Human Resource Management
NSK’s Approach
◆Policy
We believe each of our employees is a priceless asset and have clearly stated in the NSK Group Management Principles that our aim is to “provide challenges and opportunities to our employees, utilizing their skills and encouraging their creativity and individuality.”
◆Strategy
We have committed ourselves to creating a “fair workplace that empowers the individual.” This commitment features three key areas of focus: leveraging a diverse workforce, building more engaging workplaces, and providing opportunities for growth.
Maximizing the Value of Our Human Capital
The NSK Group’s MTP2026 tackles three key management issues: “growth with profitability,” “enhancement of managerial resources,” and “ESG management.” In doing so, we seek to realize our corporate philosophy while simultaneously helping to address societal challenges and achieve sustainable growth. As technology and society continue to evolve, we will broaden the perspective of our initiatives and continue to “Change & Go Beyond” to achieve our ambitious goals, with the aim of being a company that is needed, trusted, and relied upon by society. As the business environment in which we operate undergoes significant changes, it is important that we bring together the knowledge, experience, and perspectives of a diverse pool of human resources that can inspire each other in order to energize the organization and enable each member to “Change & Go Beyond.” This will in turn ensure that employees will continue to find fulfillment in their work and generate results as a team. In order to maximize the value of our human capital based on our human resources strategy, which is linked with our management strategy, we have set three goals. Namely, we aim to enable every member of our diverse workforce to make the most of their individuality, continue to expand their potential, and achieve personal growth.
≪NSK’s Goal for Human Capital Management≫
Initiatives
●Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
By continuously engaging in initiatives that help advance the career of women -one of our key management issues- we have made steady progress on increasing the number of women in managerial positions and in the managerial candidate class to 100, our target for FY2024 in the action plan we formulated in accordance with the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace. As part of this effort, in Japan we distributed educational pamphlets on women’s health and held seminars to which we invited role models for women during International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. Abroad, NSK Europe and NSK Americas jointly held an internal online event covering the topics of unconscious bias and career advancement for women.
In a similar vein, we have sought to assist employees from various backgrounds in playing an active role by providing systems that help them balance work with child and family care, and in most cases these systems go beyond the legal mandated minimums. For example, we provide training programs specifically designed for those taking childcare leave so that this period does not leave a gap in their careers, but instead serves as an opportunity for them to prepare to advance their careers while caring for their children. Similarly, we organize support seminars on different family care‒related topics that go beyond the basics to assist employees in their struggles with balancing care for family members with their work. In fact, we release videos of the seminars that can be viewed by both employees and their families.
We also engage in Diversity & Inclusion activities targeting non-Japanese employees and LGBTQ+ in an effort to promote a better understanding of and empathy with hidden forms of diversity. In 2024, we received the Gold award for the fourth consecutive year under the PRIDE Index in recognition of our various activities to empower the LGBTQ+ community.
Cover page for women's self-care health support pamphlet
Flyer for a support seminar video on the topic of balancing work and family care
●Developing Future Management Candidates
In Japan, we took the step of designing a career development program that consistently produces a strong talent pool of future management candidates. The program itself begins with job rotations intended to nurture young employees as an early-career development measure and includes the NSK Management College, which we administer to provide training to select individuals at the assistant manager and manager levels. Similarly, we conduct region-specific training programs for human resources outside of Japan. In addition, we run a global management college that is primarily intended for successors for those in global posts as a global initiative.
Regarding appointments to key management positions, the Human Resources Committee serves as the top-level body that approves succession plans for management personnel and human resources investment plans. To expand the management successor talent pool, we hold regular discussions between each business division and functional division, and implement cross-business and cross-divisional rotations and promotions for selected employees (stretch assignments). Similarly, we hold successor planning meetings on a regular basis for global posts and regional core posts in Europe, the Americas, and China. We are committed to globally coordinated succession management that accepts all ages, genders, and nationalities in an effort that begins by clearly defining the key posts (talent profiles).
Goals for Development of Management Candidates
●Development of Digital (DX) Talent
Amid rapid changes in the business environment, NSK defines digital transformation (DX) as a corporate transformation that goes beyond simply introducing digital and IT tools, but instead reshapes the Company’s business approach at a fundamental level. In this regard, we are pursuing DX with a view to transforming our business portfolio and profit structure. It is therefore essential to develop digital talent who can play a central role in promoting DX, and the Digital Transformation Division Headquarters, created in April 2022, is taking the lead in rolling out a company-wide digital talent development program. We are in the process of deploying a training program that fosters a digitally-oriented mindset, with the aim of delivering training to 5,000 employees. To date, approximately 4,000 employees have taken part in the course. Approximately 1,100 employees have also completed the intermediate program.
In addition, as part of this digital talent development, we are deploying company-wide training programs to help employees acquire practical digital skills. This includes training on using IoT in production, learning Python and other programming languages, learning basic data analysis, using collaboration tools, and using citizen development and self-service BI applications.
●Introducing a New Personnel System
The way people approach their careers is diversifying, with a greater desire for a self-driven career path. The correlation between personal growth, self-realization, and corporate growth is becoming stronger, and the relationship between employees and companies is becoming more equal, with employees having a greater say in how they shape their careers. In response to these changes, our first move has been to introduce a role-based personnel system for managerial positions. Role-based personnel systems clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each employee, and expect individuals to take the initiative on attempting to achieve lofty, future-oriented goals. These systems also clearly define talent profiles for specific positions in the form of role descriptions, which enable employees to envision and map out their own career path and take self-driven steps toward their personal growth.
