Nichimo Group’s human resource strategy
As a group with a history spanning more than a century, Nichimo sees employees as its most important management resource. We consider them as valuable human assets and as the source of increased corporate value. As a company mainly involved in the fishing and marine product business fields, the Nichimo Group’s strengths lie in its specialization and uniqueness in each business area. These strengths are supported by power of each individual employee to carry out their duties involving stakeholders.
Based on these, our human resource strategy is to “grow people (employees) into stronger individuals and connect them” as the foundation for covering “From Ocean To Dining,” which is also expressed in the basic concept of the Fiscal 2023 Medium-Term Management Plan.
The specific kinds of qualities we seek to develop in people are a combination of “flexibility” that enables cooperation with people who have different values, an “intrepid spirit” to boldly take on the challenge of new business opportunities, and the “toughness” to see things through to the end.
This concept means that we leverage the capabilities of each employee to their fullest extent to grow them into strong individuals, use their experience and expertise in businesses that create new value, and then increase our corporate value over the medium and long term, and ultimately move forward into a future where we lead the industry as a public organ of society expressed in our corporate philosophy.
Initiatives to date Initiatives for the future
Today
Tomorrow
In addition to level-specific training, we have been implementing specialized training needed for working in today’s operations, such as trade and computer skills.
We have also taken steps to secure education opportunities for all employees, using e-learning.
In the VUCA*1 era, all manner of things, such as economy, business, and individual careers, are becoming increasingly complex, and it is becoming difficult to forecast the future. We can envisage a scenario where past experience does not help to solve the problems of the future.
This is another reason why it is essential for individual employees to upskill and grow into strong individuals.
As a measure to address this, we will visually represent the skills required by employees and use this to promote reskilling to develop human resources who are able to actively participate in roles across the business.
We will also create clear training plans and check on employees’ progress and level of achievement.
Training (reskilling)
Nichimo’s business environment is changing significantly, including a falling birthrate and aging population, workstyle reforms, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under these conditions, we have been working to provide a better work environment, with measures for childcare and family care in line with laws and regulations, and the needs of the times, and the introduction of staggered work shifts and so forth.
We have also been working to identify problems and issues through means such as dialogue with employees and assessments.
Japan is seeing an emergent decline in the working age population following a low birthrate and aging population. It is therefore necessary to create work environments that enable people to work more efficiently.
To ensure that we continue to be a preferred employer going forward, we will create work environments that enable the creation of new value, including introducing personnel systems that are highly acceptable to employees, and enabling people to acquire a broad range of knowledge through job rotation and personal exchanges within the Group.
Work environment
We have been actively promoting a leave system for employees in the childraising generation, and encouraging the use of childcare leave by male employees and so forth.
Moreover, we are also examining system revisions to enable female employees to realize their potential.
As Japan’s working age population declines, diversity is becoming an important issue from a perspective of company growth, among others.
It is particularly important to create a system that allows women to engage in primary roles of business operations.
To help achieve this, we will take steps to increase the ratio of female hires in our annual recruiting drive, as well as the ratio of female managers.
Female
participation
In an effort to ensure safe work environments for employees, we coordinate with specialists including industrial physicians and nurses to ascertain the status of employees’ mental and physical health, and to follow up carefully if any issue exists.
Furthermore, we have implemented measures such as a system for managing work hours to prevent long working hours.
To ensure that our employees continue to be valuable human assets and an important management resource, we will actively support their activities to maintain and improve their health and implement measures to promote health.
We will take a systematic approach to health care, with the aim of earning recognition as a Certified Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization.
We believe that good employee health will increase our corporate value for connecting to the future.
Health care
Achievement and road map of long-term vision
Connecting strong individuals to business and the future
Strong individuals form groups and expand strong organizations,
collaborating to increase corporate value
We have classified the points to focus on for developing human resources who can realize our vision for covering “From Ocean To Dining.” We will develop human resources over the medium to long term in two stages.
