Human Resource Development

Management Approach

In order for us to continue our business and grow in the 21st century as a global corporation, all of our employees must efficiently, effectively, and completely achieve specific targets in line with our management policy and Company-wide actions. It is the “people” of a company who use their minds and act to achieve specific goals, so the development and invigoration of human resources is the most critical factor for the growth and advancement of our company. The Kawasaki Group Policy on Human Resource Management, the Group’s fundamental policy on human capital, also declares our commitment to continuously fostering human resources with the mindset to resolutely challenge change and to follow through on their own initiative. This commitment entails identifying by appropriate means the talents and ambitions of employees and enabling them to realize their ideal careers through work and skill development. Based on the above, the Kawasaki Group conceptualizes the development of human resources as follows:

• We carry out human resource development to grow our corporate performance, and improve our employees’ capabilities as well as their purpose in life.
• OJT (on-the-job training), self-development, and rotation are the foundations of human resource education.
• Off-JT is provided to support these activities in ways where the results of Off-JT can be practically applied in the workplace.
• The line manager is responsible for human resource education.
• Human resource education is to be conducted on an individual basis in a planned manner and on an ongoing basis.
• Opportunities for developing one’s abilities are provided to all employees from the time they are newly employed up to the time of their retirement.

The Kawasaki Group aims to nurture individuals equipped with sophisticated expertise and wide-ranging experience. To this end, we will systematically nurture future leaders, including executive candidates, while strengthening project risk management and developing global human resources. Specifically, we will provide consistent training and strengthening at all levels with the aim of realizing the following six desirable human resource attributes set out in our Kawasaki Group Mission Statement:

• Human resources capable of being active globally
• Human resources capable of solving the challenges of society and customers
• Human resources capable of supporting change and innovation
• Human resources capable of upgrading their expertise
• Human resources capable of displaying overall competence
• Human resources with a constant profit-oriented perspective

We have in place the Human Capital Development Department within the Human Resources Division. Also, common Group-wide education and training, such as level-specific development for junior employees, top management or other levels and training to foster globally capable human resources, is planned and executed by the Head Office Human Resources Division. In addition, the business segments each plan and execute education and training related to the particular abilities and skills required in their respective areas of business.

Human Resource Development Programs

During their first three years of employment, employees in administrative and technical positions receive a combination of structured OJT based on a mentoring program and a range of training content designed to help young employees develop their capabilities as quickly as possible. Furthermore, we provide programs that target employees on a wide range of levels including the Kawasaki management seminars and Kawasaki executive coaching programs, which are designed to train managerial candidates; the senior management course and middle management course, aimed at enhancing the capabilities of mid-level managers and section heads; and the 360-Degree Surveys, which are designed to develop awareness of strengths and areas requiring improvement by managerial and higher-level staff. We also develop human capital through means other than training, such as emphasizing the importance of communication to foster skills development in the execution of routine duties. In particular, individuals have quarterly one-on-one meetings with their supervisors and share their goals within their sections using a special sheet, titled the Challenge & Commitment Sheet, which includes the challenges they are taking on and their commitments.

*1 The participant target for the Kawasaki executive coaching program, which aims to expedite the training of executive candidates, was lowered from senior manager equivalent to section manager equivalent in fiscal 2021, with the number taking the classes increasing from 9 to 30 persons.

*2 Cancelled in fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2022 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In the area of production specialist training, we are promoting the transmission and enhancement of front-line production skills through a variety of programs, including the Skills Qualification Early Acquisition Incentive Program for younger employees and the Grand Master System, in which production specialists with a high level of special expertise are recognized as grand masters and work to systematically pass down their skills to younger employees. In fiscal 2023, two new grand masters were recognized, bringing the current total of active grand masters to five including those named last fiscal year. In addition, we actively participate in outside skills competitions, including the Skill Grand Prix and Hyogo Monozukuri (production) Skill Competition, achieving excellent results. In fiscal 2023, our employee placed second in the lathe category of the Hyogo Monozukuri (production) Skill Competition. In the Skill Grand Prix, we also took home one silver and bronze medal each, as well as the “Fighting Spirit” Prize.

To reinforce the leadership of production site supervisors, we provide senior foreman training and foreman training. For young employees, we provide basic training programs on KPS^* and quality control in which they learn about Kawasaki’s production systems.

^* KPS: The Kawasaki Production System, a proprietary production system developed by Kawasaki.

