Human resource development

We established our Policy for Human Resources Development in October 2022 and announced it inside and outside the company. We are developing employee education and training plans based on this policy. We will ensure that all employees know and familiarize themselves with this policy through various training programs.

We, the DOWA Group, motivate each employee to strive for opportunities to better themselves.
To do that, we offer fair opportunities to study to those who are willing to learn, regardless of their position, age, gender and work location.
In our human resources development policy, we base on to further develop strengths, not to correct weaknesses.

Japan continues to grapple with its declining birth rate and aging population. The Labour Force Survey conducted by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications listed Japan’s working population in 2021 as 59.31 million, dropping 800,000 from the figure reported in 2011. Compounded by the recent decline in birth rate, Japan’s labor force seems set to shrink at an even faster rate in the coming years. This continued decline will affect the working population in rural areas more severely than in urban areas. We are mindful of this fact, as several of our bases are located in rural areas. As a result, it is extremely important for the Company to secure a labor force. Initially, we will expand the scope of our hiring activities and step up Groupwide efforts to support hiring at each location and share know-how. We will also continue to conduct regular interviews with young employees, among other efforts, to motivate employees and improve communication between supervisors and their team members. In addition to encouraging the steady growth of new employees through systemized training throughout the workplace, we intend to raise employee engagement by introducing surveys for all employees.

In FY 2022, as part of our efforts to secure human resources, the cornerstone of our business development, we worked to strengthen our recruiting capabilities at each of our Group companies. At a meeting of labor relations managers, we shared the concept of planned recruitment, how to develop a recruitment plan, good practices in handling recruitment among Group companies, and actual recruitment know-how, and promoted the creation of a system for planned recruitment at each company. To reduce the turnover rate, we have strengthened interviews to prevent a feeling of mismatched employment after joining the Company by providing prospective employees with specific information on a wide range of topics, including job content, workplace environment, and corporate culture, to ensure that they understand all the details before joining. After joining the Company, pre-assignment and second-year interviews are conducted to improve retention rates. In addition, we launched a job satisfaction survey in FY 2022 to gather employee opinions.

At the DOWA Group, based on the principle of “evaluating employees on their ability to work autonomously,” we are working for fair evaluation and treatment under the following policies.

• For evaluators and those being evaluated, deepen understanding of the standards and structure of the system and utilize appropriate evaluations and training.
• While sharing organizational goals and getting an understanding of the abilities and behavior required of employees’ according to their position, try to improve their work performance.

The training of evaluators and those being evaluated is positioned as a Groupwide initiative, and we therefore strive to create opportunities for continued learning, with appropriate evaluation, treatment, and training.

The Group’s major manufacturing sites have company housing and dormitories for single employees. In areas where company housing or dormitories are not available, the Company provides rented housing to employees. In recent years, company housing and dormitories for single employees have become outdated, and we have been sequentially rebuilding or outfitting them to ensure comfort by improving the living environment and stimulating interaction among employees.

Up to now, we have promoted position-based education in order to raise the level of organizational power across the entire organization. Going forward, we will emphasize developing human resources with the drive to learn and bring about change that will help build an organization that continues growing. In times of great change such as today, it can be difficult to ascertain the “right way” of doing things. However, we believe that the creation of an organization that allows each and every employee to show their full potential will help increase organizational power. On the other hand, position-based education remains extremely important for the development of new and young employees, and for that reason we will continue with its implementation. However, we are planning a transition to an educational approach that focuses more on the individual and on enhancing the specialties of individuals. We will also develop a platform that allows employees to further their education when they so decide and build a system that supports proactive employee learning at any time.

From new employees to managers, the DOWA Group has established stratified education according to job classification and has set up an educational system of selective education in order to nurture the next generation of leaders at each level of the organization. In FY 2022, we reformed our internal education system, shifting from focusing on group training to selective training and creating a system that provides fair opportunities for those willing to learn. Specifically, we have established and begun operating an environment where online training is freely available. As we move forward, we aim to create a culture of self-directed learning by making it obligatory for employees to participate in online training programs while taking advantage of the benefits of online training, which can be taken without being restricted by schedule, time zone, or region.

• Enhancing training programs for employees working on the frontlines in the field
• Preparing enhanced online training programs that employees can take if they wish to learn regardless of day, time, or location
• Introducing an organizational operation program to increase team strength by utilizing members’ strong points to concentrate the strengths of each employee instead of individual abilities

Every year, DOWA Holdings hires approximately 50 new employees. The first form of education for these employees is new-hire training. This is an important program that forms the basis for our human resource development, a support structure for the Company. Our basic policy for this training is to “cultivate full-fledged people within three years of joining the Company,” with the goal of developing “autonomous human resources.” The Company does not hire for any specific job type or business. Since people joining the Company will branch off into a variety of careers, we treat the first three years of employment as an intensive training period for new employees. To facilitate future career development after this period, we have also systematically established a human resource development system that combines a curated collection of group training programs with on-the-job training (OJT).

Our training center was fully renovated in March 2023. In implementing this renovation, we restored functions that had deteriorated over time and improved the facility to accommodate online training courses in the rooms, strengthening the function of promoting employee interaction. Since the renovation, we have also resumed face-to-face training for the first time in around four years, also due to the relaxation of basic measures for COVID-19 by the government.