Company-wide assessment
The first company-wide assessment was conducted in the fall of 2022. The assessment confirmed that employees are highly engaged at the departmental level, including high levels of satisfaction with their own responsibilities and the work environment around them, including interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, it confirmed room for improvement in such areas as sharing the company-wide vision, business practices, and personnel evaluation system, and we are taking concrete measures to improve these areas. In addition, we have been reflecting employee feedback collected through assessments in a variety of measures aimed at increasing employee satisfaction. For example, we have introduced staggered work shifts, are considering a telecommuting system, improved benefits (dormitories for single employees), and increased base wages. We will continue to conduct regular assessments to monitor changes in employee awareness and to consider new measures.
Visualization of operations
Through assessments, we identify issues related to the way business is being conducted and promote efforts to visualize the operations of the business. Through one-on-one interviews with employees and other means of gaining an understanding of the current state of office work, we began to see room for improvement throughout the Company. A wide range of business development is a major characteristic of the Nichimo Group, and each department has promoted individual optimization of operations in accordance with its business environment. However, maintaining and promoting overall optimization, such as equalizing operations on a company-wide level, will be a challenge in the future. The Nichimo Group sees this as a significant opportunity to eliminate the personalization of tasks and improve operational efficiency. We will promote interdepartmental cooperation, which is a management theme, in our operations and reform the way business is conducted at the company-wide level by reconsidering the appropriate division of roles and establishing a system for cross-functionalization of the organization.
Strengths identified through the assessment and room for improvement
KPI progress
| Item | KPI | Progress | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Visualization of human resource information and measures | Acquisition of ISO 30414 certification |
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| 2 | Sharing a Group-wide vision | 100% understanding of the vision |
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| 3 | Creation of a plan for human resource retention and development | Employee turnover of no more than 5% |
Employee turnover: 1.8% * Non-consolidated results
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| 4 | Diversity | Ratio of female hires: 50% Ratio of female managers: 10% or more Rate of men using childcare leave: 100% |
Ratio of female hires: 22.2%
Ratio of female managers: 0% Rate of men using childcare leave: 100% * Non-consolidated results
|
Interview
The importance of “strong individuals” opening the way to a “strong organization”
Nichimo’s human resource strategy is to nurture “strong individuals” and to build a “strong organization” by bringing those individuals together. Our employees talked about human resource strategy now and in the future.
Kojima
Nichimo has a long tradition of delegating authority to individuals and leaving them to develop the business at their discretion. I think that compared to other companies we have an environment in which it is easier to accumulate knowledge and experience, which makes it easier to develop strong individuals. Possessing knowledge and information that was absorbed on the front lines is an important part of leveraging the individuality of employees. Front-line experience leads to enhanced credibility with customers. Also, when we say “strong individuals,” we do not mean that the individual always comes first. Rather, I think we need to act at all times as an organization, keeping in mind what the respective departments value as important, and maintaining an awareness of quality and brand.What is important is linking “strong individuals” to a “strong organization.”
Kawamata
This kind of workplace environment is certainly one of our distinctive features. And yet, if we were to become a kind of collection of one-man businesses, that would also be harmful.To become a strong organization, we need to ensure that the knowledge and experience of individuals is passed on as part of the business.
Tachikawa
The key to operational efficiency is that individuals are able to smoothly hand over the processes that they have been assigned. When I returned to my career after childcare leave, I picked up work from an employee who was moving elsewhere, and having proper handover documentation helped me enormously. Digitalization continues to make advances, and it is important to visualize processes so that you can hand them over to somebody else at any time.
Kojima
That is definitely the case. In order to avoid the harm caused by becoming the kind of collection of one-man businesses, the processes for which you are responsible must be kept well-organized. If the processes are handed over then the information will also be shared, and it is exactly this that leads to the formation of a strong organization. Visualizing processes help you to come up with ideas such as, for example, consolidating the sales operations into one department.
Kawamata
This might be true of every company these days, but with labor shortages becoming normalized, we are being required to systematize operations, and to make processes more efficient and optimize the allocation of personnel, which also includes considering outsourcing. If we make progress with the visualization of processes, this will also make such judgments easier to make.
