Human Capital

Governance

The CSR Promotion Committee, chaired by our President & CEO, is the highest decision-making body in the company for promoting CSR initiatives, including those relating to human capital. The CSR Promotion Committee is composed of all of Nippon Soda’s directors, executive officers, and general managers of our business units and major Group companies in Japan. The committee holds regular meetings twice a year to set, evaluate, and review targets by management for continuous improvement and to spiral up the PDCA cycle.

Strategy

We have established in our Long-Term Vision, “Brilliance through Chemistry 2030” and Medium-Term Business Plan, “Brilliance through Chemistry Stage II”, a human capital management vision titled “Employees with Brilliance”, and various initiatives are being promoted.

In promoting these initiatives, we strive to create a virtuous cycle in which each and every employee, with the diverse values and strengths they possess, plays an active role in the organization, which energizes it, enhancing productivity and profits, and leading to further employee success. The primary policies and measures are as follows.

Human Resource Development Policy

With “Employees with Brilliance”, we have set forth the ideal image of our human resources throughout all job categories and levels, in which they should be “autonomous and able to learn, think, and act on their own initiative”. With this at the core, we are studying and implementing various measures to respond to changes in our company’s human resources, particularly the increasing numbers of female employees in key positions, the smooth transition from veteran employees to the next generation, and the diversification of work styles and ways of thinking about one’s career.

In recent years, we have introduced a multi-track personnel system for key personnel (stratifying employees into leader and expert tracks based on their aptitudes), a career development support system (individual questionnaires, interviews with HR and supervisors, and career training for employees up to their 15th year with the company), an early selection system for management positions, and the establishment of the NISSO Technical Training Center, a facility for manufacturing site employees (to pass on skills and develop human resources capable of operating manufacturing sites that are both safe and highly productive).

Internal Environmental Improvement Policy

In addition to the first section of “Employees with Brilliance”, it also states that employees should “maximize their abilities by practicing flexible and efficient work styles”. Based on this, we introduced an open-plan layout at our head office and sales offices, as well as establishing telecommuting and staggered working hour systems. Additionally, a home office system has been implemented for some sales office employees as a means of reducing the burden of travel between their homes and their sales areas. Other measures are also in place to help employees with children balance their work and private lives, such as providing childcare leave, restrictions on overtime work, and shortened working hours to an extent that exceeds legal mandates for those raising children up to the sixth grade of elementary school.

We are also actively promoting health management. We believe that maintaining and promoting good health not only improves the quality of life of each individual, but also revitalizes the organization to which they belong by increasing their motivation, which in turn improves corporate performance. The Health Management Promotion Division was established in FY 2023 to unify the efforts of industrial healthcare professionals, which had been scattered across different workplaces until then, and to promote company-wide health measures.

Furthermore, as another step in our other efforts to improve the internal environment at our company, an engagement survey of employees was launched in FY 2023. We will use the information gained from these surveys to make fixed-point observations with the goal of making improvements to the internal environment going forward.

Risk Management

In consultation with the relevant departments that have risk jurisdiction, risks are identified, their impacts assessed, and critical factors identified on an annual basis, then plans are developed to handle these identified risks. These plans are assessed and reviewed by management in the CSR Promotion Committee, then incorporated into the overall corporate management plan.

Metrics & Targets

The metrics and targets relating to human capital are as follows.