To ensure the Nittobo Group remains the “Best Partner” for all stakeholders and continues to contribute to the creation of prosperous communities, we believe it is important to value and harness the capabilities, thinking, and views of every employee in the Group. The Mid-Term Business Plan as well has the “fostering of human resources for innovation” as a priority and focuses on cultivating human resources for innovation.

To utilize the potential of the Company’s diverse human resources to the greatest extent possible, we have continuously improved both the personnel system to increase individual’s motivation and the training system to foster their growth.
In our vision for 2030, Big VISION 2030, we will work to cultivate the next generation of leaders, global human resources, and professional human resources. We will actively work to expand management measures to promote individual motivation, self-driven learning, and career development under the theme of fostering human resources for innovation, which is the foundation for creating business growth and driving reform.

Conventional stratified training is held for personnel, from new graduate entrants, young employees and newly promoted management personnel, through to department and division managers. To complement this standard training, Nittobo launched its Successor Development Programs in fiscal 2018. These programs are designed to match the growth stage of each employee, focusing on young employees and middle-rank employees, in order to develop future leaders. These programs consist of intensive group training for business skills and action learning using practical cases we need to resolve. Through the training, these programs develop understanding about the role of senior managers and improve managerial qualifications. In today’s unprecedented business environment, developing business persons who can overcome preconditions is an indispensable activity. We believe it leads to an essential pillar for business strategies. Nittobo will systematically develop the leaders who drive our businesses.

To prepare for further globalization of the Company’s business, it is essential that Nittobo develops human resources and creates a corporate culture that enables diverse human resources to fulfill their potential. We are enhancing mechanisms that support the voluntary efforts of individuals to become who they want to be, such as providing opportunities and systems for employees to engage in online English classes, and also to travel overseas to study foreign languages, participate in internships, take MBA courses, and work at research institutes.

Nittobo’s training policy is for employees to pursue development as specialized professionals in their areas of specialization and work to establish their core skills on the path to becoming managers. We introduced the Meister Program in fiscal 2018 at manufacturing sites and are systematically promoting skills transfer. For sales representatives and diagnostics medical representatives (DMRs), who have frequent contact with customers, we provide solutions-based training in solving problems facing customers and link this training to improvement of professional skills that enable these employees to further enhance customer satisfaction. We also provide wide-ranging support for individual skills development, offering a program to assist employees in obtaining public qualifications necessary for work and a distance learning assistance program that includes e-learning.

Training courses are important for any human resources development policy, but it is also important to encourage individuals to be motivated to learn, to carefully consider their career aspirations, and to implement development measures that match their ideas and expectations. To this end, we implement one-on-one meetings to stimulate communication between superiors and subordinates.
In addition, we are implementing management measures to promote growth, such as the creation of the Human Resource Development Committee, which includes supervisors, management, and the Human Resources Department. The new committee will discuss future training measures and career development for employees. We have also instituted interviews with employees at age 30, after they have experienced a range of work tasks, to reflect on their careers and discuss future career development. In addition, we are also in the process of expanding our management training for employees who will be responsible for these activities.

Nittobo are working to improve employee engagement through reforms to personnel system and our human resources development policies. The status of these efforts is regularly monitored through employee awareness surveys, with feedback then provided to employees.