Sustainability
Human Resource Development
Basic Approach
We have positioned “Quality of People: Embrace challenges and teamwork” as the top value in Our Values and “Enriching human life by adding new value to society” as our Mission in the NGK Group Philosophy. In addition to providing educational programs, we also work with superiors and create a workplace environment where each employee can take the initiative in their own growth. The goal of this is to enable employees to contribute to the business in the environment in which they work.
Skills Development for Employees
NGK undertakes systematic human resource development for employees, which encompasses every job category from employment to every promotion milestone in their career. Some of this is conducted along with our Group companies in Japan.
In our policy, we have set the goal of cultivating people with the following kinds of abilities and mindsets in order to implement the five transformations described in our Group Vision. To this end, relevant departments are working in cooperation to strengthen this initiative.
- Cultivate advanced knowledge, skills, abilities or their combination, and proactively approach to problems
- Demonstrate teamwork and persistently lead to results
- Autonomously grow and continuously change oneself and the company
FY2024 Company-Wide Education Scheme
FY2024 Company-Wide Education Scheme
Key Personnel Competencies
In order to improve the managerial skills of key personnel and, thereby, contribute to greater organizational vitality, we have defined the “key personnel competencies (behavioral traits)” that are expected of key personnel in NGK.
As the diversity of our human resources continues to increase, we want to put in place a structure that promotes a shared awareness across our company to enable key personnel to effectively contribute to business performance.
We have established key personnel competencies for the sake of achieving the following aims.
- Ensure key personnel have a correct understanding of their expected roles so that their performance meets the expected contributions of those roles to company development.
- Ensure key personnel candidates have a clear vision for themselves, and promote their growth towards recruitment as key personnel.
Training Programs by Objective
Cultivate advanced knowledge, skills, abilities or their combination, and proactively approach to problems
We carry out education and training designed to equip employees with the mindset, expertise, and skills they need to carry out their jobs. To ensure that the skills employees acquire are applicable to the work that they perform, we provide coaching in cooperation with the participants’ supervisors and training programs for handling challenges directly relevant to their own departments. This gives employees practical skills instead of just knowledge, and allows them to acquire the basic capacity to proactively approach problems.
Demonstrate teamwork and persistently lead to results
We make sure NGK employees have a deep understanding of the NGK Group Philosophy, Vision, and Corporate Business Principles. This not only empowers them to achieve their business targets, but also to consider for themselves the significance of their work and basis for making judgments, and to incorporate it into their own actions with a sense of consent. Smooth communication and cooperative relationships within the workplace are essential for fostering a sense of unity within the NGK and allowing each employee to feel satisfaction with their work. This is why we conduct communication training when employees join NGK or are promoted. NGK also believes that the role of management is critical to team growth. Therefore, we provide leadership training for employees engaged in leading roles in the field, and management training for key personnel. In doing so, we foster the ability to lead teams toward demonstrating teamwork from various perspectives.
Autonomously grow and continuously change oneself and the company
We aim for the NGK to grow further by having each employee think and act on their own, take on challenges, and play an active role. To this end, we provide training that supports employee motivation and career development. The environment in which we work today is changing drastically. So, we implement training that helps employees to understand their own values, characteristics, and skills, consider what they believe their own role should be, and encouraged to take on new challenges, take up new tasks, and work positively toward growth. This includes training and seminars addressing career design for those being promoted, as well as those in their 40s or 50s. In addition to this mandatory training, we are also expanding our online education and career counseling.
Initiatives for Employees to Chart Their Own Career Path
Reskilling and Recurrent Training
To achieve the NGK Group Vision, we increasingly need skills (including digital skills) that allow us to play an active part in growth fields such as Carbon Neutrality (CN) and Digital Society (DS). As the required skills become more advanced and personalized, we need to provide opportunities to acquire them in a timely manner. We have introduced e-learning courses containing over 10,000 lessons in total, with the aim of helping employees to improve themselves. We also provide licenses to employees who want to learn on their own. To date, more than 700 employees have used e-learning courses for reskilling.
Compliance Requirements in Job Performance
We provide employees with training that communicates to them the responsibilities, which NGK bears as a corporate citizen, as well as what this requires of them as employees of NGK. This training seeks to instill a strong sense of ethics and a commitment to doing what is right.
The fundamentals of NGK business—safety, quality, environment, and CSR—are inculcated from the time an employee joins NGK to every time they receive a promotion so that knowledge ends up being reliably translated into action.
