Guided by the corporate philosophy of operating as a partner for making people’s lives even more fulfilling and enjoyable
In FY2019, we established the Personnel and Education Division to strengthen training programs, increase diversity and upgrade skills of managers. All activities reflect our corporate philosophy and are structured to give people many opportunities to advance their careers. Training enables people to adapt to rapid changes in the business climate and take decisive actions based on an accurate outlook for the next phase of our growth.
For quickly giving people skills needed to become the next generation of managers, we have upgraded educational programs, provide support for determining and achieving career goals, perform talent management, and use other measures. We have training programs for specific levels of jobs in our organization in order to provide the knowledge for the required roles and other responsibilities. There is also a next-generation leader training program where we select individuals suitable for participation.
To increase workforce diversity, we recruit people of various backgrounds with the strengths and character to accomplish the goals of our growth strategies. We maintain workplaces where everyone, regardless of their backgrounds and characteristics, can fully utilize their skills.
To maintain a powerful and highly skilled management team, we are further upgrading management education programs and the visualization of information. We want to enhance management skills regarding the proper mindset as well as knowledge and information to enable our managers to originate and implement innovations.
Building a stronger workforce is one of the key components of our medium and long-term strategic goals. Our policy for training programs is centered on enabling our people to adapt to many types of changes and utilize strong leadership skills. To accommodate a variety of working styles as well as challenges created by the pandemic, we have classes with remote attendance and on-demand educational content for self-study. There are also courses that employees can select on their own based on subjects that interest them.
For greater workforce diversity, we started offering in FY2020 new working styles backed by an infrastructure (paperless and electronic processes) that facilitates telework. We also introduced extra payments to meet specific needs. In FY2021, we started a program that allows employees to have a job at another company in addition to their position at our group. To enable women to continue working at our group, we offer changes in their roles and job locations to reflect their lifestyles. Currently, more than 90% of women who take time off for child care return to their jobs.
We are building an even stronger team of managers by providing the visualization of manager candidates and performing adjustments to evaluations used for promotions to management positions. These steps heighten the transparency and objectivity of selections of managers. In FY2019, we started a 360-degree evaluation program for managers and leaders. To increase motivation, managers hold one-on-one meetings with people they oversee. In addition, we have redefined the proper characteristics for executive officers and other managers based on our long-term vision for how our businesses will evolve. We plan to use these new guidelines for evaluating managers and determining compensation starting in the next fiscal year.
As of May 1, 2022, 238 of our workforce of 754 (excluding non-permanent employees) were women, which is more than 30% of all employees. This gives us a substantial base for the promotion of women to management positions.
The number of women in management positions is increasing steadily. Currently, we have one female director, division manager, department manager and subsidiary executive officer and six department managers at subsidiaries. Female managers increased from 0.7% of all employees in FY2020 to 0.9% in FY2021 and 1.3% in FY2022. We are considering the establishment of a goal for more growth in the number of women in management positions. For promotions to these positions, we use the same standards for people hired directly after graduation and people hired after working at another company. More than 70% of people now in a management position at our group were hired with previous work experience.
We are committed to diversity for our key personnel. Adapting to the rapid changes in our business climate requires a powerful organization capable of constantly acting with speed to enlarge our business domain of total support services for the end of life. This is why we recruit people with the necessary skills irrespective of their gender, nationality or other characteristics. We place these individuals in career positions involving IT, planning, marketing, legal affairs and other roles. Furthermore, we provide workplace environments where they can fully utilize their skills and offer training for advancement to management and other jobs.
