Basic Concept

The entire group must work together to implement personnel policies, systematic human resource development for successors to senior management and all levels, and D&I activities to realize its slogan; "we hold dear a corporate culture in which our employees can proudly work with vigor and boldly engage in new endeavors," as stated in the Group VALUE. To this end, the Nisshinbo Group adopted the Group human resources policy of ”Business is people: Business success or failure depends on human intelligence and virtue,” and is pursuing the human resources strategy in accordance with the following eight basic policies.

Nisshinbo Group Human Resources Policy

Business is people ―Business success or failure depends on human intelligence and virtue^*－

• ①With regard to human resources able to contribute to the development of business now and in the future, Nisshinbo will
• ②Recruit, train and place people in the right job,
• ③Encourage enthusiasm and creativity,
• ④Maintain physical and mental health,
• ⑤Evaluate employees fairly and treat them appropriately, and

Provide ongoing training and allocate people generating appropriate earnings at each level and function.

* Intelligence and virtue: A compound of "talent and wisdom" and "moral conduct."

Nisshinbo Group Human Resources Strategy

• ①Formulate and promote personnel policies with a sense of unity and uniformity across the entire group.
• ②Create a workplace culture in which diverse human resources are motivated to work and take on challenges to improve business performance.
• ③Management executives and successors
  • ・Systematically develop leaders who can take on challenges and make changes in an era of uncertainty and a lack of right answers.
  • ・Create leaders who can compete globally.
• ④Managers and management candidates
  • ・Create managers who can drive the enhancement of commercialization and profitability through creation and innovation, and earn money correctly.
• ⑤General employees
  • ・Develop human resources who can respond to major trends in technological innovation and realize improvements in business efficiency and productivity.
  • ・Cultivate human resources who will be candidates for future reform leaders.
• ⑥Create a work environment where all employees can work in good mental and physical health and contribute to business performance
• ⑦Create a system that leads to the recruitment and promotion of excellent human resources through the integration of diverse human resources.
• ⑧Create a simpler and more balanced compensation system that reflects the activities and performance of diverse human resources.

Promotion System

Based on the human resources policy: "Business is people," under a system in which the director and the chief of the Corporate Strategy Center of Nisshinbo Holdings, Inc. is in charge, the Nisshinbo Group is committed to acquiring and developing human resources with a view to future business development. In addition, the Human Resources Group of the Human Resources & Administration Service Department of the Corporate Strategy Center holds a "Group Human Resources Division Meeting" twice a year to discuss human resources-related policies and issues across the Group.

The Group has set Key performance indicators (KPIs) and taken measures to achieve the goals in the Fifth Sustainability Promotion Plan, which are "Training of management candidates necessary for business promotion" and "Strengthen mid-career recruitment to improve the age structure of human resources."

• Sustainability Promotion Plan and KPIs

Specific Initiatives of the Nisshinbo Group

In the revised "Fifth Sustainability Promotion Plan," the Group has designated human resource acquisition and training as a key action items and is working on human resource management and development. The Group has set KPIs for ①Increase the rate of participants in the Successor Program in senior management posts (executive officers and above) and ②Strengthen mid-career recruitment to improve the age structure of human resources, and is promoting activities while implementing the PDCA cycle.

Recruitment and Retention of Human Resources

In order to create a group of human resources with more diverse backgrounds and to correct the age structure of the workforce, the Group is expanding the number of career hires in addition to new graduates (approximately the same number of new graduates and career hires). In order to ensure diversity, the Group is actively recruiting women and non-Japanese employees in particular. In addition, the following measures are being implemented to attract and promote excellent career hires.

• ①Maintain competitive salary levels
• ②Role grading system to clarify job descriptions
• ③Personnel system that enables early promotion regardless of length of service
• ④A multitrack personnel system that accommodates different work styles and occupational perspectives
• ⑤Improvement of working environment, such as teleworking system and satellite offices
• ⑥Enhancement of training and follow-up for career hires
• ⑦Employee referral system (referral system) to introduce employees' acquaintances
• ⑧Re-entry system for employees who retired for personal reasons (Re-join System)
• ⑨A system to provide leave and allowances for every five years of service (Discovery Leave System)

In the future, the Group will consider treatment for highly specialized and job-specific positions (job-based recruitment) and plan measures to increase flexibility in terms of work location and hours.

