and formulating safety standards. From the 1980s, keypoint campaigns focused on eliminating major accidents, and more recently, we have rolled out safety and health management and activities to promote a safety-oriented culture so as to prevent accidents more reliably and to create a safer and more secure workplace.

In safety and health management as well,'creating a healthy and positive workplace' has been a Toyota watchword since our founding days as we take steady action to promote employee health and improve the work environment.

We have in the past taken action to promote employee health using the results of health checks to encourage health recovery. However, taking into account of the effects of increasing globalization, which has led to more diverse work patterns among our employees, we have supplemented existing initiatives with activities to maintain and improve mental and physical health that put the emphasis on prevention, accompanied by improvements to the workplace environment.

Specific measures include enhancements to our health strategy to reflect the increasing number of Toyota employees based overseas, fitness-focused preventive action against lifestyle-related disease in the form of a range of initiatives to promote healthier diets and exercise, and action on mental health through information for employees on emotional health and enhanced provision of training sessions for managerial and supervisory staff. In this way, we are rolling out a health strategy which meets the needs of changing times.