Relationships with Employees

We believe that each employee’s growth is namely the growth of the Company, and the NTN corporate philosophy can’t be achieved without each employee’s growth. Based on this idea, we are working on human resources development. Our ideal human resources are those who are creative, self-supporting, and global. We aim for sustainable growth by encouraging each employee to become a person who think and act for themselves.
In addition, to make an innovational shift from a “Manufacturing Company” with a history of 100 years to “a Company that Delivers Value to Customers through Products and Services,” while encouraging each employee to acquire more specialized skills, we are also working to expand specialized areas to take on challenges for new areas by constructing necessary information from several fields to solve various social challenges.
Human resources are the basis of corporate development. We aim for early development of innovative human resources who can continuously produce excellent results, and we especially work on improvement of skills to “spontaneously set ambitious targets, and achieve it by clarification of issues to be solved,” “exert his/her originality and ingenuity for targets, with belief in achievement of targets,” and “make people around him/her to be eager to cooperate,” for the purpose of meeting customers'needs and contributing to sustainable society by creating original and unique technology.

We develop human resources development program for employees of all ranks to encourage them to become persons who think and act for themselves for the purpose of improvement of operational execution capability and acquisition of knowledge, methods, way of thinking which are necessary to respond to skills requirement in accordance with employees'ranks which are classified by age and qualification, etc. The development of human resources who can play an active role not only domestically but also globally is essential to expand businesses for the next 100 years. To develop such human resources, we have enhanced the overseas experience program especially for the young employees. As human resources development programs for those who will take overseas assignment in the future, we have the International Trainee System, which is a one-year program aimed at improving language skills and operational skills by OJT at overseas business sites, and the International Challenge Training, in which newly graduated employees are dispatched to overseas business sites for three months for early development of language skills and skills to play an active role in a different culture. We also utilize the Overseas Study/Scholarship System to stimulate employees'passion for learning, and develop excellent, global human resources.

We promote development of human resources who can hand our proprietary technologies and technical skills down from our mother plant to worldwide manufacturing bases.

The Global QC Circle Convention and NTN Technical Skills Competition are annually held at Mie Prefecture where the Company was established.
The Global QC Circle Convention is designed to help improve worldwide safety, quality, and productivity as well as provide an opportunity for international interaction where information regarding various activities can be exchanged.
In the NTN Technical Skills Competition, employees compete with each other in demonstrating their skills developed in daily training, while using this opportunity to hand their proprietary technology down to the next generation by interacting with superior young technicians.

To improve employees'quality awareness, we provided a specialized quality education program to 127 employees during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, including topics such as “QC Basic Course” and “QC Advanced Course.” In our training, we provide quality education programs which renew the employees'awareness of the importance of quality by using educational materials showing past quality defects and cases of complaints.
In addition, a quality education program aiming for design development that prevents malfunctioning is provided for design and technology divisions.

The economic condition and social structure surrounding us have drastically and rapidly changed, including the shrinkage of labor force and the development of globalization.
We are working on transformation for sustainable growth, and one of the important strategies toward this transformation is promotion of diversity.
Fusion of various values and generation of flexible ideas, regardless of sex, nationality, culture, age, presence of a disability, lead to transformation. We will accelerate transformation by working to develop a workplace environment where each employee can take pride in the Company, find his/her work rewarding, and fully demonstrate his/her ability.
We will realize our corporate philosophy, “We shall contribute to international society through creating new technologies and developing new products” by promoting various diversity-related measures.

■Trend of female managers and supervisors at NTN (employees on NTN enrolled)

We developed a handbook about childcare leave and relevant systems for those who take childcare leave, and their boss to support the balancing of work and childcare. The creation of a handbook for both those who take childcare leave and their boss will result in an environment where employees who are planning to take childcare leave get more support from the workplace. In addition, in order to ensure smooth reinstatement, those who take childcare leave can contact the workplace and get various application forms at their own timing by utilizing communication tools. Also, we encourage male employees to take childcare leave. We work on awareness-raising activities by posting in the office posters of “IkuMEN Project (a project to encourage male employees to take childcare leave)” which is promoted by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Moreover, we post on the intranet interviews with male employees who took childcare leave, thereby encouraging other male employees to take childcare leave.

■Percentage of hired female graduates*

Regarding the employment of persons with disabilities, we have established three “Dream Workshops” at Kuwana, Iwata and Okayama Works. This initiative, implemented in cooperation with special needs schools, provides a work environment in which persons with intellectual disabilities can fill an important role. Also, we have worked on developing a workplace environment where employees in wheelchairs can work comfortably by promoting barrier-free environment in the workplace.
We aim to create a workplace where various types of employees can display their unique ability in a range of work sites (e.g. manufacturing site, management department, etc.). Many employees are also taking an active role in specialized operations.