The Nisshinbo Group is implementing the following measures to prevent employee turnover.

• ①In addition to personnel evaluation interviews by supervisors, regular interviews using career sheets are conducted to support career development.
• ②The Nisshinbo Group operates the New Challenge System across the Group to increase opportunities for more employees with diverse values and occupational perspectives to develop skills and take on new business challenges on their own and to eliminate mismatches after joining the company or being assigned to a new position.
• ③Career training is provided as an opportunity to learn about the impact of environmental changes on careers and to consider new ways of working and learning in the future.

In addition, as a measure to prevent young employees from leaving the company, the Nisshinbo Group opens the Learning Management System to them from the initial job offer stage and holds round-table discussions with senior employees. In addition, the Group established a mentor system for employees in their first to third years with the company, and HR personnel conduct follow-up interviews and questionnaires to detect changes at an early stage and implement appropriate measures to help them adjust smoothly to life at the company.
Follow-up group training is held in the second, third, and fifth years of employment, and follow-up new employee training and career training are provided to ensure that employees remain with the company. In addition to evaluation interviews, regular supervisor interviews using career sheets are conducted to support career development.

Human Resource Training

Training System Chart

Digital Human Resource Development

From 2020, the Nisshinbo Group introduced Basic Digital Training as part of the training for new employees to establish basic digital-related knowledge to understand the latest trends. In addition, the Learning Management System introduced in 2021 includes digital-related courses as standard content, allowing employees to learn at their leisure.

In 2022, the Nisshinbo Group held an "Opinion Exchange Meeting on the Use of Digital Technology" for employees in their second to fourth years of employment by providing a forum for the discussion of ideas for improving operations and new digital businesses using digital technology beyond the workplace.

In 2023, with the aim of developing human resources who can utilize digital technology to solve problems in their respective workplaces, the Nisshinbo Group will expand education by focusing first on younger employees who are digital natives.

Career Autonomy Support

To encourage the challenge and growth of each employee, the Nisshinbo Group is implementing measures focusing on each individual.
The Group provides career training for each generation as an opportunity for each employee to regularly reflect on the individual career and to reconsider career aspirations.
As opportunities to take on new career challenges, the Nisshinbo Group has the New Challenge System, which allows all Nisshinbo Group employees to take on the challenge of transferring to a position they are aiming for and a self-assessment system. In addition, the Group has a mentoring system and career interviews as a mechanism to support employee growth.
The Group is also expanding the Learning Management System menu, which allows employees to take courses anytime, anywhere, on a wide variety of learning subjects.

Management Succession Planning

To develop successors to senior management, a list of potential successors for key positions at each company is prepared annually based on job grades common to the Group, and training is provided for potential successors. Specifically, for general managers and above, the Nisshinbo Group provides management mindset training to acquire a mindset appropriate for management positions; selective external training to acquire management knowledge, mindset, and role behavior; and practical workshops to acquire the ability to create and breakthrough in business.

Furthermore, since FY2020, Nisshinbo dispatched several participants to the Tokyo University of Science's Graduate School of Management of Technology (MOT) in order to develop managerial human resources that combine technical knowledge and management skills. At present, more than 50% of the participants in this program have been appointed to managing officer or higher positions at major companies.

Globalization of Human Resources

In the “Sustainability Promotion Plan” before its revision, the Nisshinbo Group set the goal of “promoting the globalization of human resources” and has provided cross-cultural understanding training for new employees, roundtable discussions with people with overseas experience, cross-cultural understanding training for those posted overseas, training at language schools for those sent overseas, and English and business Japanese language training jointly sponsored by group companies. In addition, the Group is promoting the development of globally competent human resources through measures to promote overseas experience for employees under the age of 35, subsidies for TOEIC and CASEC exam fees and transportation expenses, half-price subsidies for online English conversation courses, and subsidies for language correspondence courses and e-learning courses.

