Initiatives to Develop an Organization in Which Employees Can Feel a Sense of Job Fulfillment

In November 2019, Sumitomo Rubber Industries conducted an Organizational Health Survey and has since then endeavored to improve its organizational culture via the implementation of the “Be the Change” (BTC) Project. In order to transform our organizational culture, this project aims to achieve four basic policies, namely, “developing an environment supportive of those who take on challenges,” “creating an open-minded workplace free of boundaries between departments and grades,” “enabling each individual to exercise leadership” and “pursuing highly productive operations aligned with Groupwide strategies.” To this end, we periodically monitor the status of improvement in the organizational culture through, for example, Organizational Health Surveys, with the aim of ensuring that measures undertaken via the BTC Project steadily take root and are entrenched among the workforce.

In 2019, we launched the “Be the Change” (BTC) Project to rebuild our organizational structure. This project takes a cross-sectional approach to the across-the-board promotion of various activities, with the aim of enhancing both our organizational culture and profit base. The project has also defined such priorities as “securing the involvement of management,” “taking on major challenges” and “promoting workstyle reforms.” We are thus striving to address organizational issues via solutions that transcend departmental boundaries and are otherwise engaged in Companywide efforts to create an even better organizational culture.

Sumitomo Rubber Industries has developed various career development support systems designed to motivate employees to take on challenges and empower them to pursue autonomous career development.

Under this system, employees are allowed to register their career visions with a database so that their desires are known to the departments they are currently assigned to as well as to the departments they would like to be transferred to in addition to the departments in charge of human resource management. We thus aim to enhance employee engagement by respecting the values of each employee while invigorating job rotation within the Company.

Based on interdepartmental collaboration, this program enables particular departments to exchange human resources for a fixed period of time, with the aim of nurturing human resources equipped with extensive experience and broader perspectives, which will, in turn, enable such personnel to serve as bridges between departments.

This system allows employees to apply for membership in in-house projects irrespective of their current departments. Such projects give participants opportunities to take on challenges and gain experience in operations that may differ widely from their regular duties without being transferred. Moreover, departments in charge of managing projects can benefit from offering in-house postings that attract diverse human resources from other departments.

The Sumitomo Rubber Group evaluates all its employees in an objective and rational manner in accordance with its performance evaluation system, thereby determining the wages granted to each. The performance evaluation consists of annual evaluation as well as biannual evaluations for first-half and second-half achievements. The annual evaluation is designed to assess the degree of improvement in an employee’s ability to carry out their occupational duties in line with prescribed job requirements, with the aim of motivating them to develop their competencies while providing a basis for determining fair wages. The biannual evaluations for first-half and second-half achievements involve a six-month assessment of performance against a target management chart for each employee, and assessment results are reflected in the content of bonuses. In fiscal 2018, we updated items assessed via these biannual evaluations by incorporating “challenge targets.” By doing so, we strive to foster a corporate culture supportive of those who take on challenges. As we aim to ensure that employees are fully confident in their evaluation results, we notify them of said results through face-to-face interviews with each person. We have also clarified evaluation items and processes to enhance their transparency. Furthermore, we provide all managers and supervisors, including those newly appointed to these positions, with training on staff performance evaluation on an as-necessary basis to ensure they possess the required capabilities to conduct fair evaluations and meaningful interviews.

Once a year, the Sumitomo Rubber Group carries out the screening of candidates who could be appointed as managers or to other managerial positions and offer promotional examinations for those willing to be promoted to assistant managers. Candidates can apply for appointment or promotion upon obtaining recommendations from their supervisors.

We initiate these annual procedures by conducting preliminary assessments of each candidate. Taking into account the results of these assessments and referring to their past achievements as previously recorded in earlier evaluations, our officers, along with staff at the Human Resources Department, exercise fairness when screening recommended candidates. In this way, we determine appointment or promotion for these individuals.