Human Resource Development

Basic ideas

Basic ideas on hiring and employment

Tokai Carbon guarantees fair employment opportunities for all individuals and considers only aptitudes and strengths in making hiring decisions. We make no distinctions based on race, geographic origin, nationality, age, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
In hiring recent college graduates, we seek goal-oriented, self-directed individuals who welcome challenges, are problem solvers, and will cooperate with others. When it comes to mid-career hires, we look for people who have skills that respond to our overseas business development, technical development, and other business needs.

Initiatives

Initiatives for Human resource development

【Certification and ranking system】

Tokai Carbon operates a certification and ranking system that differs depending on career development track, as defined by responsibilities, department assignment, and rotation. This system allows career development tracks to be changed based on Company needs or employee preferences and opens the door to rapid promotion of outstanding individuals.

【Evaluation system】

We employ a goal management system that outlines performance goals and topics to clarify target goals for each employee. Each employee participates in a meeting during which they set specific goals and are given progress evaluations to increase individual motivation, promote personnel development, and ensure performance management.
To promote understanding of the personnel evaluation system and goal management system, and to eliminate inconsistency in evaluations, we provide training for employees who become new evaluators to ensure the effective implementation of the system.

【Self-assessment】

Tokai Carbon has a system under which employees — mainly general career-track employees whose professional education includes position rotations — annually assess the volume and quality of their work and express desires for current and future positions and locations. This information is communicated to the Human Resources Department by employees in personal interviews. It is used by the department as basic input for making career development and training decisions, and for assessing individual positions and workplace environments.

【Education and training】

  1. Specialized training

    Specialized training programs launched in 2017 include study abroad language training, next-generation leader training, and executive management training on a selective basis to secure future executive candidates. In 2021, we held next-generation leader training for about nine months targeting young and mid-career employees selected from each division.

    In 2023, executive management training will be held for approximately seven months for managers selected from each division. Note that study abroad language training will be conducted after a style of training compatible with living with COVID-19 is developed. After the training is over, we will also hold a meeting to report on the results of the training, in which the trainees will make presentations to the president and division heads.

  2. Stratified training

    In terms of stratified training, training for general managers, managers, management leaders, and senior staff is conducted as training courses for managerial staff, while leadership training, cafeteria training (where the participants freely select a program for skills that are useful for their work), global training, career design training, step-up training, second-year training, and new hire training are conducted for the younger generation. Training for managerial staff accepts trainees from group companies if so requested.

    New hire training has been enhanced from 2019, with on-site training at plants, in addition to head office introductory training for approximately three months, in order to provide new hires with basic knowledge regarding safety and production management, etc. required of employees of a manufacturing company.

    In 2021, stratified training has been further enhanced and opportunities to learn career designs, creation of a global mindset, basic knowledge of MBA, etc., will be provided annually to the younger generation with one to seven years of work experience and for each job class for the managerial staff.

    The training time per employee for specialized training and stratified training will be 9 hours per year.

    In addition, we have established a correspondence education system and a public qualification incentive system for the purpose of self-improvement of individuals. As part of this growing culture of encouraging self-improvement, we have implemented a new public qualification incentive system from April 2019, including increased lump-sum incentives for public qualifications.

Work-life balance

Tokai Carbon allows employees to take childcare leave for up to two years following the birth of a child, and nursing care leave for a total of 93 days per family. Employees may also work shortened hours up to the time their children complete the third grade of elementary school. These benefits exceed statutory standards and give employees a relatively high level of flexibility in meeting family needs.
Regarding annual paid leave, our policies offer even greater flexibility with not only planned leave of at least five days but also systems for taking half days and accumulating expired leave.
In 2021, we have received Kurumin Certification.

Promoting diversity

【Continuous employment system】

We have established a re-employment system that enables motivated and skilled elderly workers to continue their employment for five continuous years after the mandatory retirement age. In 2022, we continued the employment of all 26 people who requested to stay on. In addition, we revised our compensation system to increase pay for re-employed workers and include them in the same personnel evaluation system used for regular employees. Moving forward, we will continue to consider policies to promote our ability to reliably secure human resources and encourage greater use of our re-employment system.

