June 30, 2009 AM: Visit to Isetan Soleil
Training Report - Decent work course
Five participants learned the special subsidiary system on June 26 and today they visited Isetan Soleil, Co., Ltd., a special subsidiary of Isetan Co., Ltd. which runs one of the most famous department stores in Japan, Isetan.
When they arrived at the company at 9:45 am, twenty eight employees with disabilities were asked to get together for the morning assembly. They first watched a video to get the latest information of Isetan Department Store. Participants saw each employee sat down and tried not to miss even a single word from the video. President then asked them several questions related to the contents of the video. They looked up and answered his questions imposingly.
After the assembly they cleaned up their workplace to start work.
Not only them but also all employees were very much concentrating on their own tasks and their works were perfectly done.
Since they are employed by Isetan Soleil, Co., Ltd, the minimum wages are secured.
There are more than 80 kinds of works done at Isetan Soleil, President explained. They are supplementary tasks which used to be done by sales staff at a shop in Isetan Department Store such as folding wrapping papers, making gift bags, sorting credit card sales slips etc.
The participants could also observe various devices created by Isetan and used by employees with disabilities. For example, a paper mould which has a cut in a shape of a gift sticker indicates where the sticker should be pasted and thus anyone can paste a sticker on a gift bag easily and accurately. The participants tried some tasks which looked easy, but they felt to do it accurately and repeatedly was not as easy as it looked.
Participants could meet two job coaches, one from the sheltered workshop and the other from Employment Support Center. They visited Isetan Soleil to see how their former users were working. Actually they already got used to all the works.
After the observation of workplace, President of Isetan Soleil showed them a video of a program broadcasted by a big TV company which took up the employment promotion of persons with disabilities at Isetan Soleil.
The participants could learn that if the environment is appropriately arranged and the appropriate jobs are provided, persons with intellectual or mental disabilities can also work.
