Life Design Leave Helps Employees Balance Life Events and Work

Japan

In Japan, more people are undergoing IVF and other fertility treatments every year, a trend partly driven by marrying and having children later in life. However, although fertility treatments are more widely used than before, not everyone who wants to access them can feel secure about doing so. There are social and economic factors behind this, but one significant challenge on the social side in particular is balancing fertility treatments with work.

Details of the system

Under the life design leave system, employees can take between 1 and 24 months of long-term leave, divided into up to two separate periods.

Employees who do not seek long-term leave can take cumulative paid leave as life design leave instead. Pigeon’s cumulative paid leave system allows to 60 days of regular paid leave to be converted to cumulative paid leave after its two-year eligibility period ends, and this cumulative paid leave can be used as life design leave to cover fertility treatments.

Improving the system further and increasing its flexibility in response to employee feedback

The year after the life design leave system was launched, an employee came to Human Resources to discuss their situation. The employee was planning to adopt a child, which would require taking a significant amount of leave. Was there any way to do this, they asked, without leaving their job entirely? As a result of this conversation, the life design system was expanded so that it was usable for adoption too.

Adoption ultimately requires family court proceedings to grant permission, but several steps are required before this stage, and it is difficult to balance these initial adoption requirements with work. 

Pigeon will continue striving to move closer to a society with fewer hurdles to having children by flexibly responding to changes in society and employee opinion and expanding the career-forming and lifestyle choices available to employees with children.

2023.11