The Work Style Reform and revisions to the Industry Safety and Health Act (ISHA) has become effective since this April, enhancing functions, duties, and responsibilities of industrial physicians (company-designated medical doctors) in maintaining the health of employees and the labour management. The employer must designate at least one doctor at the working place with 50 or more to less than 3,001 employees, based on Article 5, ISHA. The employer must appoint 2 or more industrial physicians in case of employing more than 3,000 employees in one working place, according to Article 13 of ISHA. The following are primary tasks of industrial physicians; ① visit and inspect the working places of the employer at least once per month ② participate in the internal health and sanitation committee ③ immediately provide the necessary recommendations for the employee’s health care to the employer when it is deemed necessary to maintain the health of the employee. ④ give proper advice and guidance to the sanitation management administrator on the employee’s health care management. If the industrial physician is not found, it is better to ① check with the medical institution that handles the health diagnosis; to confirm the presence of a qualified industrial physicians, and consult the appointment, ② ask the parent company, or group companies, which designate medical doctors, whether the company can appoint the same doctor as the industrial physicians. When appointing industrial physicians, the employer has been obliged to supply them on the following information on working hours of the employee since April 2019; ① The name of the employee whose “overtime / holiday working hours” per 1 month exceeded 80 hours, the information on the working hours exceeded by the employee, and the information on the work of the employee deemed necessary for health management ② Follow-up measures to be taken after annual medical check-ups The above-mentioned enhanced provision of the working hour information is in line with the strengthening of the interview guidance by the industrial physicians. Based on the information of working hours, the industrial physicians must provide the employee face-to-face guidance and interview, if the employee wishes. If the employee is covered by the highly professional work system*, spending more than a designated length of time in the workplace, the employer is obliged to ensure that the employee is interviewed by and receive guidance from the doctor, regardless of the employee’s willingness to have guidance from the doctor. If the employee, whose overtime working hours do not exceed 100 hours a month, requests an interview and guidance from the doctor, the employer must make efforts to arrange an opportunity for the interview and guidance. (*highly professional work system (white exemption system): Workers who have a clear scope of duties with specialized skills and a definite annual income above a certain level (currently expected to be 10.75 million yen or more per year) will be excluded from regulations regarding the working hours, holidays, extra wages for late-night work.) The industrial physician may make necessary recommendations for the employee with regard to health care of the employee when it is deemed necessary to maintain the health of the employee. In this case, prior to April 2019, the employer merely needed to respect these recommendations. Since the revisions to ISHA in April 2019, when receiving recommendations from the doctor, the employer is obliged to report the content of the opinions and recommendations by the doctor to the internal health and sanitation committee or the internal safety, health, and sanitation committee. On top of that, the employer is obliged to record and save minutes of the committee, take specific actions to maintain the health of the employee based on the recommendations. ① Reporting overtime working hours by the employee Based on the revision to ISHA, the employer must enhance collaboration with the company-designated doctor after April 2019. The employer must objectively monitor and manage working hours of the employee and report the working hours to the industrial physicians, including the ones of managers and supervisors. The employer shall report in a designated document format to the doctor. For instance, the employer is expected to report on a monthly basis the number of the employee, who did overtime and off-day work for over 80 hours a month. The employer is required to report the data to the doctor, even though there were no employees that had over 80 hours of overtime and holiday works. ② Reporting the necessary measures to improve maintenance of health care of the employee Based on face-to-face interview and guidance with the employee, the industrial physicians must provide opinions and recommendations to the employer to improve the situation. The employer is obliged to report to the doctor the measures taken based on the doctor’s recommendations to improve health care status of the employee in a designated report format. Having checked and confirmed the situation after the actions taken, the industrial physicians shall make additional recommendations to the employer in order to improve the situations further. Based on ① and ②, the employer is obliged to report to the internal health and sanitation committee, record minutes on the doctor’s every single recommendation. ③ Accommodation of a face-to-face interview system between the employee and the doctor To enable the company-designated doctor to achieve the appropriate management of health of the employee, the employer must endeavor to establish a system to accommodate an interview between the employee and the doctor, if the employee requests, who did over 80 hours of overtime works per month or did under 100 hours of overtime works per month for the employee under high professional work system. . ④ Dissemination of the industrial physician among the employee When appointing the industrial physician, the employer must disseminate the employee the duties of the doctor, the way to request for a face-to-face interview and guidance regarding the handling of the information on health care management issues of the employee. The industrial physicians and attorneys for labour management and social insurance are expected to share information on working hours of the employee and take measures for better labour management and health care management of the employee. From the viewpoint of health care and medical care management, the industrial physicians and attorneys for labour management are required to propose solutions with added-value to the employer and HR division that are optimal from the perspective of medical and labour law and labour management.