Satake started an in-house day-care center 15 years ago to allow as many female employees as possible to continue to work actively for as long as possible. At present, there are hardly any women leaving the company after childbirth, and an increasing number of female employees are engaged in research and development and sales of food processing machinery and agricultural machinery, which have all traditionally been male-dominated fields. The company also encourages male employees to take childcare leave and avoid working overtime. As described above, the company offers programs to give its employees the flexibility to choose their individual work styles. Last year, the company started programs designed to help employees and their families spend more time together. One of such programs allows employees to take three days off per week during the school summer holidays in July and August. Despite these well-designed programs, many staff members who have direct contact with customers, for example, those of sales and services departments, are still working overtime. The next issue we need to address therefore, is to minimize the gap between the ideal and reality.