In April 2020, Sophia University established the Workstyle Reform Project, a university-wide cross-departmental project led by young and mid-level employees, which began planning activities with a focus on the future.
Following a proposal from the project team, in December 2020, Sophia School Corporation formulated a Declaration of Commitment to Employee Workstyle Reforms as a boost to the advancement of future initiatives. Also, to turn this declaration into concrete action, it formulated 14 initiatives for advancing workstyle reforms within the university.

Examples of the main initiatives
1)Introduce online approval methods
2) Project will visit all departments and share the status of activities through a collection of good practices
3) Carry out networking events and awareness raising activities (online and face to face) to deepen communication between faculty members, and events to foster dialogue between officers and faculty members. Consider and research working environments that make communication more dynamic.
4) Disseminate information through regular newsletters and briefings, etc.
5) Analyze and reform operations and consider specific measures for increasing operational efficiency

Going forward, staff will work together to launch daily improvement activities and to embody the university’s founding spirit with the aim of promoting education and research activities that seek to benefit students and society, realize diverse workstyles for employees, and raise morale and job satisfaction.

Multifunction Office Device Project (August 2022 to September 2023)
The Multifunction Office Device Project was a cross-departmental project that aimed to realize paperless work environments and make equipment management operations more efficient by combining and optimizing the functions of output equipment.
It started by trialing the latest multifunction office devices that combine the functions of various devices that had been installed on a standalone basis, such as printers, photocopiers, fax machines, and scanners. In academic year 2022, these were installed in areas used by administrative employees and in academic year 2023, the university-wide installation of multifunction office devices was completed through installation in areas used by faculty and students.

Courtesy of Fujifilm Business
Innovation Japan Corporation

The main advantages envisioned by the project are as follows.
1) Reduced environmental footprint (energy-saving operation, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, etc.: electricity consumption halved, reduction in plastic waste due to the elimination of 20,000 prepaid cards issued annually)
2) Further encouragement of paperless operations as output levels can be monitored collectively, raised awareness of paperless working (paper use will be reduced as a result of approximately 10% of photocopying use switching to scanning, and about a third of fax use being converted to paperless methods)
3) More effective use of space and creation of an environment where work is not restricted by location
4) Reduction in management and procurement costs through the unification of management methods
5) Simplified operations and reduced costs as various users and usage applications are operated through a single system

These activities were carried out with support from Sophia Campus Support Co., Ltd. and FUJIFILM Business Innovation Japan Corp. We will continue to advance activities that are not restricted by previous practices and that incorporate workstyle reform and SDG perspectives.