Japan
Sustainability Report 2023Basic policy on human resources and human capital
Suzuki’s Mission Statement sets three goals for all employees of the Suzuki Group to understand and strive for: a goal toward carrying out a company’s social missions (making products), a goal for the corporate organization that they belong to (building the company), and a goal for themselves (developing human resources). Based on these goals to strive for, the President is personally leading various reforms related to human resources development in keeping with the belief that human resources development is the cornerstone of a company. In October 2022, the organizational structure was reshaped with the reorganization of the Human Resources/General Affairs into the Human Resources Development Division. The Company is focused on developing people unique to Suzuki who embody the Mission Statement and Philosophy of Conduct.
Additionally, Suzuki aims to achieve a carbon-neutral society, which is its social mission, and finds itself in a period of once-in-a-century major transformation known as CASE. In this environment, Suzuki must deal with major changes that would be unachievable if it remained a conventional automaker. To this end, Suzuki is working to recruit and develop a diverse spectrum of human resources, including personnel who can boldly take on new challenges, personnel with diverse experiences and values who can generate new ideas, personnel with sophisticated expertise, and personnel who can succeed globally.
Furthermore, Suzuki will work to build a company in which employees with unique personalities can demonstrate their abilities in working toward common goals, create outcomes of even higher added-value, and continue to work vigorously while feeling job satisfaction and purpose. This will be accomplished by encouraging staff to take on the challenge of achieving high goals and fostering a culture that values individual effort in line with the spirit of the Mission Statement.
More recently, Suzuki has been listening to the voices of employees more closely than ever, conducting thoughtful dialogue between labor and management, and advancing reforms through various personnel and general affairs measures, such as drastic changes in the personnel system, bold revision and abolition of operations, workstyle reforms, and improvements in working conditions. Through these efforts, Suzuki aims to transform itself into a company that every employee is happy to work for.
In-house education system
Suzuki’s education system is comprised of three pillars, which are group training, in-house workplace training, and voluntary skill development. Suzuki Juku, in charge of education, provides Company-wide, cross-functional education, including rank-based training, based on the philosophy of our Mission Statement. They also collaborate with engineering and manufacturing departments to conduct job-specific training (basic) seminars for knowledge and abilities needed for execution of operation.
Human resources development concept
「The following types of training are carried out based on the concepts of “enhancing the basic abilities of new recruits through to young employees” and “planned and continuous learning with rank-based follow-up.”
(1) Training to enhance the basic abilities of new recruits through to younger employees
Provide stage-based learning opportunities for younger employees in their second through to seventh year in the Company based on the year of entry and on subjects from basic behaviors through to team building.
(2) Training planned to develop employees with job titles
Training for newly appointed employees with job titles and follow-up seminars will provide continuous learning opportunities.
In job-specific training, necessary skills are clearly defined according to each individual’s attributes, and training is planned and implemented to acquire those skills.
Moreover, online training is being expanded to enable employees to obtain effective learning opportunities amid a time of diversifying work styles as one aspect of work style reform.
■ FY2022 training data
| Number of employees on a standalone basis (as of March 31, 2023) |
16,550 |
|---|---|
| Number of training participants | 74,800 |
| Annual training expense per employee* | ¥26,100 |
* Excludes costs for on-the-job training, in-house personnel expenses and facility operations, etc.
■ Training system
New human resources development initiatives
Introducing problem-solving methods
In its operations, Suzuki found some incidents in which employees had made a cursory analysis of the causes of problems and hurried responses, resulting in rework and wasteful activities, thereby spurring on the shortage of manhours. In response, Suzuki has begun introducing shared Company-wide problem-solving methods from June 2021, as part of efforts to improve each employee’s problem-solving skills by boosting their capacity to identify the true cause of problems and their ability to solve them. Project teams are working to promote widespread adoption and regular use of these methods. Since FY2022, the problem-solving methods have been integrated into Company-wide training.
Dispatching young employees to startups
Suzuki has started dispatching young employees to startups, with the aim of reaffirming its basic principle of fostering an entrepreneurial spirit to face difficulties and pioneer a way forward, expanding horizons and knowledge, and increasing each employee’s sensitivity to trends outside the Company. In Japan, Suzuki has dispatched staff to M2 Labo. Inc. since 2020. Beginning in August 2022, the Company has also dispatched staff to SkyDrive Inc. to sow seeds and develop “flying cars” into one of Suzuki’s new mobility businesses to follow automobiles, motorcycles, and marine products. Overseas, Suzuki has dispatched young employees from various internal divisions to India, where digitalization is evolving rapidly, through the Suzuki Innovation Center (SIC) since November 2022. It has started an innovation generation activity that will lead to social contribution in which Indian Institutes of Technology students and Suzuki employees contribute ideas and develop IT products with the goal of solving issues that people face in their daily lives.
Harnessing the abilities of Indian personnel
Suzuki is pursuing new fields, including its response to CASE, primarily in Japan, while transferring operations in existing domains to India. Local Indian personnel, including Maruti Suzuki India employees, and Japanese personnel are mixing together and working as one, with a view to enhancing the education and training of Indian personnel further than before. These efforts will improve development capabilities in India and boost Suzuki’s overall competitiveness.
