Principal Themes：Human Rights and Labor
Human Resources Development and Training
Establishing a positive feedback loop where investment in human resources enhances corporate value
The key foundation and source of strength for the DNP Group in creating a better future is the presence of each employee. By allowing employees to take on challenges with confidence, we can develop their individual strengths. Through dialogue, we can combine these strengths, enabling us to continuously provide new value to society.
Building on this approach, we revamped various personnel systems over a three-year period starting in 2019. Since then, we have continued to actively invest in human resources by implementing initiatives such as the DNP version of “compensation and related policies that are more closely founded on a job-oriented perspective,” a system that emphasizes career autonomy. These efforts support individual career development and challenges while also fostering a more positive organizational culture, which serves as the foundation for these initiatives.
In fiscal 2022, as a foundation for such efforts, the DNP Group formulated and publicly announced its Human Capital Policy, which represents the company’s universal and fundamental approach to human resources. This policy aims to further reinforce and maximize our human capital based on a clear belief that respecting employees leads to the respected employees driving corporate growth and enhancing society alongside our desire for each individual to develop their strengths and grow further in their roles both within and outside the company.
Based on our Human Capital Policy, we declared in the new Medium-term Management Plan starting in fiscal 2023, the establishment of a positive feedback loop in which investment in human resources contributes to enhancing corporate value, aiming to significantly elevate human creativity (value-added productivity) on a global scale.
To achieve this, we have identified four material issues, each accompanied by specific measures that we are currently implementing. Furthermore, to ensure that these initiatives are linked to improvements in human creativity, financial value and corporate value, we conduct DNP’s unique value relevance analyses. These analyses enable us to examine and verify the relationship between each initiative aimed at strengthening human capital and corporate value, ultimately leading to further enhancements in effectiveness.
The DNP Group will continue to actively and consistently invest in human resources, enhancing human creativity to maximize value-added contributions through our business operations. This will create a positive feedback loop that redirects this added value back into further investments in people, thereby further developing our greatest strength: human capital.
Positive feedback loop of investment in human resources
- Structure to promote management
- Pay grade system / Hiring situation
- Initiatives and systems for human resources development and training
Structure to Promote Management
DNP established the Recruiting & Training Department as the organization that promotes the optimal securing of human resources and the development of active human resources essential for realizing and implementing the Corporate Philosophy and the Business Vision based on this philosophy, while ascertaining changes in the economic and social environments. We are also building and developing even better environments, frameworks, and organizations to ensure each employee can execute his or her role to the fullest and achieve personal growth and self-fulfillment as independent individuals and to nurture an emergent corporate culture as the basis for this.
Pay Grade System / Hiring Situation
Pay Grade System
Each employee is evaluated according to current role and results based on his or her pay grade. Monthly salary and bonus standards are interlocked, while seniority is excluded from evaluation. We revised this system in March 2007. For monthly salary, we introduced “role proficiency salary/role basic salary” and “role attainment salary.” Bonuses are paid on the basis of an “evaluation portion” and “uniform portion by pay grade.”
Hiring Situation
New Graduate Hiring (Non-consolidated)
We inform candidates of the type of person we are looking for, the steps in our hiring process, and the timing of each step in the recruitment framework for new graduates, including recent graduates and beginners.
Mid-Career Hiring (Non-consolidated)
We recruit broadly through our website with no age restrictions. We explain clearly and specifically the job duties of the positions we seek to fill.
Internships (Non-consolidated)
In response to the wishes of educational institutions and students seeking experience in the working world, we provide students with opportunities to gain work experience at the DNP Group. In fiscal 2023, we welcomed 46 interns in two business programs, 106 interns in 59 technical programs, and 11 interns in three design programs for long-term internships, as well as 872 participants in short-term workshop events.
Initiatives and Systems for Human Resources Development and Training
DNP believes it is important to realize its Business Vision of contributing to society and to create corporate culture that enables employees to simultaneously achieve personal growth and self-fulfillment. DNP is deploying a variety of measures to create free-spirited and open workplaces that respect individual values, enable people to raise their own abilities, encourage utmost efforts, and that can promote mutual cooperation for deepening dialogue. DNP is focusing especially on enhancing personnel systems that support independently minded employees and training systems that support self-fulfillment.
Various Types of Systems
DNP Value Objectives （DVO System）
DNP has implemented the DNP Value Objectives (DVO) system to strengthen team capabilities, drive management transformation and foster trust and value creation within the organization. Each quarter, we set organizational objectives based on the organization’s KPIs, alongside team objectives that encourage the autonomy and independence of individual employees and their teams. Progress toward these goals is regularly reviewed through weekly team meetings and one-on-one sessions. This initiative fosters a sense of teamwork among employees, makes achievements and processes more visible and Support systems for career autonomy of employees.
Evaluation system
DNP’s performance evaluation system assesses not only individual achievements and results but also contributions to team success, collaboration with other departments, and support for colleagues.