Specific Activities of the Group Companies

Group Training for Nisshinbo Group Employees in China

Nisshinbo Business Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. in China plans and implements group training and e-learning programs every year to develop human resources at Nisshinbo Group companies in China.

In FY2022, only three group training sessions were held due to the lockdown of Shanghai caused by the COVID‑19. Because of the travel restrictions, the training was basically held via the Web and was split into two days to maintain focus instead of one day as originally planned. For managers and employees below manager level, training in the areas of logic thinking and negotiation skills was provided with an emphasis on improving logical skills. In addition, to foster a sense of group unity, the corporate philosophy was explained, and the Group's history and products were introduced in the group training. E-learning, on the other hand, covered a variety of areas, such as rudimentary Excel and Word courses, manufacturing site management, EHS^*.

In FY2023 and beyond, the company will continue to publicize information not only on the training result but also the issues and directions that the Group should address.

* EHS：Environment, Health, Safety

Group Training

Nisshinbo Automotive Manufacturing Inc. in the U.S. plans and provides monthly group training and e-learning programs to develop human resources and to ensure safety.

The theme for the training for managers in FY2022 was set as “Employment and Labor: Best Practices You Need to Know.” In the Human Resources Department, simulation training for department heads was provided, as well as Labor Management Training and Skills Needed to Lead a Team Training for all department heads. As an area of focus, training was also provided to improve logic and competence in the areas of documentation, communication skills, and logical thinking.

In 2023, leadership training will be divided into three sessions and cover such topics as leadership behavior, engagement with subordinates, and how to evaluate subordinates. Through these training sessions, the company aims to build a better education system by sharing information on issues and directions that the group should tackle.

Enhancing Organizational Capability through Knowledge and Experience Sharing

Nisshinbo Saeron Automotive (Changshu) Co., Ltd. in China holds a study session once every two months in which managers in the manufacturing department take turns serving as lecturers by summarizing the books they have read, management methods they have studied, and work-related experiences they have had and presenting them to managers in their sections. Through this initiative, the employees who serve as lecturers not only improve their ability to prepare materials, public speaking skills, and business knowledge but also share their knowledge and experience to improve the organization's capabilities.

In 2022, six study sessions were held on such themes as "Safety Management at Production Sites," " the Analects of Confucius: Learn from Time to Time," and "Cask Effect (Bucket Theory)" with a total of 210 employees participating. This initiative has been ongoing for seven years, and the company believes it has made a significant contribution to human resource development and improvement of organizational capabilities, and the plan is to continue it in the future.

Chemical × Challenge × Career (“C-Training”)

Nisshinbo Chemical Inc. has been promoting organizational culture reforms, and as one of these reforms, the company started the Chemical x Challenge x Career (“C-Training”) program in FY2022.
In FY2022, eight employees requested to participate in the C-Training program for two to three weeks at the department of their choice.

The C-Training program has brought new insights to the departments that hosted the participants. In addition, the participants' own departments were also able to clarify their work and to think about operational efficiency. This led to a change in awareness and has also resulted in the formation of human networks through exchanges with employees in other departments.

After the C-Training, a debriefing session and completion ceremony are held, where participants present what they noticed in other departments during the C-Training and what they would like to incorporate in their own departments, providing an opportunity to raise the level of on-site capabilities. The C-Training program has been evaluated as a meaningful training program by both participants and host departments, and the company will continue to implement the program in the future.

Career Interview for Young Employees

Nisshinbo Textile Inc. conducts individual career interviews with external career consultants for employees in their first to fifth years with the company in order to support individual career development and revitalize the organization, as well as to develop human resources who can think and act autonomously in a changing environment.

In FY2022, the third round of career interviews was held since 2019, and 13 employees took part. For those who participated in the program for the second or more times, changes in the individual's environment and mental growth, as well as their proactive attitude toward fostering junior staff and promoting communication, can be seen, which indicates that the ongoing career interviewing has been successful.

Many participants expressed satisfaction with the interviews by commenting that "the specific advice they received was good" and that "they were able to look back and organize themselves." The company will continue the career interview program, including follow-up to retain young employees.