Human Resources Strategy

A personnel system that focuses on the individual

NTN Group has established “Prosperous human development” as an ESG issue. We aim to cultivate a corporate culture that enables our employees to “grow” and “work enthusiastically” through our business activities, as well as to nurture a diverse workforce that is motivated and satisfied by their work. “Work enthusiastically” is not something that is easily defined across the board. Everyone has their own priorities depending on the environment they are in and their age. We continue to strive to be a company where everyone can find their own passion for their work.
Traditionally, the company has taken the lead in forming the careers of their employees, but in future, we will look to enhance the system to enable staff to take stock of their own careers and realize their own destiny. Of course, no company can fulfill all dreams. In an environment of diverse workforce, employees will consider independently their careers and be daring. The company is there to support this. I believe that if we are to be an organization in which individuals can thrive, an essential element of our future human resources strategy must be encouraging individual autonomy and daring.

Adoption of personnel system for managers based on work criteria

One of the six priority actions to achieve the Medium-term Management Plan starting this year is “Achieving independent growth and career autonomy.”
As a specific initiative, in April 2024 we changed the personnel system for managers from a system based on “human proficiency” criteria to a system based on “work” criteria. The concept for the system change is autonomous career formation. We are trying to eliminate seniority considerations from the personnel system and enhance the in-house recruitment system. Employees should think and decide for themselves about what they want to achieve through their work and how this can contribute to the company. This is a system that allows them to gain the necessary experience and knowledge. The result of encouraging individual autonomy and daring is the development of a system that empowers staff to realize their career dreams. I believe that the outcome will then be a virtuous cycle whereby the organization grows in parallel to the individual.

Transforming our business structure is an opportunity to focus on improving personnel visualization and diversity

Under the previous Medium-term Management Plan, we took action to “secure stable human resources for sustained growth.” Concrete results included diversified hiring methods and the start of the “NTN Next Leader Program,” a selection-based course aiming to broaden the pool of leadership candidates and to develop talent early. Actions to increase engagement also continued with the employee engagement survey and based on the results, workplace improvement activities.
Meanwhile, one challenge in the future human resources strategy is “increasing diversity.” Looking to 2035, NTN Group is targeting aftermarket sales ratio of 40% under the business portfolio transformation strategy. To achieve the strategy, we must strengthen the ability of our organization to manage business portfolio transformation. The challenge will be to identify the personnel and technical capabilities needed for each business and organization, and the visualize the potential and qualifications of each individual employee, be it their skills or their career. As the business environment becomes ever less certain, we believe that combining the characteristics, viewpoints, knowledge, skills and experience of each and every one of us will strengthen our organization. Moreover, given that NTN Group has an inverted age pyramid structure dominated y men, the nascent Medium-term Management Plan will be focused on increasing diversity.
With the keywords of “comfort and prosperity,” NTN Group has ensured the importance of people in its business activities to date. While investing in human capital may not seem to directly lead to an increase in corporate value in the short term, without people, not only will we not be able to improve the value and quality of goods, our very business would become unviable. It is clear from our track record that investing in human resources and improving their capabilities will lead to the creation of new corporate value. Rather than looking at the balance between investment costs and results from a short-term view, we should do what is required in a timely manner to achieve our vision for the next five to ten years, leading to a sustainable increase in NTN Group’s corporate value.

NTN Group has established “Prosperous human development” as an ESG issue. We will cultivate a corporate culture that enables our employees to “grow” and “work enthusiastically” through our business activities, and we will sustainably increase our corporate value by developing our personnel systems and working environments to maximize and grow the value of our human capital. This is the practice of “human capital management,” through which we intend to achieve “Prosperous human development” by fostering an organizational culture that works to resolve various societal issues and improve our economic, environmental and social value, as well as by nurturing a diverse workforce that is motivated and satisfied by their work.
The strategy for achieving “Prosperous human development” consists of five pillars: “Securing human resources who will lead the next generation to take on the challenge of transformation,” “Creating a rewarding environment that respects the diversity of employees,” “Fostering a culture of learning and development in the workplace,” “Realizing a workplace where employees can work safely and healthily in an environment enabling innovative thinking” and “Respect for human rights.”
As specific actions, we will support the change as intended by the “accelerated transformation to the business structure” policy under the Medium-term Management Plan. In order to achieve the optimal vision of the Group, the priorities of the human resources strategy have been developed from either the perspective of “Securing and developing human resources” or “Fostering organizational culture.” The priorities are “Enhancing the technical capabilities required to achieve the management strategy,” “Developing management talent to lead the Group,” “Achieving independent growth and career autonomy,” “Diversity, equity and inclusion,” “Transformation to a workplace of daring and mission” and “Mindset transformation based on the NTN SPIRIT,” and we are progressing work on each priority.

The priorities for action to achieve the Medium-term Management Plan, based on the five pillars of the human resources strategy, are as follows.

