Fostering Personnel and Personnel Policies
Human Resource Development
Based on the belief that the development of excellent personnel is a prerequisite for the development of excellent technologies and the production of excellent products, Nippon Steel is striving to enhance workplace strength and technological advancement and to improve its overall manufacturing capabilities.
Basic Policy for Human Resource Development
Recognizing that the source of competitiveness is the power of people, Nippon Steel’s Management Principles state that “we develop and bring out the best in our people to make our Group rich with energy and enthusiasm,” positioning human resource (HR) development as a priority theme. A goal of HR development is to create people who can understand and implement our Corporate Philosophy and our Employee Action Guidelines. With this in mind, each employee shares in taking the lead in HR development.
Nippon Steel’s basic approach to HR development is for supervisors to transfer to their subordinates, through daily dialogues on the job, understanding and knowledge of criteria for judgment and of operational skills. In order for this mindset to be shared by all employees, the following Basic Policy for Human Resource Development has been adopted.
Basic Policy for Human Resource Development
- HR development is the job itself, and supervisors play an important role in HR development.
- OJT training is a basis of HR development and is complemented by off-the-job training.
- Supervisors share objectives and outcomes of HR development clearly with their subordinates.
- Each individual strives for continual personal improvement for further growth.
| Unit | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of training/learning hours1 | hours/year per employee ［million hours/year] |
68 [184] |
62 [182]2 |
32 [90]3 |
1Due to a close examination and recalculation of data, the figures for the most recent three years have been revised from those previously reported in the Sustainability Report 2022 and other reports.
2FY2020 results were affected by the cancellation or postponement of some training programs under the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of education and training under reduced production.
3FY2021 results were affected by the continued cancellation or postponement of some training programs under the COVID-19 pandemic and the decrease in new hires.
Personnel development of operators and maintenance staff
The operators and maintenance staff put into practice their accumulated skills in steelmaking and maintenance, starting from joining the Company, on the assumption of continued long-term employment to retirement. They thus fundamentally support the Company’s manufacturing worksites. Smooth transmission of technology and skills from veterans to younger workers is essential and a system that facilitates this is needed. Therefore, after identifying, through a supervisor-subordinate dialogue, the skill or skills to be acquired, a skill development plan is developed and carried out. Training is conducted mainly through On-the-Job Training (OJT), and the HR Development PDCA is kept up to date for use by repeatedly revising and implementing the development plan based on the progress of individuals.
Off-the-job training (OFF-JT), which complements OJT, is used throughout the Company by organizing the minimum skills and knowledge required by each rank of employees of Nippon Steel into a company-wide standard system. Through this, we work at education of workplace leaders to further increase their ability to add to and improve our knowledge base from the field (“field technology”) and at measures to maintain and improve motivation of the elderly to continue working with health and motivation.
We are also actively promoting cooperation in HR development with partner companies, which play an important role in our steelmaking, from the perspective of deepening and expanding our partnerships. Specifically, in addition to the training of each partner companies, the training programs for various ranks of employees of these partner companies, such as newcomers, young staff, job leaders, and line managers are provided with Nippon Steel’s employees as instructors. Through these efforts, we support the HR development of our partner companies, encourage exchanges between our on-site employees and their employees, and establish a foundation for smooth business execution.
Another area we focus on is to diversify recruitment sources (especially for female employees and mid-career recruitment), and we strive to create a workplace climate in which diverse personnel can be motivated and collaborate with each other through human rights awareness and harassment prevention.
Note: In addition to the above, training to impart and improve knowledge and skills needed for partner companies’ employees by rank (newcomers, young staff, team leaders, job leaders, and line managers) with Nippon Steel’s employees as instructors is available.
Personnel development of office staff and engineers
Following the Basic Policy for HR Development, Nippon Steel uses a HR Development PDCA for office staff and engineers, who implement OJTbased HR development plans. Specifically, development plans are formulated for each person based on the Corporate Philosophy, Employee Action Guidelines, and organizational strategies. Based on a concrete one-year plan, a supervisor and a subordinate have an extended dialogue throughout the OJT period, review the development situation at year-end, and formulate the next year’s plan.
The OFF-JT is also being enhanced to complement the OJT. Various training programs are aimed at acquiring the knowledge and skills required for each qualification and position. An employee’s period of time from joining the Company to becoming a manager is divided into three steps: “Discipline”, “Creation” and “Independence”. Work reporting sessions and training by rank are carried out at the milestones of the 2nd, 3rd, or 5th anniversaries of the start of employment. In addition, selective training to improve the skills needed for work, and technical education programs to systematically learn the knowledge needed for our engineers are available.These can be taken based on individual development needs upon the supervisor-subordinate dialogue.
In the initial few years, new hires learn the basics in each of our fields of expertise, and acquire the manners and basic patterns for work as a social person through each practice.
The employees in this step are assigned to perform a certain task from start to finish, develop their execution ability, identify their own field of expertise, and acquire a firm basic foothold in it.
Through experience of working according to their own responsibility, the employees develop their leadership skills. Together with development of skills, when they reach this phase they must also pay close attention to the development of their subordinates or junior colleagues.
Development of managers
The training courses are provided to managers to match the managers’ qualification and position, and are given so that they can acquire proper understanding of their responsibilities and authority as managers; knowledge, skills, and mindset that contribute to enhancing their management as supervisors; and group management capabilities. In recent years, we have given increased attention to management education. We added new courses including one for line manager candidates to enhance line management skills on the manufacturing field, and one for new managers to ensure they have a correct understanding of their roles and responsibilities as managers, and acquire the risk management and job and organizational management skills.
Development of staff who support technological advancement
In order to train human resources that achieve world-leading technologies and manufacturing capabilities, courses to learn the essential knowledge and technologies for steelmaking engineers are prepared. In particular, the content of courses classified as steelmaking process-specific technologies is at the core of Nippon Steel’s technology. We have developed an environment in which we can learn from basic technologies to advanced technologies, with excellent in-house engineers as instructors.
Global personnel development
For our employees to effectively work in any country where we are active, we provide pre-assignment training aimed for them to acquire basic knowledge to do business in the country and understand cultural differences. We have also set standards for English language skills to be reached by each level, and are working to raise the overall level of our group. For those whose job requires English skills, there is a program aimed at raising their proficiency level in English so that they can perform their jobs overseas without need for translators or interpreters.
Further, to train future players of our domestic and overseas businesses, middle-management seminars are designed for young managers to acquire the knowledge, skills, and mindset necessary for business management.
Concerning development of overseas local staff, we make efforts to transfer to them Nippon Steel’s operational skills, mainly through OJT, according to the Company’s Basic Policy for HR Development. In the ASEAN countries and India, where our overseas Group companies are concentrated, training courses by rank, as well as OFF-JT courses for specific skill learning and other subjects are conducted.
Development of staff who drive DX
We are developing human resources in both digital management and data science. As for digital management education, we began to educate all managers to understand their role in the promotion of DX and encourage them to change their mindset, so that they can facilitate operational process reform using digital technology. As for data science education, our goal is to develop DX skills training to enable all office staff to become data science users who can effectively use data by 2030, and to develop 2,000 or more citizen data scientists who can make advanced use of data. Through the education from these two aspects, we intend to accelerate our production and business process reform, using data and digital technology.
