Basic Approach and Policy
Our Group believes that the growth of each and every employee is a driving force behind the sustainable growth of our businesses.
We have clarified the type of people we seek who understand our Group’s Basic Policy and Mission, and actively offer education so that employees can take action toward their own personal and professional growth.
The education and training we provide for human resource development and the underlying framework is dubbed “SB School,” and creates opportunities to learn and experience the skills required to achieve sustainable growth for our Group’s businesses. It plans the educational program required by all grades of employees in all departments for business activities, and implements it in a systematic and scheduled manner to nurture talented personnel for businesses, with the aim of helping our Group achieve sustainable growth of business operations while maximizing corporate value.
As the development of each and every employee is considered the source of sustainable business growth, all registered employees are eligible to enroll in “SB School” courses, and can attend the school from the moment they join the company until when they retire.
The Type of Personnel We Seek
Our company seeks to hire and foster people who will share and commit to our Basic Policy (Company Philosophy)—“Our company places prime importance on trust and sureness, and shall commit itself to contributing to the progress of society and enhancement of people’s welfare and livelihood through its business activities.” Furthermore, we need people who will embrace the Company’s mission to become an excellent global enterprise that helps enhance customer value through its products and services, creating plastics with more sophisticated functions, and that can achieve sustainable growth in the advanced chemical-products sector.
Specifically we seek personnel with the four characteristics listed on the right.
Key characteristics of the autonomously motivated personnel Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. seeks
- 1. People who are growth-oriented and have the drive to acquire new skills and knowledge necessary for their jobs;
- 2. People with a pro-reform stance who are not satisfied with the status quo, but are always looking for ways to do a better job;
- 3. People with a team-oriented approach who can combine their individual strengths with the strengths of those around them to deliver better results; and
- 4. People with professionalism who possess outstanding skills and know-how and can produce results through their work anywhere in the world
[TOPIC]Manufacturing-oriented SBPS Education
SBPS activities originally began as an offshoot of on-site kaizen (improvement) activities but are now implemented throughout the Company in order to generate the values demanded by customers and society. The activities are aimed at securing the revenue and safety (personnel, facilities, environmental, and quality) that our company requires to achieve sustainable development. The activities involve setting specific targets (financial, quantitative, and delivery), planning who needs to achieve each of these targets by when, and implementing these plans without delay, meaning the activities are just the same as the daily work tasks carried out by employees. We believe that, through the ages, technical capabilities, knowledge, experience, and tireless will that each individual has who promotes these activities will always bring about our required results. Based on this idea, we have organized education programs targeting each employee grade and level as part of the SB School system. The planning and operation of the education is in principle carried out by employees themselves.
Attendees are required to submit reports, and the emphasis is placed on putting what they have learned into practice in their own departments. Regular follow-ups are carried out to track their progress. Our training course for foremen is one example of our employee grade-based education. We began offering courses designed to foster future workplace leaders back in 2013. In fiscal 2022, the course was conducted online due to COVID-19, and attended by seven participants at the Kanuma Plant and 10 participants at the Amagasaki Plant.
Training course (at Amagasaki) for foremen
[TOPIC]Welcoming the Next Generation to Internships and Factory Visits
In order to support the growth of the next generation of students, we proactively accept student interns and also welcome students to company briefings and site visit events (factory and online tours) to aid their understanding of our business and the work carried out at our production plants.
Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. (Head Office)
Interns from a senior high school for the hearing impaired accepted at the Corporate Communications Department of the Head Office (work experience)
The Group’s in-house training institute, “SB School”
In September 2007, our Group opened the Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. School (SB School) as an in-house training institute.
The aim of SB School is to provide lifelong education and training courses that help our Group achieve sustainable growth of business operations while maximizing corporate value. The school offers courses for all grades of employees from all departments. These include “all-employee education” courses that confirm and reinforce employee’ awareness of the Company’s Business Philosophy as well as fundamental knowledge about such issues as enhancement of CS, compliance, human rights, occupational safety, quality, and environmental protection. The school also systematically plans and implements various other kinds of educational and training courses needed by employees. During fiscal 2022, many of the educational programs were conducted in remote formats due to the impact of COVID-19.
During the year April 2022 through March 2023, the cumulative participation in SB School courses was about 29,000 employees, and the number of hours of education provided was approximately 43,000. We will plan and implement an increasingly wide range of programs to develop the capabilities of all employees—the Company’s most precious management resource.
