Human Capital

Nippon Kayaku’s talent assessment system is chiefly based on a performance assessment. This assessment, which covers every employee, begins with the assignment of work commensurate with each person’s role and responsibility at the start of every financial year. While implementing their tasks, each employee will determine their annual work targets in meetings with their superior, and work towards those targets over the course of the financial year. The employee will then confirm progress with their superior at a Mid-term Results and Target Achievement Status Meeting held once every six months. Finally, with the coming of the new financial year, both employee and superior will review and assess the previous year’s performance, and set targets for the year ahead. The results of these reviews will be reflected in employee bonuses.
In addition to a performance assessment, the talent evaluation system for non-managers is comprised of two further parts: a challenge assessment and a process assessment. The former assesses the targets the employee has voluntarily set, while the latter assesses the process by which they achieve those targets. Our overall aim is to increase employee work-motivation and engagement through assessing not only targets and degrees of achievement but the processes for getting there, thus linking company growth to the personal growth of the employee, and aligning the former with the self-actualization of the latter.

So that we may flexibly respond to the dramatic changes in the business management environment, and with the aim of finding the right people for the right jobs by matching those with the proactive willingness and ability to perform with the workplaces most in demand of them, we have opened up our recruitment process to external applications. FY2024 saw us conduct open recruitment processes for two posts, both of which successfully resulted in job transfers. By offering challenging opportunities to the employees who desire them, we thereby promote career autonomy, support employee career progression, and connect that to improved work engagement.

With products being increasingly difficult to differentiate these days, the “people” who provide products and services are becoming a major element of business competitive advantage. Therefore, he extent to which we can utilize our talent has become a major Nippon Kayaku theme too, giving rise to our belief that more rewarding work and greater purpose in life for each individual employee will feed into yet greater corporate value.
FY2025 saw 2,233 employees (including full-time, junior, part-time and senior partners) take part in our 3rd Employee Engagement Survey. Nippon Kayaku’s overall score was 49.7, an improvement of 1.3 points upon the previous financial year. Through this, we were able to recognize that improvements have stemmed from the action plan fixed and implemented in response to issues emanating from analysis of each business site’s structural conditions. From a companywide perspective, while “manager support” and “workplace unity” scored highly just as last year, “appropriate recruitment and deployment” and “growth and future prospects for business” exhibited low-scoring trends. From this, we glean that we have not yet fully become the kind of strong organization than can conquer market competition, and that room for improvement exists regarding organizational climate and systems. We are therefore fixing action plans for every business site and conducting related improvement activities in our quest to improve engagement. We shall continue moving forward with dialogue and improvement activities based on the latest survey results, and driving reforms which allow every employee to work with real vitality, as we seek to foster a comfortable and rewarding organizational climate.

Nippon Kayaku is working on optimizing working hours and reducing instances of long working hours. Specifically, we have set up a Working Hours Management Advisory Committee, comprised of both management and labor representatives, which demands and reviews twice-yearly reports from each business site on working hours management surveys, related measures and initiatives.
We also provide training for supervisors, managers and talent managers, and set up study group sessions cosponsored by both the management and labor sides.
While respecting laws related to working hours and Article 36 Agreements (which stipulate overtime limits agreed upon by the company and labor unions), we have fixed a policy of “no more than 45 overtime hours per month in principle, and an upper limit of 80 overtime hours per month.”
We are even going beyond the mere observation of laws with various initiatives including management of workplace entry and exit, objective register management, and appropriate management of overtime for supervisors and managers.

Since renewing our labor agreement in 1998, Nippon Kayaku Co. Ltd, and the Nippon Kayaku Labor Union have maintained healthy relations based on mutual labor-management trust. Under the Union Shop System, with the exception of managers and a section of contracted workers, union membership rates stand at 100%.
With respect to the union, the company endeavors to disclose as much information as possible, earnestly respond to matters in line with its negotiation policy and have management directly convey its policies on business management, safety and health by convening the Central Joint Labor Management Council three times a year. We also hold a Central Management Round-table Conference once a month, sharing information pertaining to the company’s situation, deepening mutual understanding of issues, and discussing ways of resolving issues. We also make efforts to promptly convey the details and results of such meetings to employees.
Issues concerning individual business units are discussed at each unit’s annual Joint Labor Council and monthly Management Round-table Conference. Through the shared awareness of issues, relevant discussion and opinion exchanges allowed by these meetings are we aiming to deliver a more comfortable workplace.

With the aims of either forestalling, or fairly and promptly resolving, workplace harassment situations, we are now setting up a Board of Grievances. The Board comprises equal numbers of company and union representatives, and operates around a system which guarantees impartiality and transparency. Instances of employees bringing harassment-related complaints see the Board conduct confirmation hearings and investigate related parties, explore and implement remedial measures, and fix anti-recurrence measures. The Board will also bring in members from related business sites when situations demand as it prepares the framework to deliver appropriate and effective judgments. It also engages in maintaining and improving the overall anti-harassment system through complaint response management, improvement measure follow-ups, and continual workplace environment checks. Overall, it seeks to create a workplace in which employees can work safely and effectively through publicizing its consultation service, distributing guidebooks, and delivering management training. For example, in order to promote the forestalling of harassment situations and a workplace with higher levels of psychological safety, FY2025 saw us deliver Respect Training to 50 management members of our Safety Systems Division, and 21 management members at our Kashima Factory.

FY2025 gave rise to two violations of the Labor Standards Act, concerning the exceeding of limits for monthly overtime (80 hours) and special provisions (6 times). In both cases, the labor union and Human Resources Department promptly conducted hearings with senior members of the organization concerned to confirm the reasons for the violation and anti-recurrence measures. The Human Resources Department also delivered working hours management training to the workplaces concerned. We view with the utmost seriousness the occurrence of the same violation for two years running and have consequently implemented emergency inspections for working hours management. We also plan to further strengthen our training programs related to working hours management.

Nippon Kayaku has introduced the following Welfare and Benefits System to support the lives of its employees.