The social environment has changed dramatically in recent years, and in this era of uncertainty, the so-called volatility,uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) era, workstyles and individual values are diversifying. In order to keep up with the pace of change, individuals and organizations will need to be autonomous, and the relationship between companies and their employees is expected to change. Employees must proactively contribute to companies by developing their careers on their own based on their expertise and strengths. On the other hand, companies must create growth opportunities for employees and do their utmost to support employee efforts to develop a future career vision. This indicates that a major shift in values is taking place as the role of managers pivots from management to growth support. Since fiscal 2023, theGunze Group has established a new system that allows employees to further realize their aspirations regarding career design, and the Group is working to invigorate personnel exchanges through strategic rotations that place the right person in the right job. Especially for younger employees, we intend to establish a system that enables them to design their own careers in order to foster adynamic organization. At the same time, we will work to motivate mature employees, who make up half of the staff.We expect mature employees who have supported theCompany for a long time to continue contributing further to the business. At the same time, we believe it is necessary to support mature employees in building their own second careers with the era of 100-year lifespans in mind. In addition, we will standardize activities to systematically pass on skills to younger employees—an important mission for mature employees—and to blend together skills and know-how. It is said that a company’s growth is the sum of its employee motivation. We will promote the passing on of skills from mature to younger employees while also aiming to get younger employees up to speed quickly. In so doing, we will improve motivation and engagement among all generations in order to maximize the GunzeGroup’s human capital and, in turn, enable sustainable corporate development.
Human Resources Strategy
Human resources are our greatest management resource. We are fostering a corporate culture in which all employees can fully demonstrate their abilities with a sense of job satisfaction, which is the cornerstone of corporate competitiveness, to become a healthy and visionary company.
The Gunze Group has formulated a management strategy under the key phrase “Transform and Challenge” to realize a sustainable society in its Medium-term ManagementPlan VISION 2030 stage1. Promoting the evolution of our corporate constitution as part of our human resources strategy, we have established a basic concept of our human resources strategies based on the above that is linked to this evolution. We will promote the creation of an organizational climate in which diverse human resources can play an active role, with the aim of enhancing the growth and motivation of all employees. In Particular, we set KPIs for the ratio of women in managerial roles from the perspective of promoting women's active participation, for men’s paternity leave utilization rate from the perspective of providing child-rearing support, for the annual leave uptake rate from the perspective of reforming work styles, and for the engagement score from the perspective of reforming corporate culture.We generally performed well in each category in fiscal2022.
| KPIs Fiscal 2024 Targets |
Fiscal 2022 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Targets | Results | ||||
| Evolution of OurCorporate Constitution |
Promoting women’sactive participation | Ratio of women in managerial roles | Over 6% | 4% | 5.1% |
| Providing child-rearingsupport | Men’s paternity leave utilization rate | 50% | 30.0% | 36.0% | |
| Corporate culture reform | Engagement score | 70 points(estimate) | 64 points(estimate) | 62 points | |
| Work-style reform | Annual leave uptake | 75% (15 days) | 14.0 days | 70.1% (14.1 days) | |
Human Resources Management PolicyBased on our human capital strategy aimed at maximizing human capital, we define the type of human resources we seek as those who can accept different values, think and act on their own initiative, and provide value in their areas of expertise. We will employ a diverse workforce mainly in terms of gender, nationality, age, and values, provide opportunities for education and training that support independent career development, and give employees a chance to play an active role through placement strategies that drive individual autonomy and organizational growth.All of this will ultimately lead to sustainable company growth. Furthermore, we have formulated a human resources management policy that concentrates on the three pillars: diversity, autonomy, and success.
Promote Human Resources and Independent Career DevelopmentIn order to foster a corporate culture that encourages independent career development, we believe it is essential to create opportunities for individuals to learn and consult about career options to find their own direction and to express and choose their own career path. In fiscal2022, beyond existing level and career training, we expanded our support by providing opportunities for employees to think independently about their careers through such measures as establishing a new voluntary women's career workshop program, expanded career design training, ongoing 1-on-1 meetings, and promotion of recurrent education. Starting in fiscal 2023, we established an HRS Committee (for sharing human capital information) to promote the strategic allocation of the right resources in the right places based on independent career development aimed at improving employee engagement and maximizing human capital.
Established Career Support Desk (from May 2023)
As we enter the era of 100-year lifespans, employees must design their own careers, determine their life goals and career vision (life career), and work toward them in order to achieve independent career development. In order to actively support these actions, we have recently established a Career Support Desk, through which the Company Helps employees deal with the various issues that arise in their duties together so that they do not have look for solutions alone.