【Opportunities for women】

In our general employer action plans based on the Act on the Promotion of Female Participation and Career Advancement in the Workplace for promoting the careers of women formulated in 2022, we set our goals over a three-year period beginning April 2022 to increase the hiring of female new graduates to at least 30% of people taken on for career-track positions, to increase the number of females in managerial position to six by the end of 2024, and to attain a 70% or higher acquisition rate of annual paid holidays. The percentage of females to the total number of new graduates taken on for career-track positions hired in 2023 reached 40%. We will continue with efforts to create an even better workplace environment.

【Expanding hiring of people with disabilities】

As of June 1, 2023, our employment rate of persons with disabilities is 1.94%, which is below the statutory employment rate. In order to achieve the statutory employment rate, Tokai Carbon will strive to create a comfortable working environment and actively hire persons with disabilities.

<Employing person with disabilities in TOKAI farm>
We began working to cultivate vegetables with special needs individual using a corporate farm.Two farm managers and six staff members are engaged in a hydroponics facility in an indoor farm.We can harvest leafy vegetables, such as pine and vegetables, in about one month after sowing. The harvested vegetables are distributed to employees.
These initiatives are one of our means to ensure employment for person with disabilities and contribute to the realization of a symbiotic society.

Seeding scene

Seeding scene

Employees of TOKAI firms

Employees of TOKAI firms

Performance

Human Resource Development data

【No.of employee,employee turnover(voluntary),and percentage of female employees to total employees (Non-consolidated) *Excluding fixed-term workers】

2019 2020 2021 2022
No. of employees 769 778 760 763
Employee turnover (voluntary) 17 11 20 21
Percentage of female employees to total employees 7.9% 8.5% 8.3% 9.6%
Percentage of females to the total number of employees taken on for career-track positions 42.9% 20.8% 33.3% 66.6%

【Consolidated employment figures by region】

Consolidated employment figures by region

Scroll horizontally to view the whole table

Data Points 2019 2020 2021 2022
Japan 1,292 1,299 1,268 1,281
North America 664 642 698 736
Europe 979 1,356 1,389 1,495
Asia 779 881 934 866
Total 3,714 4,178 4,289 4,378

【Training conducted】

Type of Training Program Focus Participants Total hours
2019 2020 2021 2022 2019 2020 2021 2022
Specialized training Specialist Overseas language training Language skills 2 - 2 0 560 - 360 -
Specialist Next-generation-leader training Logical thinking, marketing, finance, and leadership skills - 2 - 4 - 200 - 436
Specialist Executive management training Acquire skill to plan and conduct a business plan from a management perspective view. - - 1 - - - 90 -
Stratified Training New-hire New-hire training Human rights, business manners, English language, understanding of Company systems, etc. 14 24 3 3 12,530 13,392 1,674 1,674
Specialist Training for employees with one year of experience at the Company Basic conduct and communications 10 14 23 3 80 98 161 28
Specialist Step-up training Mastering problem-solving techniques - - 22 43 88 172
Specialist Career design training Promotion of career design - - 22 - 154 -
Specialist Global training Globalization awareness-building - - 21 21 84 84
Specialist Cafeteria training Knowing your strengths and weaknesses to acquire a foundation as a member of society - - 23 - 90 -
Specialist Leadership training Acquire problem-solving techniques using logical thinking - - - 21 - 147
Specialist Senior staff training Understand the roll of leader and enhance the leadership skill - 30 - 18 - 420 - 252
Specialist Management leader training Acquire basic management knowledge - - - 17 - - - 336
Specialist Manager candidate training* Leadership, philosophy, human rights, HR evaluation 13 22 - 14 312 462 - 286
Specialist Training for general manager candidates* Management vision training and philosophy penetration training - 12 15 - - 399 210 -
Specialist Supervisor Training Target management and feedback - 4 5 2 - 12 15 6

* Titles have been changed from FY2021 as candidates have also been included in persons to receive training, in addition to newly appointed persons.
The total number of hours of new-hire training and other selective training planned by the Head Office in FY2022 was 1,674 hours and 1,747 hours, respectively.

【Work-life balance data】

Work-life balance data(non-consolidated)

Date Points 2019 2020 2021 2022
Employees returning from childcare leave 100% 100% 100% 100%
Employees taking family care leave 0 individuals 0 individuals 0 individuals 0 individuals
Avg. percent of annual paid leave taken 57.9% 62.9% 63.9% 77.7%
Avg. overtime hours per month 11.76hours 7.93hours 11.17hours 10.55hours
TOP