Kawamata
I believe that if you can organize the different processes, it will lead to the resolution of various issues related to employment, such as working from home, and the active participation of women and of persons with disabilities. Due partly to the nature of the marine products industry there are still some issues with the active participation of women, but first it is important that we create an environment in which women can work over the long term.
Kikyo
I agree. How to work at Nichimo going forward is a topic of discussion in conversations among women. I find it very encouraging that there are some people, like Ms. Tachikawa, who continue to work while caring for children. Now there are various role models for working women, such as working while providing child care, and devoting oneself to work without getting married. I very much want such situations to be taken into account when considering workplace issues.
Tachikawa
In discussions about active participation by women, the focus tends to be on balancing childcare with work, but there are other matters to consider, including physical issues. As I see it, approaches to work vary even among women. When thinking about how to resolve matters related to workplace, it might be a good idea to start by listing the issues that women confront in the workplace.
Kojima
I agree on the importance of taking into account the needs of women in the workplace. As Mr. Kawamata points out, the marine products industry has traditionally been dominated by men, and even when women were assigned to sales roles they were not always accepted by customers and found it difficult to establish themselves. In recent years there has been a generation change among customers, and the industry circumstances have also altered significantly. In terms of the external environment, it is becoming a more comfortable workplace for women.
Kawamata
Having made progress in visualizing processes, human resources development at Nichimo is moving to the next stage. Currently we are gradually moving towards clarifying the abilities required of personnel from a long-term perspective, providing new training opportunities, and changing the evaluation system. We also recognize that utilizing DX will be essential for improving business efficiency and shifting to a paperless workplace, so we have set up meetings centered on younger employees to investigate this.
Tachikawa
With regard to personnel evaluations, we concentrate on the two issues of creating a fair personnel system in which people who work hard are rewarded properly, and of ensuring that the system that we build is then operated properly. The top priority is building a personnel system that is accepted by both superiors and subordinates. Also, the diversification of employment formats in recent years has meant that in some ways personnel management has become more complicated, and this is something else that we want to improve.
Kawamata
We are actually right in the middle of establishing a new personnel evaluation system, and Ms. Tachikawa is one of the people involved in these discussions. Partly due to the fact that Nichimo has performed well in recent years there has been a tendency for evaluations to tilt in the direction of performance, but we want to change the personnel evaluation framework to also assess business processes, approaches, behavior, and other factors.
Kawamata
I believe that it is easier to create the right conditions for nurturing staff in an organization where policies are clearly set out.
The boss should not just say “Go out and make sales,” but rather something like “We’re developing good products to expand sales in such and such a market. So you should focus on such and such an area.” I believe we need to be sharing plans in this way. I also believe a policy of looking at the big picture is important for generating profit for the Group as a whole rather than for individual businesses only. It is precisely such approaches that will lead to sustainable growth for the Group as a whole.
Kojima
This is something we also mentioned earlier in the discussion, but by nurturing strong individuals to build a strong organization we seek to increase corporate value. Primarily this means growing by expanding sales and generating profits, which leads the way to increases in corporate value, but it is not enough simply to make money; it is also important to increase the value of human resources. By having them accumulate experience and knowledge, which they then organize and share, I want them to increase the value of individuals and in turn of the organization.
Tachikawa
Looking around me I see many employees who are younger than myself, so at some point I seem to have become a mid-level employee, but I myself have learned a good deal from younger employees, and been stimulated by them. I feel it is extremely important for Nichimo that young employees are the driving force behind new trends and ideas. I hope we can follow up properly in such a way as to ensure that such ideas are not extinguished.
Kikyo
I think there are certainly things that can only be done by younger employees. Awareness of such issues as active participation by women and improvements in the workplace environment tends to get diluted by the day-to-day pressure of dealing with the task in front of you, but as an employee of this company called Nichimo, this discussion has rewoken my determination to maintain a sense of these issues at all times as I tackle my work. I also have gained a good understanding of the approach to human resources strategy outlined by Nichimo. I too will have younger employees around me, so I intend to ensure that my own work is well-organized so that I can share it with others at any time.