Throughout each period, we monitor each employee’s efforts and performance in real-time through the DVO system, weekly team meetings and one-on-one meetings, all based on the expected roles and outcomes (expected contributions) required for each profession and grade. At the end of each period, we evaluate the individual's actual achievements against the organization's goals, their behavior and processes according to their grade level, and their contributions to talent development and career progression. We also consider their progress toward objectives and how well they meet expectations based on the role-level framework, to provide a comprehensive evaluation.
In-House Recruiting System
To effectively utilize human resources and invigorate our organization, we promote open recruitment within the Group of experienced human resources with specialized skills for developing products, technologies, businesses and new solutions in accordance with the DNP Group’s business strategies. In this way, we provide employees with opportunities for independently selecting a workplace. 133 people were recruited and 81 transferred in fiscal 2023.
Self-Reporting System
This is a system under which employees envision their own career development while self-realization steps and workplace transfers desired by the employee to achieve this are entered onto a "self-reporting form" and reported to their superior once a year. This system also spurs the desire of employees toward self-development and enables them to acquire independent practical skills while raising the awareness of managers regarding guidance for and development of their subordinates. 211 people were interviewed and 85 transferred in fiscal 2023.
In-House FA System
This system enables employees to improve their own careers by proactively seeking job transfers from across the DNP Group companies to jobs and departments that are different from the present. 15 people made declarations and 8 were transferred in fiscal 2023.
In-House Study Abroad System
This is a system under which employees, based on their own intentions, accumulate experience in other departments for a certain period of time and then return to their original departments and expand the range of work handled while raising quality utilizing the experience and knowledge and skills acquired in these other departments.
System for Encouragement of Qualification Acquisition
This system pays incentives to employees who successfully acquire specialized knowledge, skills, or qualifications needed for their jobs (covers about 130 types of qualifications, up to 100,000 yen). 834 people (433 in DNP non-consolidated) used the system in the DNP Group as a whole in fiscal 2023.
Specialist Work System
This system provides special compensation to employees who possess an extremely high level of outstanding specialties and who are highly valued inside and outside of the company. Though we had titles Fellow and Chief Specialist depending on the level of the specialty in the past, we have added Principal Specialist since FY2021, resulting in three stages for the titles in total.
- Fellow
Those Chief Specialists with outstanding character who have earned socially authoritative awards and those who have made remarkable achievements are certified as fellows. We expect that this will encourage employees to pursue a career path toward the achievement of fellow, the top title in the specialist work system. Since the establishment of the system, a total of three individuals have been certified as Fellows. - Chief Specialist (Chief Researcher, Chief Planner, Chief Engineer)
We accept certification applications for self-recommendations and other recommendations once a year from employees who utilize their extremely high degree of expertise and work actively inside and outside the company and evaluate and certify them based on Certification Standards set for outcomes, external evaluations, internal evaluations, and competency evaluation. 6 people were certified in fiscal 2023, making it a total of 66 since the system was created. - Principal Specialist (Principal Researcher, Principal Planner, Principal Engineer)
We certify employees who utilize their high degree of expertise and work actively in each department once a year. 167 people were certified in fiscal 2023.
ICT Professional System
This system appropriately treats and motivates ICT professionals such as by providing a special allowance to project managers who handle projects of a certain size or larger.
Career Counseling Center
We provide employees with face-to-face and online counseling regarding their thoughts about their careers, how they approach the future, work-life balance, and problems at work. Moreover, we regularly hold caregiving consultation meetings for employees who are worried about caregiving, attended by care specialists. In fiscal 2023, in addition to the head offices (Tokyo), which has a permanent career consultation office, on-site consultation meetings were held at seven locations across Japan, allowing for 779 consultations.
Meister System
Introduced in 2001, this system is focused on our manufacturing technicians who possess valuable professional skills. This system is geared to getting back to the roots of the manufacturing industry by recognizing the importance of professional skills and thereby providing training, evaluation, and benefits. Among the three requirements for Meister certification consisting of "specialized knowledge, skills, and creativity," "reputation and trust," and "leadership," we have positioned "leadership" as a particularly important evaluation item given that the purpose of the system is to hand down skills. 4 people were certified in fiscal 2023, making it a total of 85 since the system was created.
Award System
In July 2024, we held an awards ceremony focused on the achievements of FY2023. We selected one Grand Prize winner, one First Prize winner, and four Outstanding Performance Prize winners in the DNP Awards. In addition, as part of the Anniversary Awards, we honored employees celebrating 25 years of service. In 2023, we began recognizing initiatives that form the basis of value creation, specifically those that enhance organizational culture and team capabilities. In 2024, we further refined this recognition by introducing the DNP Well-being Award, based on our new DNP Well-being philosophy. Through this award, we recognized 30 outstanding initiatives.
Training Program
To develop human resources who provide value to society, DNP has set up a dedicated department for human resources development at its head office. With initiatives centering on this Recruiting & Training Department, and based on the annual training plan, the head office divisions and the business units promote collaboration and carry out employee training through level-specific training and job-specific training, theme-specific training (screening/selection), plus e-learning and distance learning.