Manufacturing Training
We pursue training aimed at conveying the central importance of safety, the environment, quality, timely delivery, and cost in manufacturing while passing on the traditions and spirit of NGK manufacturing. This training also aims to grow employees into individuals who can support the creation of new value.
Towards this end, we provide training in unique technologies that will deepen employees’ understanding of NGK products and technologies, as well as provide training in administrative and improvement techniques that will equip employees with the mindset and means to improve their workplaces.
Basic manufacturing training is practical training tied to the actual manufacturing process. It involves teaching participants about ceramic technologies and manufacturing in general at NGK so that they will have a broad perspective, which they can apply in their work.
Worksite capability enhancement training cultivates human resources capable of making managerial contributions as manufacturing worksite leaders and gives supervisor-level Production Dept. employees a chance to learn the skills needed to improve workplace culture and productivity.
Developing Digitally Proficient Human Resources
Based on the NGK Group Digital Vision, we will educate all employees, from management to general employees, in digital transformation (DX), and will develop human resources who are skilled in the use of data (1,000 people by 2030) and human resources to bridge the gap to DX. We provide training by grade level, according to experience and the role served. In the business units, training is segmented into levels such as “Leaders” to drive the pursuit of DX, “Supporters” who assist the leaders, and “Beginners” who learn how to view and process data.
Examples of development measures
- In the “Leaders” development program, employees leave the department they are affiliated with and participate in an internal internship in a specialist division for one year to concentrate on learning data analysis and digital technology.
- New employees learn IT (information technology) skills through e-learning during the first year after they join NGK.
Innovation Training
The aim of innovation training is to backcast from the SDGs and social challenges in an environment that is changing drastically, to discover what points to consider with new businesses and the creative thinking that spawns innovation.
In the program for young employees with leadership potential, participants learn methods for working with employees from other companies who have different experiences and value, and overcome these barriers to create and achieve goals together.
It also aims to foster flexible thinking skills and outside-the-box thinking that avoids being trapped by existing ways of thought. Through workshops, participants learn methods and ideas that serve to broaden their minds.
We are also constructing a proposal system to ensure that themes which arise during innovation training can actually be developed into new businesses.
Level-Based Training for Corporate Philosophy Education
We conduct training and workshops for all employees at milestones in their career such as hiring and promotion. This is to ensure that everyone working in the NGK Group understands and agrees with the NGK Group Philosophy, and can incorporate it into their various actions and decisions. In FY2023, roughly 700 employees attended courses: from new college graduates, to mid-career hires, and people who receive a promotion or have been recruited from fixed-term manufacturing contract employees to full-time employees.
Company History Training
This training program looks at the history of NGK in order to reexamine the origins of the corporate activities built up by our predecessors, to reinforce our shared values, and then to prompt participants to think about how this impacts the way they go about their jobs.
The program for Group S (section chiefs) uses videos to encourage participants to deeply consider what makes up the essence of NGK, with a focus on themes such as quality and globalization.
English language videos are being developed, and programs geared towards Group companies outside Japan are being introduced.
English Training for New Employees
Since FY2011, we have been providing global training courses for all new regular-position employees with the goal of rapidly cultivating globally capable human resources.
These courses first train participants in developing global mindset and English ability, which aim to help them form a concrete image of what it means to work globally and help them acquire the communication methods and intercultural understanding necessary in global setting. Then, we conduct English language training which, in addition to English ability, helps participants cultivate practical business skills like giving presentations in classes whose composition facilitates effective learning at each level.
Time spent learning English per new career-track hire (FY2023 results)
New employees with advanced English skills spent 16 hours per year and did not take English language courses
Practical Overseas Training / Global Seminars
NGK conducts practical training over a period of six months at Group companies outside Japan with the aim of developing globally competent personnel. The training focuses on developing practical business and communication skills in a cross-cultural environment targeting young employees who are future candidates for overseas postings. (This training was suspended during FY2022/FY2023 due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
In addition, we also conduct a wide variety of global training aimed at employees engaged in overseas work, including future candidates for overseas postings. This training covers themes such as language acquisition training, studies on individual areas, and acquisition of global standard communication and management skills based on intercultural understandings.
FY2023 Training Outcomes
Training Participant Summary (total number of people)
Average Annual Hours Spent for Training per Full-Time Employee
Average Annual Cost of Training per Full-Time Employee