Policy

Our policy on human resource development

Tokai Carbon’s corporate philosophy is “Ties of Reliability” and our five Code of Conduct principles are “Integrity” “Innovation” “Challenge” “Co-creation” and “Agility”. Tokai Carbon Group will welcome the people who get into alignment with our corporate philosophy and guidelines. With those and external partners, that have diverse values and backgrounds, we will actively collaborate together to pursue innovation in an accelerated manner in this fast moving volatile era. We believe that human resources who can contribute to the realization of a sustainable society will be developed through this process.

Our policy on organizing our in-house environment

The Tokai Carbon Group will create an organization and culture that is free, and open-minded, so that employees of diverse values and backgrounds can refine and develop themselves towards reaching our long-term vision “Contribute to a sustainable society through advanced material and solutions”. We will promote work-style reform and set a proper personnel system with competitive treatment that can attract diverse human resources. Tokai Carbon shall provide various training programs based on the employee’s development stage, character, and requests to support the development of each employee. The human rights of the employee shall be respected as much as possible and harassment shall not be tolerated. The management shall make efforts to place importance on the health of the employees and their family members, based on the Tokai Carbon Health Management Declaration, and shall provide asset-building support for our employees through pension programs and employee stock ownership plans.

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 goals for each employee. The annual policy for each workplace, which reflects the management policies of the medium-term management plan, etc., will be used to establish the individual goals. Twice every year, each employee will participate in a meeting with their superiors, during which they will set specific goals and be 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 have become a new evaluators to ensure the effective implementation of the system.
Furthermore, an interview will be conducted with their superior every year for every employee with less than 10 years of working history with the Company to confirm their future career path. In addition, for employees reaching 3, 6, and 9 years with the Company, an opportunity is provided to discuss future career paths with the Career Design Counsellor (Head Office Department and Office General Managers).

【Improving employee engagement】

In order to realize and achieve the Tokai Carbon Group’s long-term vision of contributing to the realization of a sustainable society, we consider it important to raise our corporate value and improve employee engagement. In 2023, Tokai Carbon conducted its first Engagement Survey on all employees working at Tokai Carbon Co., Ltd. The results indicated that while strengths were found in items such as “Company foundation” and “Support action”, while weaknesses were found in “Facility environment” and “Institution system and pay”. As a future initiative, following the setting of short-, medium-, and long-term goals, we will draft and execute Group-wide improvement measures, formulate action plans at the level of each organization, and work toward improvement.

【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 2022, we held the next-generation leader training for about nine months targeting young and mid-career employees selected from each division.

   In 2023, executive management training covering approximately 7 months was conducted for three senior managers selected from the business divisions. For 2024, next-generation leader training lasting approximately 9 months will be conducted for young to middle-layer employees selected from each business division. Study abroad language training will be conducted when a living-with-COVID (“with Corona”) training style has been established. The outcome will be reported to the management by the training participants after completion of the training programs.

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 style 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 12 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 received certification from the Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare as a company that supports child-rearing, under the Ministry’s Kurumin recognition program.

Promoting diversity

【Continuous employment system】

We have established a program for re-employment as non-regular employees, allowing motivated and capable senior human resources to continue working after retirement. In 2023, we continued the employment of all 13 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 ratio of females in managerial position to 5.6% 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 2024 reached 33.3%. We will continue with efforts to create an even better workplace environment.

【Expanding hiring of people with disabilities】

As of June 1, 2024, our employment rate of persons with disabilities is 2.14%, 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

Employees of TOKAI firms

Performance

【HR-related data(Non-consolidated)】Excluding fixed-term workers

【Consolidated employment figures by region】

【Training conducted】

【Work-life balance data】