Securing and developing human resources

Enhancing the technical capabilities required to achieve the management strategy

To transform our business structure (business portfolio transformation), drastic and proactive initiatives are vital, as are bold moves into new markets, so the organizational capabilities and human resources required to achieve the strategy are also changing. If we are to fulfil the Medium-term Management Plan policy of transforming the business structure and the strategy to achieve this, it is important to secure the necessary organizational capabilities. This is ongoing, with capacity building, assigning the right people to the right posts, and strengthening the recruiting structure, combined with securing more diverse external personnel.
As a specific initiative, in April 2024 we changed the personnel system for managers from a system based on human proficiency criteria to a system based on work criteria in order to promote the active participation of diverse human resources regardless of age and gender, as well as to support those who offer their expertise and uniqueness to contribute to the business. In the aim of promoting diverse talent and securing and developing professionals with a high level of technical expertise, we have also set up courses for each of these so that both management personnel (heads of organizations) who are responsible for running teams and personnel who hone their expertise in specific fields and areas can best succeed in their careers.
Looking ahead, by embedding this new human resources system and working to establish personnel system and structure enabling younger staff to improve their technical capabilities will gain us better organizational capacity, because employees will be able to take steps to increase their technical capacity themselves and take on the challenge of entering new fields.

Developing management talent to lead the Group

In order to achieve our management plan in such uncertain times, it is vital that NTN Group methodically develop managers who can lead us forward. In addition to forming a talent pool of leadership candidates who can achieve results, with the top executive and the Personnel Department joining forces to develop these leaders, we are pursuing manager development from a long-term perspective by running a managerial development program for managers, including young business leaders.
As a specific initiative, our “NTN Next Leader Program” selects young managers and systematically teaches them a curriculum to imbue the necessary thinking and knowledge for business leadership.
In future, we will methodically develop management talent and rapidly appoint them to posts by defining the necessary skills and establishing an early selection system that applies to candidates from age 30.

Achieving independent growth and career autonomy

Through growth based on independent career plans and career development, and by supporting employees to fulfil their career plans, we can achieve sustained growth of both our employees and the organization.
As a specific initiative, in April 2024 we adopted a personnel system for managers based on work criteria. By thoroughly eliminating seniority considerations from our personnel management, promotions can be achieved by stepping up performance at work. We also overhauled our in-house recruitment system as a way for each employee to fulfil their vision for their career. In future, we will establish a system that encourages the autonomy of each employee and enables them to realize their desired careers by bedding in the in-house recruitment system, enhancing measures to support career autonomy such as career training and career counseling, strengthening human resource development programs, and strengthening our understanding of employees’ career intentions through the self-reporting system, which will lead to the growth of our employees and the organization.

Fostering organizational culture

Diversity, equity and inclusion

We are working toward “creating a rewarding environment that respects the diversity of employees” in which every individual can express their talents to the greatest extent possible. This is because our organization is made up people with diverse technical specialties and experience and by turning those differences into a strength, taking on diverse perspectives and theories, we can realize innovation and new value creation on a daily basis.
As a specific initiative, in order to recruit people with diverse technical specialties and experience, we are expanding our mid-career hiring. The ratio of mid-career hires was 6.7% in FY2021, growing to 21.3% in FY2023.
In future, mid-career recruitment will expand further. We will develop the conditions and the system for proactive hiring to responsible posts in Japan and abroad. We are working to create an environment where the characteristics and values of each employee are recognized and respected, where each employee can be adventurous and display the full extent of their talent.

Transformation to a workplace of daring and mission

Under difficult conditions, maintaining or improving our competitive advantage requires the creation of even more unique value. Rather than resting on the laurels of past successes or relying on precedent, we believe it is vital to create a workplace culture that empowers a brave attitude informed by constant new ideas.
As a specific initiative, we have boosted incentives for reaching necessary targets. This has been done by fostering motivation - incorporating challenging targets and timely follow-up in the target management system - under the new management personnel system, as well as by adjusting the mechanism for performance evaluation and benefits.
In future, we will become an organization that rewards daring and initiative to motivate employees, by ensuring a new target management system and evaluation system, as well as by developing new mechanisms for managing corporate performance and performance evaluation.

Mindset transformation based on the NTN SPIRIT

To achieve the long-term strategy, we have to lure exceptional talent and for this, fostering a company culture of strong engagement is very important. By sharing “the NTN SPIRIT” with all employees that clearly states the mindset and actions to be pursued, the vision for the company, what it exists for, employees can find more meaning in their work. This increases the number of employees thinking for themselves and taking the initiative. Creating serious attempts for transformation in this way will not only lead to increased corporate value, but also the growth of employees, a sense of unity in the organization and lead to increased engagement.
As a specific initiative, town hall meetings are held on a regular basis to align the mission of the company and the value of its existence with the personal values of employees through employee-management dialogue. A staff engagement survey is also conducted to monitor the situation of employees and the workplace, identify any issues, with a view to improving the workplace and personnel measures.
In future, we will listen to the views of employees through means such as workplace improvement activities based on the results of the staff engagement survey. Employees will be proud to work for NTN and we will boost motivation and engagement by ensuring our corporate philosophy reaches all corners of the company. Further, to progress these priority actions to achieve the Medium-term Management Plan, it is essential that employees’ mental and physical health and safety is protected. We aim to “Realize a workplace where employees can work safely and healthily in an environment enabling innovative thinking,” based on the basic stance that the health and safety of NTN Group employees is the most important value of all to be respected in all business activities, as the basis of our business.

The indicators and targets related to the priority actions under the Medium-term Management Plan are as follows.

■List of indicators and targets

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