Note: Only those programs, etc. targeted at all Group companies and hosted by Head Office are included

• Technical Skill Contest
  In recent years, ensuring that the skills are passed down to the next generation has become a pressing issue, and Kawasaki is focusing efforts on education and developing the skills of young employees. Every year, young employees from production sites in and outside Japan gather at the Akashi Works for the Technical Skill Contest to compete against one another using skills they have honed at their work sites. Young technicians from Japan and several other countries take part, demonstrating their skills to the fullest as they compete with and learn from each other. The program has been postponed since fiscal 2020 in order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19, but we are considering reinstating it in fiscal 2024. By way of these kinds of initiatives, we continue to work to boost and maintain technical skills throughout the entire Group.
• Creating Opportunities to Pass Down Skills
  Aggressively promoting the transfer of technical skills to enhance production capabilities, the bedrock of our business activities, is essential. To this end, we opened Takumi Juku, a professional trade skills training center at the Harima Works, in 2012, and Manabiya, a manufacturing skills creation center at the Akashi Works, in 2014. Through synergies between existing skills training systems and the creation of opportunities to pass down technical skills, these centers are delivering results in terms of not only transferring skills, but also of acquiring new skills, quickly developing skills and instructors, and enabling employees to teach and improve one another’s capabilities.
• Skills Qualification Early Acquisition Incentive Program
  As part of measures to boost on-site capabilities, we have instituted a merit-based pay system to encourage the early acquisition of technical qualifications, and to reward those who obtain these skills promptly. These payments are made based on survey results conducted twice annually, normally in July and December. In fiscal 2023, 72 and 56 production specialists were rewarded under this system in the first and second halves respectively.

Since 2008, we have been implementing measures for global human resource development with the objective of further developing human resources who can support global business execution. Specifically, we implement the global business talent seminars. Furthermore, we work to enhance global human resource development, for example, offering an overseas internship system and Asian business training program aimed at globalizing domestic human resources as well as training support for local engineering employees at overseas sites. In fiscal 2018, we formulated the Kawasaki Bilingual Program, an English training program designed to assist self-motivated study. This represents yet another example of our efforts to develop an environment in which employees with career ambitions are supported by a diverse lineup of English training programs and empowered to pursue their goal of becoming global human resources.

In light of our business environment, specifically the fact that 60% of the Group is engaged in global business, we implement our global business talent seminars to instill a certain level of mental preparedness to work from a global perspective and gain skills related to overseas business. The young and mid-level employees from global business departments who comprise the participants of these seminars learn to acquire the mindset of a global perspective as well as decision-making criteria. They also obtain effective knowledge of business needed for global operations, including export management and financial knowledge, forming a diverse team to move our business forward. It is our hope that this program will be one key to achieving an open-minded, free-thinking, and creative team that goes beyond the boundaries of internal and external organizations and of product/service categories, leveraging our rich diversity—which is one of the main tenets of our Group Vision 2030 for the development of our business. 　Thirteen out of a total of eighteen in fiscal 2023 participants are engaged in overseas business as of March 2024.

Note: Language programs are also provided at each workplace.

*1 English-language skills series: Meeting (reading aloud and practical exercises), presentation, and negotiation training

*2 English-language writing series: Courses on technical writing (to fiscal 2019), business writing, and email writing from the elementary stage

The key to achieving Group Vision 2030 is for middle management—based on an understanding of overall policy of management strategy—to encourage modification of the actions in each division. As they move away from the “playing manager” and gain understanding of the mission of each division, they also train subordinates and at the same time strive to achieve the goals of the company vision as far as possible. By boldly addressing these issues, they are moving toward boosting their management capacity. Through these training programs for senior and middle management, we are working to develop the management-level employees.

The role of middle management is to achieve the goals of their division and to train their subordinates. The Middle Management Course has been in place since 2019 to raise awareness of the current circumstances and issues in carrying out the role and to acquire the leadership action and management skills required to reach these goals. Specifically, by looking back at their own leadership actions, participants deepen their self-awareness, understand the current circumstances of the organization, and learn about communication skills to facilitate self-initiated action by subordinates. This program is also implemented to accurately define our issues and set up an action plan to resolve them with a view to achieving the vision of the organization.

In recent years, we have seen a rise in project-oriented businesses with contracts for entire systems, including peripheral facilities, as opposed to standalone products. Accordingly, we introduced new training programs in fiscal 2016 to secure project managers able to execute such projects. The entire Group is working to enhance its project management capabilities, to this end holding Project Management Seminars to which we invite individuals from inside and outside the company with previous experience in large-scale projects as lecturers to impart the know-how required to lead projects to success, and the Project Management Course to acquire a systematic knowledge of project management.

We are nurturing human resources who can assume executive positions and contribute to the medium-to long-term enhancement of our enterprise value amid an increasingly harsh business environment. To this end, our pipeline of candidates encompasses an extensive scope of job ranks, ranging from assistant managers to executive officers, while our training programs are designed to address differing issues in light of their staff grades. As a specific initiative, we hold the Kawasaki executive coaching program (spanning nine months per fiscal year) for executive candidates selected from section manager equivalents. In addition to instilling participants with corporate management expertise, the program facilitates a deepened understanding of the true nature of corporate management at Kawasaki Group. This is achieved through deliberations involving external lecturers and corporate managers from outside the Kawasaki Group, as well as numerous group discussions. Using these means we aim to nurture in management-level human resources the capacity to embody our corporate philosophy by equipping them with optimal perspectives on the Group as a whole, as well as global perspectives on corporate management, toward the resolution of managerial challenges.

Amounts Invested in Human Resource Development

^* Salaries, bonuses, and welfare expenses