Initiatives in support of human resources

Ideal goal

The KITZ Group aims to remain a company chosen by prospective employees through investment in human resources.

Basic concept and ideal vision regarding human-resources development

The KITZ Group aims to realize a vision of human resources who are able to continue to grow through rewarding work with autonomy, while taking on challenges with a sense of urgency.

We also recognize the need to foster an organizational culture in which human resources can demonstrate their abilities to the maximum by working with vitality in order to develop human resources who satisfy this ideal.

For this reason, the first principle of the KITZ Group Action Guide, which embodies our corporate philosophy, states: “Do it True (Be honest and true).” This expresses the importance of employees being diligent and sincere and refraining from acts in violation of society’s rules and ethics. This is the Group’s most important value and a fundamental guideline for achieving a positive culture inside KITZ.

The second principles are “Do it Now (Be speedy and timely)” and “Do it New (Use your imagination and tackle a challenge.” These express the needs to do business with a sense of urgency in order to adapt to market demands that are changing at a bewildering pace, for ideas and actions unbound by existing frameworks, and for demonstrating inherent creativity with a spirit of taking on new challenges boldly.

Human resource development initiatives

KITZ strives to develop human resources through a sound balance between demonstration of individual abilities and demonstration of organizational abilities.

By enhancing our human resource development programs, including training for specific employee levels, training for specific responsibilities and positions, special selective training, and support for self-improvement, and by utilizing a program of challenging objectives to link growth, evaluation, and compensation, we maintain a structure that makes it possible to keep levels of motivation high.

Approach to Diversity and Inclusion

KITZ has promoted diversity and inclusion as an important management strategy.
Considering our employees to be important company assets, we see it as our mission to respect the identities of our employees who have various values and differences, such as ages, genders, nationalities, positions, titles and work styles, and to maintain a work environment in which they can value each other and embrace their differences, working together to demonstrate their own strengths.
We also expect our employees not only to improve their own sensitivity and ability to think rationally but also to accept different others and mutually help each other.
We believe these initiatives will not only give our employees the sense of reward toward work but also enhance their individual creativity through experiencing a clash between diverse values and opinions, leading to making the most of their ability as a unit.
Based on this concept, in FY 2019 the KITZ Group launched diversity and inclusion training intended to enable our employees, as a member of the diverse organization, to understand diversity and accept inclusion which allow them to embrace diverse values so that they can maximize their own abilities.

Number of participants in Diversity and Inclusion Training

Promotion of diversity and inclusion

To promote diversity and inclusion, the KITZ Group has set targets through FY 2030 in the areas of percentages of women hired and percentages of women employees, promotion of understanding of LGBTQ, and promotion of hiring of people with disabilities. To realize these targets, we are advancing initiatives toward individual qualitative goals.

※ Managers refers to employees who are in the position of the department head or higher.
※ Women managers are employees of the department manager.
※ Pride designation is an external designation based on assessment of LGBTQ initiatives.

Promoting women in the workplace

KITZ considers the promotion of women in the workplace to be an important topic of management. Toward this end, we strive to raise the percentage of women in the workforce and create comfortable working environments for women, and we continue study sessions for managers and above and training for women employees intended to help women achieve further growth in the workplace, including support for women’s career formation and efforts to expand the domains in which women can build careers. While today women account for 22% of employees, we are aiming to increase this ratio to 23% by FY 2024, 24% by FY 2027, and 25% by FY 2030.

Encouraging LGBTQ understanding

To build a comfortable working environment that enables demonstration of individuality and abilities to the maximum, with respect for diversity in gender identity, sexual orientation, and values, KITZ is striving proactively to foster among all employees a culture of understanding and inclusion of gender diversity, including development of programs and environments for LGBTQ employees and corporate activities to encourage LGBTQ understanding.
In FY2022, we implemented an e-learning program for managers to promote LGBTQ understanding.

Employment of people with disabilities

To enable people with disabilities to live independent lives with pride through employment, KITZ proactively creates employment opportunities and expands employment of people with disabilities to build an environment in which all employees can work together while demonstrating their abilities through rewarding work.

Employment of non-Japanese workers

To accelerate its business globalization further in the runup to 2030, KITZ is enhancing employment initiatives for non-Japanese workers, under which new graduates, international students, human resources from Group companies overseas, and interns from universities in other countries play active roles in various workplaces, including those of engineering, manufacturing, sales, and management. We will continue efforts in such areas as development of the organizational culture and other measures to promote hiring, retention, and success of diverse, multinational employees.

Numbers of non-Japanese employees hired from FY 2015 through now are shown below.

[Numbers of non-Japanese employees hired by KITZ (nonconsolidated)]

Securing diversity among core human resources and promotion to management

KITZ has long hired and promoted human resources based on a focus on individual abilities and results, regardless of gender and nationality. We believe it is important to respect diverse perspectives and values in order to realize sustained growth and increases in corporate value, and we both proactively hire human resources who vary in terms of experience, skills, and career histories and maintain workplace environments in which these human resources can thrive.