●Corporate Health and Wellness Management (Promoting mental and physical health)
The physical and mental health of our employees underpins all our business activities. Under its CEO, who is also the officer responsible for health management, NSK is promoting activities to maintain and improve employee health. By using a Health and Wellness Management Strategy Map to visualize KPIs for the effectiveness of our health and wellness initiatives and how they are linked to NSK’s management goals, we will work to further increase the effectiveness of our programs.We believe that a healthy, safe, and secure workplace creates an atmosphere conducive to open communication, which in turn produces a positive and vibrant working environment .
NSK has been certified as an Outstanding Health and Productivity Management Organization in Japan. Based on the Employee Wellness Declaration and in line with the NSK Health and Wellness Management Strategy Map, which visualizes KPIs for the effectiveness of our health and wellness initiatives and how they are linked to NSK’s management goals, NSK is progressively enhancing its health and wellness initiatives. Specific efforts include education to raise awareness of health issues (e-learning, health fairs), stress-checks and briefings for managers to explain how to interpret and follow-up the results of these checks in their organizations, and promoting participation in No Smoking Days. Through these ongoing activities, we are continuing to prioritize the mental and physical health of employees and their families.
Safe and Healthy Workplaces and Work-Style Reforms (related page)
Health and wellness e-learning
●Vision 2026 Promotion Activities
Since FY2016, we have engaged in various initiatives that seek to achieve our goal of setting the future in motion under NSK Vision 2026, both in Japan and abroad. As the backbone that supports all of NSK’s human capital, these initiatives aim to foster a corporate culture in which active dialogue and psychological safety within the workplace serve as the foundation for encouraging employees to bring their personal vision and sense of purpose to fruition, leading to actions that will set the future in motion. To help support departments and individuals in their efforts to set the future in motion, specific initiatives we have conducted since FY2023 include an action learning program in which the members of each workplace discuss topics such as their personal visions over a series of sessions, as well as publishing a selection of “how-to” guides filled with tips on how to translate the learning from previous activities into real action. We also share and discuss these kinds of initiatives from each region at the Global Vision 2026 Committee Meeting, which we held in-person for the first time in five years in April 2024.
●Employee Engagement Survey
Since FY2018, we have conducted biennial employee engagement surveys on a global basis. The survey questions cover a range of topics, from “understanding of the company’s strategy and goals and awareness of their connection to your own work” to “sense of accomplishment in your assigned tasks,” “opportunities for growth” and more. To track the progress of our three goals for human capital management, we have established KPIs and targets for all our initiatives, including measures to address issues identified from the survey results. We believe that our aim of maximizing the value of our human capital can be achieved by accumulating the results of each of these initiatives, and we have positioned the employee engagement score obtained from this survey as a composite measure of our performance. We have also established and begun implementing the NSK Engagement Index, a proprietary index consisting of questions from the engagement survey that are particularly correlated to NSK’s goals for employee engagement, as an indicator that more directly expresses the results of each initiative. We are currently studying tracking the NSK Engagement Index as a global score in the future.
System
◆Global Human Resources
The Human Resources and General Affairs Division Headquarters collaborates closely with regional HR departments worldwide on a variety of efforts, all guided by the commitment described above. At the regular Global Human Resources Committee meetings, HR managers from each region meet to report on their regional and national initiatives, share the local challenges they face, and discuss measures to further improve talent management.
Structure of the Human Resources and Geneal Affiairs Division Headquarters
Targets and Performance
◆Maximizing the Value of Our Human Capital: MTP2026 Key Metrics and Targets
We have laid out KPIs and FY2026 targets for each of our initiatives intended to achieve our three goals for human capital management. We believe that our aim of maximizing the value of our human capital can be achieved by accumulating the results of each of these initiatives, and we have positioned the global employee engagement score obtained from this survey as a composite measure of our performance.
Here, we would like to introduce several initiatives from the larger scope that are particularly strongly correlated to our three goals for human capital management.
A company that attracts diverse human resources
| Key Issues and Initiatives | Key Metrics | Scope*1 | FY2023 Results | FY2026 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Promoting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (creating an organization and culture that is inclusive of diverse human resources/values) | Employee diversity ratio (gender,mid-career hires, nationality)*2*3 | Japan | 29% | 35% |
A company where diverse human resources can develop and grow their skills and abilities
| Key Issues and Initiatives | Key Metrics | Scope*1 | FY2023 Results | FY2026 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support for balancing work and personal life (e.g., childcare, nursing care, medical treatment) | Percentage of male employees taking childcare leave*3*4 | Japan | 83.3% | Maintain at 85% or higher (FY2025) |
| Introduction/operation of new personnel system | Introduction/ operation of role-based personnel system (managerial level) | Japan | Formulated a system and conducted briefings to promote an understanding (managerial positions) | Promote understanding of system and improve operations |
| Promoting succession planning | Localization rate for key global posts | Global | 72% | Maintain at 70% or higher |
| Developing digital human resources | Number of participants in basic digital talent development program*5 | Japan | Approx. 4,000 |
|
| Number of participants in intermediate digital talent development program*5 | Approx. 1,100 |
Safe and healthy workplaces
| Key Issues and Initiatives | Key Metrics | Scope*1 | FY2023 Results | FY2026 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate health and wellness | Certification as Outstanding Health & Productivity Management Organization (White 500) | Japan | Certification | Maintain certification |
| Fostering a "look across" culture of mutual safety awareness | Lost-time injury frequency rate | Global | 0.24 | 0.10 |
Maximize the value of our human capital
Global engagement score(target) 70
*1 Includes some Group companies unless otherwise indicated.
*2 Diversity is emphasized at the decision-making level. The ratio is the percentage of diversity at the management and staff levels (equivalent to career-track positions).
*3 Scope: NSK Ltd.
*4 Calculated based on the Company’s standard (leave taken within one year from the date of birth).
*5 Total number of participants for each program in FY2022 and FY2023.