●SB School and Human Resource Development
●Education and Training Structure of SB School
●SB School Course Participation (fiscal 2022)
| Type of course | Number of participants | Educational Aims |
| Education for line managers (advanced) | 30 | An educational course that focuses on identifying opportunities (chances) at sites, and acquiring the management skills for maximizing the abilities of members and workplaces beyond logical limits, despite being subjected to so many sudden environmental changes. |
| Education for line managers (basic) | 15 | An educational course for nurturing managers capable of expressing with their own intentions the direction of their organization, and leading top management to site staff toward targets. |
| Leadership development and education | 11 | Education for further developing leadership skills for managers, by examining themselves from every angle and reviewing their current state, in order to achieve management as the top of an organization |
| MG1 education (advanced) | 25 | An educational course for experienced MG1 personnel, designed to systematically organize and deepen their understanding of management principles |
| MG1 education (basic) | 30 | An educational course for employees promoted to MG1, to encourage them to think about the role expected of management employees and to change their awareness and behavior |
| Education for mid-career employees | 7 | An educational course enabling younger personnel to reflect on themselves and gain new insights as they enter the stage in which they drive the company forward as young to mid-career employees |
| Education for employees in their third year in the company | 30 | An educational course for looking back on the previous two years, sharing experiences to date, and gaining insights for making the third and subsequent years with the company more fulfilling |
| Follow-up education for new recruits | 29 | An educational course enabling new employees to reconfirm their own strengths and weaknesses through a review of their first year, and to promote further growth in their second year and beyond |
| Education for new recruits | 30 | An educational course to create a foundation for new employees to become active members of the workplace after they are assigned jobs |
| Life plan education | 159 | An educational course enabling employees approaching retirement to examine what they need to be aware of in order to further enhance their careers and learn to plan for life after retirement |
| Total | 366 |
R&D and Tech Day Held
In November 2022, we held “R&D and Tech Day 2022” to share information about technology across the boundaries of the various departments and businesses that we operate with the aim of enhancing our overall Group-wide technological capabilities. Due to the impact of COVID-19 infections, this year we continued from the year before last in using a hybrid of online and in-person formats. The event was spread out over four days, and more than 300 staff members from Japan and overseas participated, primarily from research departments, manufacturing-related departments, marketing, and sales. Total viewership amounted to 1,400 or more employees. The same type of format is also planned for the 2023 event.
Optical circuit material development project team selected for the Award for Excellence
´Gemba Kaizen´ Activity Presentation Meeting Held
Due to the impact of COVID-19, ‘Gemba Kaizen’ Activity Presentation 2022, which is held in May for presenting successful outcomes of daily improvements at each business location, was conducted in a hybrid format with on-site participation and online streaming. Nearly 400 people attended, mostly from domestic and international production divisions.
Shizuoka Plant Polymer Manufacturing Department selected for the Award for Excellence
Quality Control Skill Enhancement
We offer 30 quality-training programs at our SB School to increase our employees’ awareness of quality, to prevent quality problems, and to improve quality techniques. November every year is designated as “quality month,” and quality education via e-learning is provided for all employees.
We provide education for second-year employees in the engineering track through the Sumitomo Bakelite educational system by offering lectures and practical training in areas such as the company’s quality policy and approach to quality assurance, regulations, quality management systems, problem-solving methods (FTA, FMEA, Why-Why Analysis, and Further Investigation), and statistical methods from the early stages of the careers of employees assigned to the research and production engineering departments. Administrative employees were also included in the eligible group for receiving education in areas such as quality in general, regulations, and management systems.
In the current era of VUCA, which is highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, we have enhanced the curriculum of the Quality Management Representative Training Course with the aim of developing human resources capable of making appropriate judgments in each emergent situation that cannot be handled by experience alone. We put effort into securing personnel who will be immediately effective as quality control managers.
We also began to embark on company-wide initiatives to train data scientists capable of operating in an era where process information is supplied as big data with the use of IoT.
Environmental Education
Our laboratories and plants handle a wide range of chemical substances. We conduct periodic group education programs for employees, including new employees, with the objective of protecting the environment in the vicinity of our business sites and ensuring that employees work in safety. These programs are designed to enhance employees’ understanding of the properties of chemical substances and the content of relevant laws and regulations, thus enabling them to handle chemical substances appropriately.
In addition to group education programs, environmental education by e-learning is conducted every year for all employees in June, a month dedicated to enhancement of environmental protection.
These days, more and more companies with global operations are disseminating information centered on sustainability. After learning about and outlining the relationships between sustainability and SDGs, CSR, Responsible Care/ESG, etc., students learn about and deepen their understanding of the various environmental and safety-related activities that we are involved in.
Engagement Survey
We are implementing measures to achieve the top share in niche markets in the field of functional chemicals expanding the scale of business, with the aim of becoming a company that makes dreams for the future a reality by expanding the potential of plastic and creating value for our clients.
We believe that identifying the current situation pertaining to individuals and organizations, as well as developing measures to resolve any issues, is essential for making these measures more effective. To achieve this, we conducted our first engagement survey in July 2019, and applied those results to foster a challenge-oriented culture, review the personnel system, improve work styles, and implement various action plans proposed by each business department.
We conducted the second engagement survey in March 2023, and will identify changes from the first survey and new issues, and continue implementing effective measures in line with the survey results.
Topics More
- 2024/10/01 Sustainability Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. signed to the UN Global Compact
- 2024/02/01 Sustainability Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. announces its establishment of “Human Rights Policy for the Group of Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd.”
- 2023/10/31 Sustainability Integrated Report 2023 of Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. has been issued.
- 2023/06/21 Sustainability Selected as an iSTOXX® MUTB Japan Platinum Carrier 150 Index
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