Training in Silicon Valley
Suzuki began dispatching staff to Silicon Valley in September 2017 to learn design thinking, which is a problem-solving method, and to embrace the venture spirit of taking on challenges without fear of failure. So far, Suzuki has dispatched a total of 173 people to Silicon Valley on 16 occasions to learn from local startups that embody a “focus on the customer,” which is a major element of Suzuki’s Mission Statement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Suzuki has provided online training to a total of 103 people on 10 occasions. Personnel with a wide range of titles and levels, from executives to young staff, have participated in the training, with the President also attending. Following the training, personnel have applied the things they have learned, such as design thinking and the mindset of taking on challenges without fear of failure, which they learned locally, to daily operations, new projects, and human resources development.
Digital education
The use of digital technology to identify and solve issues has been rapidly increasing. At Suzuki, various digital technology-related activities and decision-making processes are quickly expanding. Accordingly, Suzuki is working to ensure that officers as well as Executive General Managers and all other employees, understand the purpose of digital technology, and have digital literacy, knowledge and skills.
<Main digital education activities>
- (1) Management voluntarily changes not only their awareness, but also their behavior (e.g., switch from paper to digital documents)
- (2) Reduce back-office tasks by 50% using digital technology based on the slogan “Simple Work!”
- (3) Revamp the mission-critical enterprise system with the aim of achieving data-driven management (deploy ERP)
- (4) Provide Company-wide education to facilitate data utilization
- (5) Meet customer needs by ensuring that the Company and customers connect through all manner of customer touchpoints
- (6) Nurture and assign digital technology professionals in the Company to accelerate the process of digitization by conducting it in-house
Efforts for career advancement
Suzuki believes that setting high goals is an excellent way to grow one’s self and that such a trail in itself is the DNA of Suzuki. In order to cope with rapid changes in the market environment, every single employee must set higher goals and strive to acquire higher technical expertise. Suzuki implements a human resource development program that supports such individual challenging spirit.
Goal Challenge System
Suzuki believes that not simply following various instructions from supervisors but voluntarily setting goals and striving to accomplish them is an excellent way to achieve selfimprovement. Our Goal Challenge System was introduced to allow employees to set and achieve higher goals. In this system, employees confer with their supervisors every half period and set specific goals to be achieved over the course of six months. Through this process, employees can clarify their own contribution to the goals of the organization and improve motivation toward them. In addition, this can be expected to have the effect of supervisors being able to appropriately evaluate employees’ goal attainment levels and recognize the training points required to further improve their capabilities.
Suzuki’s personnel system places greater emphasis on occupational ability than seniority. Intended to develop professional human resources who will lead Suzuki’s further growth, it is based on an objective and fair personnel evaluation system according to types of work, roles, responsibilities and results of individual employees. The performance-based personnel system and the Goal Challenge System enable the Company to support employees’ intentions to step up each rung of the corporate ladder.
Self-assessment system
This system is to grant employees with opportunities to review their work and capabilities once a year, reconfirm their own strength and weakness, and lead them to further improvement in capabilities. In addition, they can clarify jobs and departments that they want to try as a career plan, and submit it to their supervisors and the Human Resources Department. The submitted contents are effectively utilized as basic data for development and optimal assignment of human resources.
Rotation system
Suzuki implements systematic rotations of human resources by preparing the Company-wide personnel change plan in order to improve employees’ knowledge and technical skills and revitalize our organizations. The goal we set in this system is to have all young employees in technical jobs, office jobs and sales jobs experience the transfer to different departments within 10 years of joining the Company.
International training program
Since FY2015, we have been implementing a six-month international training program that sends young employees to overseas Group companies, aiming to develop global human resources. (FY2015–2019: total 36 persons, FY2020 and FY2021: not implemented due to COVID-19)
Foreign language training program
To improve the foreign language skills of employees, Suzuki offers support as follows:
- Implemented a system where employees can take the TOEIC test for free, with examination fees covered by the Company.
- Introduced online English conversation courses and other programs, with the Company subsidizing a part of the expenses of employees who complete such programs.
JapanDomestic sales distributors
Sales distributors are carrying out a program called “Joshikai” led by female employees to build better dealerships and a better company from a uniquely female perspective.
Joshikai’s purpose is to enhance customer satisfaction (CS) for Suzuki’s customers. This program has resulted in a wide range of activities, such as the strict implementation of 5S (Seiri (sorting), Seiton (set in order), Seiso (sweep), Seiketsu (standardize), Shitsuke (sustain)) within sales distributors and the proposal of events. At the same time, the program also strives to develop female employees’ proactivity and initiative to act, as well as their creativity and thinking skills.
Suzuki Motor Sales Hokuriku Inc.
Suzuki Motor Sales Nishisaitama Inc.
Suzuki Motor Sales Nara Inc.
Suzuki Motor Sales Tokushima Inc.
Suzuki Motor Sales Fukuoka Inc.