Human Resources Management
Recruiting, developing and efficiently allocating its human resources are the most important themes for the Sumitomo Corporation Group to thrive and ensure sustainable growth through the course of changing times.
We see our employees as the best resource we have. How can we maximize their capabilities and use their potential to implement the business strategies of each division while complying with the Management Principles and Activity Guidelines? We always ask ourselves this question in our corporate operations.
In answering this question, we are doing our best to train and educate new employees. We also ensure that Sumitomo's business philosophy penetrates all our employees, and our human resources development programs are established with the best combination of OJT (on-the-job training) including job rotation, and OFF-JT (off-the-job training) for the unique features of each business.
Under our new medium-term management plan "f(x)" (f-cross), we will carry on with the basic policies and measures adopted under our previous plan, FOCUS'10, and at the same time undertake the execution of our business model innovation with the aim of achieving "cross-boundary growth," the growth together with all our partners across regional, generational, and organizational boundaries.
We strengthen our recruitment and development of global talent and conduct strategic placement of human resources on a company-wide level by pursuing human resources strategy in line with business strategy.
Employees of Sumitomo Corporation are expected to practice "SC VALUES" with a good understanding of our Group's Management Principles and Activity Guidelines. They are also required to act with initiative and a sense of ownership to deliver their best performance by having clear vision and strong commitment, showing their leadership at their respective level, and using their expertise as professionals.
SC VALUES embodies the nine core behaviors based on our Management Principles and Activity Guidelines expected of all members of the Sumitomo Corporation Group.
Sumitomo Corporation offers diverse employment opportunities regardless of gender, educational background or nationality etc, and focuses mainly on the applicant's abilities and motivation. We also put the importance on the recruitment of mid-career workers, expecting an immediate contribution to the company.
The Number of New Employees
As of 1st April 2011 our diversified employees of various nationalities including Japanese are working in our Head Office.
For the cross-boundary growth of our Group, it is important to strengthen our recruitment and development of global talent in a strategic and well-planned manner from a medium- and long-term perspective, pursuing human resources strategies in line with business strategies. We aim to increase the diversity of our human resources with broad experiences and different values, and to focus on the development of the next generation to ensure the enough talent to fulfill the business needs in the future.
Job Rotation Training
Sumitomo Corporation has introduced the job rotation training between Business Units and Corporate Group to allow our employees to have not only on-site experience but also a company-wide perspective as well as management's point of view. In addition we have assigned a certain number of new entrants to the Corporate Group designed to give them working experience at Corporate Group prior to their transfer to Business Units in the future.
Under the "f(x)," we also promote the job rotation training across Business Units to develop our talent capable of leading cross-industrial businesses and managing business subsidiaries, and strive for the strategic and optimal allocation of human resources across the organization. In this way, we aim to improve the vitality of our organizations and workplaces and enhance our ability to create value.
Strengthening Human Resources Management on a company-wide level
At Sumitomo Corporation, under the company's overriding principles of self-management and self-responsibility, each business unit implements its own strategic human resources management, such as job rotations between different business lines within the same division and its own training programs tailored to its business characteristics. Business units also conduct their own staff training and education in order to ensure their medium and long term strategic human resources' needs will be fully satisfied. Strategic placement and development of human resources including succession planning take place in each business unit to increase the number of future executives in well-planned manner.
Under the "f(x)," we carry on what we have done and we conduct strategic placement of human resources across business units on a company-wide level. We work to ensure the right person at the right position on a global basis. Accordingly, key positions at overseas offices and subsidiaries are undertaken by qualified locally hired employees, who are expected to facilitate the expansion of locally based global businesses, so that we can maximize our globally consolidated earnings.
Human Resources Development Fund
In fiscal year 2010 a new internal fund for human resources development was established in a bid to facilitate the efforts to ensure and develop enough talent required to achieve the medium- and long-term growth strategies of business units and divisions. The fund is effectively used for sending trainees to overseas offices to develop our global talent in a strategic and well-planned manner. In particular, we increase the number of language trainees of Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., to grasp the expanding business opportunities in the emerging market, which will become important management issues of our Group in the future. Furthermore, we also plan to invest aggressively in human resources development from a medium- and long-term perspective and send employees who are primarily in managerial positions to overseas short-term executive programs to acquire the latest management literacy and build a network with global executives, as well as send locally hired employees of overseas offices to the Head Office.