Under the circumstances of decreasing birthrate and aging population in Japan, we are working to encourage experienced employees to take an active role as important workers. We develop an environment where experienced employees can continue to work after the retirement age of 60 by making use of their career experience, to hand their knowledge, technology, and technical skills down to the next generation.
In comprehensive consideration of their career experience, skills, workplaces, etc. to date, they can continue to work at any of domestic subsidiaries. Such structure resulted in 90% rehiring rate for those who reached the retirement age in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019.

We developed a handbook about childcare leave and relevant systems for those who take childcare leave, and their boss to support the balancing of work and childcare. The creation of a handbook for both those who take childcare leave and their boss will result in an environment where employees who are planning to take childcare leave get more support from the workplace. In addition, in order to ensure smooth reinstatement, those who take childcare leave can contact the workplace and get various application forms at their own timing by utilizing communication tools. Also, we encourage male employees to take childcare leave. We work on awareness-raising activities by posting in the office posters of “IkuMEN Project (a project to encourage male employees to take childcare leave)” which is promoted by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Moreover, we post on the intranet interviews with male employees who took childcare leave, thereby encouraging other male employees to take childcare leave.

Since we believe it is important to offer more work style options by making working hours and locations more flexible for various employees to take an active role in the workplace, we implemented the telecommuting system on a trial basis in stages from the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017. After identifying issues and taking improvement measures, we started the system in April 2019. We aim to further utilize the telecommuting system in the future, because the system will lead to heightened focus on performance, a work style with better quality, and enable the balancing of work and childcare/long-term care.

A rehiring system for employees who left their jobs due to life events. The conventional Mom-back System was only for those who left their jobs due to marriage, childbirth, or childcare, but we renewed the system to NTN Job Return Scheme in April 2018, enabling those who left their jobs due to long-term care to use this system. Furthermore, those who left their jobs due to studying abroad, job change, spouse’s job relocation, also became applicable to the system. Through this approach, we promote work-life balance as well as the development of an environment where former employees can make the most of their experience, knowledge, and expertise acquired in the company or other companies after leaving our company.

We provide maternity, childcare, and long-term care leave programs which are well developed beyond the legally mandated standards. Such approach leads to the system which allows many employees to continue their careers without suspension.
For example, the system of shortened working hours for childcare expands its scope to those who raise children who are in the third grade of elementary school or younger, and introduces staggered working hours due to childcare in Tokyo and Osaka. Such initiatives are far beyond the legally mandated standards.
We are not only working to develop such system, but also putting our heart into making the system become vitalized and convenient for employees. We are also trying to create an office culture where employees can make full use of the system.

We are working on productivity enhancement of indirect divisions through work style reform. Recently, the decreasing birthrate and aging population in Japan, and the consequent shrinkage of working-age population have been considered as issues. Under such circumstances, it is essential to develop a corporate structure which enables us to expand our business without increasing employees, in order to grow sustainably going forward. We, therefore, have promoted automation and improvement of efficiency by utilizing RPA (Robotic Process Automation) for routine and repeated operations in indirect divisions (e.g. head office, sales, technology, research, etc.). We aim to shorten the development period of new products by using RPA for routine operations, and allocating more human resources to high-value-added operations.
In the case of product design operations where RPA has been already introduced and utilized, the process from calculation of design to drawing up has been automated. As a result, the monthly operating hours for some cases decreased by approximately 73% to 20 hours. We intend to increase the number of applicable divisions in the future, and work to further improve the awareness and corporate culture to encourage each employee to spontaneously think and promote the automation and improvement of efficiency of his/her operation.

Our initiative to promote the taking of annual paid leave has started in the 1980s. Under the original keywords of “comfort and prosperity,” we have worked on the realization of work-life balance. We have maintained a high average utilization rate of annual paid leave, exceeding over 80% for over 25 years. Now we are aiming at a higher level, working to develop multi-skilled employees, conduct proactive job rotation, and cultivate a workplace atmosphere which encourages employees to take annual paid leave.

■Trend of annual paid leave utilization rate

We were selected as “Best Practice Company,” which works on proactive initiatives for work style reform, by Osaka Labour Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. We were highly evaluated for exceeding 80% of annual paid leave utilization rate for over 25 years, and initiatives for productivity enhancement and reduction of long working hours by utilizing RPA. We will continuously work on the work style reform to respond to diversified values and lifestyles proactively.

