A Message from the Executive Officer in Charge of Human Resources

“Valuing One Another,” “Seeking Out Challenge” and “Engagement” as Keys for Organizational Development

“Our Philosophy,” the Sumitomo Rubber Group’s corporate philosophy structure, defines the “SRI Way” as an important value that all employees should keep in mind. The SRI Way consists of three tenets: “Being reliable and worthy of trust,” “Seeking out challenge” and “Valuing one another.”
Of these, we place the greatest emphasis on “Valuing one another” from an organizational development perspective. This is so-called “mutual respect” that is to think and act out of respect for the feelings and circumstances of the other party. When each employee has this attitude, it improves human relationships in the organization and strengthens the connections between people, thereby increasing both organizational productivity and work quality. This also helps promote another of the SRI Way values: “Being reliable and worthy of trust.”
In addition, “Seeking out challenge” is also an important value for organizational development. Our Purpose states, “Through innovation we will create a future.” This is because taking on challenges is indispensable for innovation. However, innovation is not only about creating something from nothing. It is also about scaling up from 1 to 10, or 10 to 100. Innovation is the process of creating something by combining various ideas. This combination of ideas is more likely to be generated and accelerated rapidly in workplaces where the aforementioned “Valuing one another” is an important theme. I recently came across an exemplary case of what we consider to be an excellent organization. Our factories are engaged in activities to improve safety and quality. On a regular quarterly visit to a domestic factory to receive reports on their initiatives, one of the teams delivered a fantastic report. Judging from the presenter’s demeanor and the content of the presentation, I could sense the quality relationships in their workplace and the great pride that the presenter took in belonging to this workplace.
This made me realize once again that a good organization must have highly engaged employees who are attached to the organization and act to solve organizational issues with a sense of ownership. I believe the ideal organization would be one in which such people demonstrate leadership, set tasks toward the desired state, and involve others in solving them.

Improvement of Our Organizational Culture and Operational Reforms as Two Key Components

Sumitomo Rubber has been aware of issues associated with our organizational culture, including an environment unsupportive of those taking on challenges, outdated leadership styles, boundaries inhibiting communications, and low productivity. Since 2020, we have annually conducted in-house questionnaire-based surveys regarding the status of our organizational culture in order to quantify the health of our organization in more detail.
However, the response rates from our manufacturing divisions had been low. As a manufacturing company, we needed data reflecting the actual situation more accurately in order to implement improvements that included the manufacturing divisions. When we examined why the response rates were low in the manufacturing divisions, one of the reasons was that the time spent answering the questionnaires was considered “a waste of time” that could drive up production costs. This made them hesitant to answer. Therefore, response time was budgeted for each factory in 2023. As a result, the overall survey response rate, including the manufacturing divisions, has increased significantly from previous years to more than 90%.
Analyzing the results has revealed that there are significant differences in scores between workplaces. Therefore, a meeting was held between the plant managers of each base, the officer in charge of production, and the project secretariat of the Human Resources & General Affairs HQ to discuss what the scores of the survey results meant. Our stance regarding improvement measures is that we first encourage them to face and solve workplace issues on their own initiative. Going forward, we hope that each workplace will work autonomously to make improvements.
Furthermore, for issues that should be addressed by the entire Company, regardless of department, “Task Force Ambassadors” were appointed from each workplace in 2020. Since then, they have been acting as project evangelists, motivating and directing our employees to improve our organizational culture. In total, more than 50 ambassadors took on this responsibility. These ambassadors have been renamed “Change Leaders” in 2024 and will serve as leaders in solving issues in their respective organizations in cooperation with the officer or general manager in charge.
We also established the “Business Transformation (BX) Headquarters” to improve operational efficiency, and I became its first General Manager. As business process reforms drive up productivity and as performance improves, employee engagement will also increase. We hope to create such a favorable cycle among the organization, human resources, and operations by addressing both organizational culture improvements and business process reforms.

Tackling the Assignment of Managerial Level Positions and Other Challenges

The second issue, related to the first, is the assignment of positions for women. To become a company where employees with diverse attributes and work styles can perform vibrantly, we must focus on creating and promoting female leaders. We are collaborating with the DE&I group to consider the appointment of female managers. The Human Resources Committee is also discussing the question of “Who will be the next- generation female talent?”
The third issue is to follow up on overseas talent. Initiatives to improve the organizational culture started in Japan, but the situation overseas remained untouched. Going forward, we plan to assess the current status of overseas human resources and identify issues. In addition, the Company holds dialogue sessions in which top management and employees frankly share their opinions face-to-face. In 2024, we expanded this program not only in Japan, but also to our overseas bases, starting with Brazil. Overseas, there are many employees who are enthusiastic and interested in “Our Philosophy.” By engaging in high quality dialogue with them, we will enhance the sense of unity between the Company and its frontline worksites.
The fourth issue is to formalize and utilize case studies of turning points in management. Last year, we withdrew from two businesses: the business of rubber parts for medical applications and the gas hoses business. The business divisions in charge are well aware of the circumstances and causes that led to the withdrawal, but this is not the case for other divisions that are not directly involved. We should clarify why the two businesses were let go and share the lessons learned to utilize within the Company as a whole.
We will first discuss this measure among the Executive Officers, and then use the case studies to identify issues regarding the organization and how to proceed with projects. In particular, I would like to clarify issues related to human resources and organization, which is my area of responsibility. We are considering incorporating the results into training programs for managers and supervisors to be used for next-generation management personnel development and other purposes.

Putting Our Heart and Soul into Solving Organizational and Human Resource Issues

Companies have a going concern assumption, which is the assumption that they will always continue to exist. In order to continue operating, a company must be profitable in the long run and be recognized by society for its value. We want to be a company that is accountable to its stakeholders for short- and mid-term business performance and makes business judgments with an extended time axis, looking 10, 20, 50 years into the future, and even beyond.
In order to establish an organization that drives us towards this goal,we must thoroughly consider and discuss the nature of issues and challenges regarding the organization and human resources. Furthermore, it is crucial that we continuously explain the significance of the action plans for problem solving to those who implement them. We will put our heart and soul into these initiatives and promote the improvement of our organizational culture and operational reforms through dialogue with our employees.