Commitment
from Management

Bringing Fashion Freedom to Everyone
Freedom for All Staff to Take on Challenges with Confidence

CEO, GU CO., LTD.Osamu Yunoki

Diversity and Inclusion are
GU’s core values

GU’s brand message is “YOUR FREEDOM - the freedom to renew yourself ”.

Since GU’s foundation, we have made a promise to our customers of “enabling everyone to enjoy fashion freely.” That’s why it is truly necessary to promote Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) if we want to continue to honor the promise of including everyone. I believe strongly that D&I represents the core value of fashion that GU strives to offer to our customers.

The Desired Brand for Everyone to Enjoy Fashion Freedom

At GU D&I is at the heart of our product developments and fashion offerings for our customers.

In our stores, we actively offer a variety of fashion items for mixed styling that transcend the framework of women’s and men’s clothing. They are communicated visually through mannequin displays and the clothing worn by our sales staff. We also present a wide selection of sizes to our customers with different body types so that they can choose the best fit to enjoy the latest fashions.

Furthermore, the core theme of ageless and genderless has been one of our main themes in commercial messages and on the social media we use to connect with our customers.

When we invited three generations of families to a shopping event at GU stores, I was delighted to hear them say things like “I realized it’s easier for me to try the really tempting ones by coordinating with my grandchildren” or “I thought the item was designed for younger generations but it’s a perfect fit for me. I feel very comfortable”. It was wonderful and exciting to see the customers shopping so happily. The event once again made me feel the amazing power of fashion, which brings joyful smiles to so many people.

We believe in the power of fashion. That’s why we are determined to become a brand that allows more and more people to enjoy the pleasure and the freedom of fashion.

Building the Company and its Teams to Energize Everyone to Feel Confident and Keep on Taking Challenges

Having said that, I think our staff can enjoy fashion with even more ease and pass on their delight to our customers. That’s why we strive for a working environment where everyone can work with greater confidence and comfort while continuing to take on career challenges.

The reality of Japanese society is that the responsibility of child rearing falls on women. We have been improving various measures to support our staff’s parenting needs. Similarly, more staff are actually taking paternity leave with active encouragement.

We are also building much better working environments so that we can benefit more from the merits of working as a team. Each of us works and lives in different circumstances while we face changing life stages. So, we aim to create better teams in which all of members can appreciate their differences, cooperate and help each other. In that way, I strongly hope that everyone can carry on working with greater confidence and comfort.

About 60% to 70% of GU customers are women. As we strive to do business well to satisfy our customers by always exceeding their high expectations, we greatly value the viewpoints of women staff. But that’s not the only reason why we are committing ourselves to the earnest and dedicated aim of promoting women staff to be more active and successful. We really want each and every one of us to be able to make full use of our talents and abilities without any restrictions, regardless of differing life stages and circumstances. That applies equally to people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ staff, and staff of different nationalities. We also provide D&I training programs for managers in order to fully promote D&I.

I am pleased to say that our staffs’ ways of thinking and behavior have been changing as a result of these commitments. That is mainly because all of us recognized the big differences it has made. For instance, we noticed the adverse effects of thinking that because someone is a woman or a person with disabilities that would lower the performance of a team, even though such thinking or behaviors were subconscious.

People with Differences Coming Together, Meeting the Expectations and Needs of our Customers

I think this working environment, even though it empowers the staff with greater confidence and comfort, is not fully sufficient to enable a team to meet the higher expectations and the needs of our customers. I think it’s important to have both “confidence” and a “challenger spirit.” When I think of a truly pleasant environment to work in, I believe it’s a company or a team that greatly appreciates the staffs’ challenging spirit and one that offers many opportunities to develop every staff member’s potential.

In that sense, we are proud to have cultivated a working environment in which everyone can continuously pursue this challenger’s spirit. It has been one of the most powerful engines that supports the growth of the Fast Retailing Group, including GU. There are equal opportunities here for everyone to take on challenges.

As GU offers a multitude of fashion ideas to our diverse customers, we need to continue our commitment to build a workplace with richer diversity. We strive to raise the value of everything we offer to our customers, and that’s why we are making determined efforts to recruit more people with greater diversity so that everyone who join us shines brilliantly with the company.