Based on the humanistic spirit of the “safety first” approach, we ensure safety and health in the workplace, and promote the development of the workplace environment where employees can work comfortably while keeping their health for the purpose of promotion of safer and better production. To that end, the Company and employees have been deepening mutual understanding and trust, applying our wisdom and passion, cooperating with each other, and making unremitting efforts to realize these goals.

We established the EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) Integrated Management Department on October 1, 2018. We will further strengthen management of environment and occupational safety and health, and improve effectiveness of the NTN Group, by promoting integrated management of the environment, health and safety that have attracted growing global interest.

We work on initiatives for the workplace with no occupational accidents at all global production bases.
We promote development of the workplace with no occupational accidents, under the global safety management structure where the President serves as chief director, the officer in charge as manager of corporate safety and health, and corporate general manager of each headquarter in Japan and general manager of each overseas region as management managers.
In case of an occupational accident, information will be shared via the system developed in our group within 24 hours regarding domestic occupational accident, and 48 hours regarding overseas occupational accident, in principle. In the case of a critical accident or other occupational accidents judged by the EHS Integrated Management Department to require the convening of a global safety and health meeting with each region, we discuss and standardize countermeasures in the meeting.

In our training, we promote education not only to instruct employees to conduct appropriate operations according to direction, but also to encourage them to be able to think and act for themselves. Specifically, we utilize actual machines and virtual hazard simulators and provide safety education to mainly young employees and less-experienced employees.
We are active in providing hazard prediction training for our employees to be more sensitive to danger. Additionally, we have introduced the program to assess each employee’s danger sensitivity and degree of daring to risk (survey of behavioral characteristic of safety issues), and utilized it as a communication tool between employees and their bosses.

Regarding dangerous places discovered by safety patrol, HHT-K*, and safety model men activities, we conduct risk assessment and take safety measures.
In the risk assessment, we estimate risk in each item of “a degree of injury,” “possibility of occurrence,” and “frequency of approach to risk,” and set priority for risk mitigation measures. Regarding risk mitigation measures, we discuss fundamental measures (abolition or change of dangerous operations, etc.), engineering measures (installation of covers or interlock, etc.), administrative measures (preparation of procedure manuals, etc.), and use of protection tools, in this order. Also, we clearly stipulate residual risk on sticky labels on facilities, and thoroughly manage them.

＊HHT-K : HHT-K stands for Hiyari HaTto Kigakari, meaning close-call incidents and concerns

We held an Occupational Safety and Health Meeting attended by management managers of occupational safety and health from all domestic business sites, including the Chief Management Officer of Occupational Safety and Health. Each year, presentations are given on a theme based on recent trends. This year, the keynote lecture examined the true nature of human errors and ways of eliminating them as its theme. Good practices were shared through safety activity presentations by each business unit, and safe and superior work sites were honored with awards, promoting the quality improvement of occupational safety and health.

To realize safety and health of all employees working at the Company, we have proceeded with a shift of certification from the conventional Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) to JIS Q 45100.
At the Kuwana Works, we have acquired the first JIS Q 45100 certification in this industry, and completed acquisition of certification for major domestic business units by June 2019. We continuously promote improvement of safety and health standards by observance of laws and regulations and further risk mitigation by P (Plan), D (Do), C (Check), and A (Action).

＊JIS Q 45100:
JIS Q 45100 is a standard that includes, as requirements, Japanese safety and health activities which are daily implemented in the workplace such as 4S activities (seiri (sorting), seiton (set in order), seiso (shining), and seiketsu (standardizing) and risk prediction activities, and initiatives to ensure employees'health, which have recently attracted growing interest, in addition to ISO 45001, the international standard for occupational safety and health management.

In view of the fact that proactive efforts to maintain and promote the health of employees are an important management factor that may affect the sustainable growth of the Company, we promote various measures to realize the workplace environment where each employee can display his/her ability to the utmost and work comfortably, in cooperation with the health insurance association.

Enhancement of atmosphere workplace

• ・Promotion of work-life balance, and prevention of long working hours
• ・Further vitalization of communication in the workplace
• ・Initiatives to promote balancing work and treatment of disease

Enhancement of mental health

• ・Improvement of workforce environment based on the results of stress check
• ・Prevention of mental illness by self-care and employee care overseen by the line manager
• ・Enhancement of mental health consultation system

Enhancement of physical health

• ・Appropriate health guidance and improvement of lifestyle based on the results of medical checkup
• ・Steady implementation of data health plan in cooperation with health insurance association
• ・Improvement of the participation rate of medical checkup for employee’s spouse

＊ Health management is a registered trademark of the NPO Health Management Research Association.