The Sumisho Business College (SBC), a corporate university, facilitates strategic and well-planned human resources development in terms of OFF-JT (Off the Job Training). SBC offers about 300 programs per annum which are designed to focus on three areas as "the Management Principles, Activity Guidelines and SC VALUES," "Leadership" and "Professional." For instance, visiting the Besshi Copper Mine, the origin of the Sumitomo Corporation Group, has been a regular training event since fiscal year 2006. It aims to provide participants with an opportunity to realize one of the teachings of Sumitomo's business philosophy: "Benefit for self and others, private and public interests are one and the same" and to ensure that the business philosophy is passed on to younger employees. Through a variety of training programs provided by SBC, our employees can learn basic business knowledge and skills required in common to work in the trading industry, advanced specific knowledge and skills necessary for the investment, business management, business creation/innovation etc and also develop their leadership.
Furthermore, we changed our concept of OFF-JT, which is a shift from the idea that a growth opportunity is "something to be given" to the conception of a growth opportunity as "something to take by oneself." Based on this new concept, we continue our best effort to improve our SBC as a system to support our good talent who is able to think and act on their own to deliver results.
We are also making the best effort to train locally hired employees in our overseas offices and group companies and assign them to play more important roles as a proactive response in global business operations. As part of these efforts, we conduct training programs for locally hired employees at different career levels (staff in charge, managers and senior executives). At the training programs, more than 200 participants per annum from all over the world come to the Head Office in Tokyo to share the corporate DNA that runs through Sumitomo Corporation Group and strengthen their sense of unity as a member of the Group through reaffirming Sumitomo's business philosophy and Management Principles of the Group. In addition, they can share information on the Group's management direction and strategies. The participants attend "skill-up" seminars on a variety of themes, such as trade finance, risk management and compliance, as well as joint workshops with Head Office employees.
Sumitomo Corporation’s new training center in Ginza, Tokyo, was completed in March 2012. The new training center serves as a training center to develop global talent and as a strategic multi-purpose facility.
As a training center, we use this center to strengthen our human resources development across the entire Group worldwide and to encourage our diversified human resources management. The facility also provides a multipurpose and versatile space, supplementing Head Office functions.
In this center, we expect to see our global colleagues from around the world, irrespective of organization or country, meeting for intensive discussions on the future visions and strategies of our Group.
Sumitomo Corporation has always proactively taken actions in response to a wide variety of movements in the society as a whole, such as the diversification in the attitudes of workers, intensive efforts to resolve the issue of overtime, promoting the activation of female employees and foreign national employees, requests for efforts to extend the employment period, and promotion of work-life balance.
We make the best effort to cultivate a culture at the workplace that respects diversity of human resources through our various initiatives, so that diverse talent can contribute for the sustainable growth of our Group by creating new value in each business field.
The Re-employment program is offered to the employees, who wish to keep working for our company even after reaching the retirement age of 60, to extend their employment period. And diversification of human resources has also been promoted on the global basis, which means appointing the staff at overseas offices to the important positions and assigning staff overseas to work in Tokyo Head Office to have experiences of Sumitomo Corporation's business operations.
Career Advisor Program
The Career Advisor Program started in April 2007 to accelerate simultaneously encouraging both young and senior employees in each workplace. In this program, employees of Sumitomo Corporation with experience in career advancement are chosen from each division and designated as career advisors (CAs) to support the career development of all employees. These CAs have three major roles to play. They give support to individuals (staff), give advice to management in their organization (their managers), and give indirect support by acting as a communication bridge between individuals and the organization.
The CAs support career development by facilitating communication between managers and their staff, so that a good work environment can be built in which employees can exercise their capabilities and personalities to the maximum.
In fiscal year 2005, Sumitomo Corporation introduced the concept of Work-Life Balance (WLB) into its human resources management, to create a more flexible and supportive environment in which our excellent human resources can engage in their work actively and comfortably in response to their own values and lifestyle.
(Click here to see the details.)
To support mental health care for employees of Sumitomo Corporation Group, Sumitomo Corporation opened the SCG Counseling Center in April 2005 at Harumi Triton Square where our Head Office is located.
At this Center, in-house counselors with various specialties help employees to identify and solve their potential problems either at work or at home through the counseling.
Now the center is functioning as a convenient place to go for counseling, and more than 300 employees visit the center every year.
| Provide | Service | Target | Contents |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCG Counseling Center | Face-to-face Counseling | Employees in Tokyo area | Senior industrial counselors, career counselors provide various counseling services. |
| Counseling by telephone | All Employees | ||
| On-site Counseling | Employees in regional area and Expatriates | ||
| Seminars | All Employees | Seminars for managers, non-managers, expatriates and their accompanying dependants | |
| Consultation | All Employees (Managers) | Consultation for the superiors who need to support their subordinates suffering from mental problems | |
| External EAP vendor | Online self-care program, On-site counseling (including by telephone and e-mail) |
All Employees | External EAP vendors provide counseling services. |