In particular, based on our recognition of the importance of diversity in managerial positions, which are core to business administration, we focus on promotion of women, non-Japanese workers, and mid-career hires to managerial posts through such measures as those outlined below.

1. Promoting women to managerial positions

Currently, women make up 1.07% of managers. As this number shows, there is a disparity between men and women in promotion to managerial and other decision-making positions in the organization. We recognize this as an important issue, and we plan to make steady progress on such measures as promotion of women mid-career hires to managerial posts, in addition to initiatives intended to strengthen the ranks of women in leadership (i.e., pre-managerial level) posts as a source of future managerial candidates, through efforts that include further progress in hiring women and enhancement off training and development programs for women employees. The plan is to raise the percentage of women managers in stages to 10% by FY 2024, 16% by FY 2027, and 20% by FY 2030.

2. Promotion of non-Japanese workers to managerial posts

The KITZ Group operates manufacturing and sales facilities in 18 countries around the world, including Japan, in order to ascertain accurately the differing needs of our wide range of customers and swiftly deliver high-quality products and services. As such, non-Japanese employees make up 53.7% of the KITZ Group’s total workforce.

However, even though KITZ has focused on hiring of non-Japanese employees as mid-career hires or new graduates, the annual number of new non-Japanese employees hired in each of the past five years was just 4.2 persons, and non-Japanese employees made up only 1.7% of the Company’s total workforce as of the end of FY 2022. We consider this an important issue, since it means that we are unable to achieve our target on appointment of non-Japanese employees to managerial posts. We are considering ways to appoint more non-Japanese employees to managerial posts in the future through the hiring of larger numbers of non-Japanese personnel.

In addition, the KITZ Group considers it essential in the years through 2030 to accelerate further initiatives toward localization of operations around the world and improving business efficiency from the perspective of overall optimization. For these reasons, we see it as vital to promote and develop managerial human resources with global perspectives, regardless of their countries or regions of origin, and national human resources to support them. For these purposes, we have formulated the KITZ Global HR Policy, aiming to realize globally optimized human resources through both hiring and promotion of human resources with excellent understanding of the distinguishing features of each region, regardless of nationality, race, and gender, and proactive exchange of human resources across national and regional boundaries.

3. Promotion of mid-career hires to managerial posts

Already a high percentage of mid-career hires—43%—fill managerial posts with the Company. We will strive to maintain this current high level.

Realizing workplace environments in which employees can work with vitality

Concept of organizational culture and awareness reforms

KITZ is carrying out activities to promote awareness reforms based on the concept of shifting from simply accepting current practices as they are to developing new methods at all times through respect for diverse human resources while preserving the traditions we have maintained since our founding.

Initiatives toward enhancing employee engagement

KITZ aims to be a company where each and every employee can work with vitality at maximum performance levels as a professional, regardless of age, gender, nationality, culture, or other attributes. As part of these efforts, we conducted our first engagement survey in FY 2021, to ascertain the current state of the organizational culture.

We aim to improve employee satisfaction continually through conducting this survey annually from now on.

In addition to reporting to management on the results of the engagement survey, we also provide feedback to individual workplaces to verify and analyze the current state of the organizational culture, as well as setting specific action plans and target figures and deploying these in activities in each workplace. We plan to strive toward continual improvements in employee satisfaction continually through repeating these efforts annually from now on as well.

We also use the Compliance Helpline as a structure ready to receive consultation and reports from employees concerning human rights at any time, so that employees always have somebody with whom they may consult with peace of mind.

Based on the Action Guide’s call to “Do it KITZ Way,” KITZ aims to be a company in which diverse human resources can come together and work with vitality. Toward this end, we will continue to stress employee engagement and carry out sustained initiatives to contribute to improving engagement scores while communicating with employees through multifaceted approaches.

Work-life balance initiatives

The KITZ Group is advancing efforts to build an environment in which employees can balance work and private lives, so that they can continue to work with peace of mind in free and open-minded workplace environments.

Toward this end, we have set the following particular goals regarding enhancement of work-life balance, support for balancing work with childcare and family care, and health management. We are also advancing initiatives targeting each qualitative goal, aiming to realize these objectives.

Enhancement of systems to support a healthy work-life balance

To enable each and every one of our diverse human resources to demonstrate their maximum abilities, we are striving to build comfortable working environments with consideration for a healthy work-life balance.

(1) Normalization of working hours

As part of its efforts to build a company culture in which employees can work in good health and vitality, KITZ not only complies with labor-related laws and regulations but also is carrying out initiatives that include labor-management cooperation to keep down long working hours, prohibition of unreported overtime work, and encouraging employees to take annual paid vacation time. We strive to provide mental and physical care through such means as consultation with an industrial physician, in addition to reporting to management when working hours have exceeded a certain level.

(2) Support for childcare

KITZ maintains various programs to enable employees to continue working with peace of mind and demonstrating their abilities to the maximum while caring for children. In FY 2022, 100% of eligible female employees (and 35.3% of eligible male employees) took childcare leave. In the future, we will focus in particular on strongly encouraging male employees to take childcare leave to enhance our programs aimed at building a workplace culture in which anybody can take part in childcare proactively regardless of gender.