Asia Pacific Environmental and Occupational Health Journal

Objective: The National Occupational Safety and Health Convention is organized by JISHA to help improve the level of safety and health at workplaces. It does this by allowing business sites across Japan to present their daily activities and examples of improvements, and for participants to study each other. The convention also provides a useful forum for networking among participants. Method: This is a historic event, first held in 1932 and now in its 82nd year. In a long history, there were opportunities that members of the Imperial family, including the current Emperor when he was Crown Prince, attended. The convention is held for three days once a year in a major Japanese city. On the first day, ageneral meeting is held to present awards to those who have contributed to the improvement of occupational safety and health standards, and a keynote lecture is given. On the second and third days, more than 10 breakout sessions offer a diverse program of approximately 200 case studies and symposia, such as management systems and risk assessment, safety management activities, machinery safety, DX, zero accidents activity, and more. Findings and Conclusion: Thefollowing points could be the reasons why the event was held for more than 80 times and has become the largest occupational health and safety event in Japan, with more than 10,000 participants: 1) Information gathering - Participants can collect good examples of safety and health activities of other companies and apply them to their owncompanies. In addition, this will lead to the prevention of occupational accidents and improvement of occupational safety and health standards in their own companies; 2) Information dissemination - Safety and health personnel and workers can increase their presence and motivation by presenting their company's success stories. It can also show the company is committed to the safety and health of their employees, and therefore this can improve its corporate valuerating, especially from the perspective of ESG investment and CSR in recent years; 3) Commitment of top management - We have asked top management who believe that ensuring the safety and health of workers is fundamental to corporatemanagement to make a presentation, and this concept has taken root gradually. As a result, many managers consider the cost of occupational safety and health not as a cost, but as an investment for corporate management. In addition, it helped build a culture of safety and health in the organization; 4) Provision of new information - In recent years, we have planned breakout sessions that promptly respond to changes of the times, such as DX and diversity, and have provided hints for solving new issues or its new methods; 5) Provision of national occupational health and safetypolicies - By requesting presentations and lectures from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare and making participants aware of Japan's occupational safety and health policies, the program has helped achieve the goals of the national occupational accident prevention plan.

Keywords: practical study, convention, a networking event, safety first