Osaka – Sunday, December 11, 2011
This is the succeeding article of the previous article Japanese Companies Joining War for Global Talent (Part 1) in which how Japanese companies started in earnest acquiring, developing and retaining global talent.
In this article, the author would like to introduce how 3 Japanese companies have started to develop global talent.
1. Hitachi
1) Overview of the company
Hitachi, established in 1910, is a leading Japanese company in electronics and heavy industry. The company initiates global businesses focusing on “society innovation business” that provide social infrastructure supported by information and telecommunication system businesses.
There are approximately 33,000 employees (non-consolidated) and 360,000 employees (consolidated) as of March 2011.
2) Basic concept of the global talent development
The objective of global talent development is to promote local driven management and accelerate business globalization by transforming to their management to a new human resource management from globalization perspective.
Their policy is to roll out human resource management and development aligning to each business of the variety of businesses the company is engaged in.
3) Main targets of the development programmes
The company has developed programmes for 4 types of global businesses; international (e.g. electron microscope business), global (e.g. semiconductor business), multi-national (e.g. home electronics business) and trans-national (e.g. large system business such as thermal power business. The company identified requirements and calculated the number of employees necessary for each type.
4) Main development programmes
(1) Globalization of Japanese employees working in Japan
Young employees are sent to International Assignments 1-3 months leveraging internal posting system.
(2) Developing global leaders
Off-JT developing programme for lines managers in Japan are reviewed focusing on developing leadership skills required in global business.
2. JGC Corporation
1) Overview of the company
JGC Corporation, established in 1928 as the Japan’s first engineering company, has been managing projects by engineers around the globe. Their business and management policy is to strengthen their core business and expand/grow business investment to become “Program Management Contractor & Investment Partner”.
There are 2,137 employees as of March 31, 2011.
2) Basic concept of the global talent development
The objective of global talent development is to develop employees so that they can lead diverse people of different background, work style and values, thus the company can initiate and manage projects as a global engineering company.
The total programme focuses on experience in real business OJT in addition to classroom lectures.
3) Main targets of the development programmes
The company aims to make all their employees be able to work globally, and not developing only selected employees as “global talent” or “employees to be sent to International Assignment”.
This is because the company believes that all employees in all functions in all layers of the organization require skills to lead and manage diverse people.
4) Main development programmes
The company provides various development programmes by layers of organization.
For example, all employees with work history in their company of maximum 4 years are sent to an International Assignment 3 – 6 months such as working in a shop floor of overseas plant construction. Also some employees with more work experience are selected to be sent to an International Assignment for 1 year such as working in western companies.
3. Fuji Xerox
1) Overview of the company
Fuji Xerox, a global company of copy/fax and information/communication equipments, was established in 1968 as the joint venture of Fuji Film (now Fuji Film Holdings) and Xerox (now Xerox Limited). The company has a slogan of “Best Partner, Fuji Xerox” and provides document services for office productivity improvement and management quality enhancement.
There are 9,627 employees as of March 31, 2011.
2) Basic concept of the global talent development
The comprehensive development programme is designed based on the philosophy that developing operation and communication skill required in live global business for practical use is more important than simply developing English language skills.
3) Main targets of the development programmes
The main target used to be a group of selected employees, who were sent overseas for International Assignment.
However, the company realized that all employees need to have a certain level of global business skill and mindset and therefore added a new course for sales person responsible for Japan market.
4) Main development programmes
(1) Overseas business training, integrating English language training and International Assignment
There used to be only a 1-1/2 year course for 10 employees a year. Now the company added a 2-1/2 year course for 20 employees a year, from which employees from in Japan domestic sales department also can benefit.
(2) Addition of global education in current training
Session of global business is added to current annual trainings and trainings for selected sales persons.
4. The author’s final thoughts
Japanese companies are far behind their western counterparts in global talent development. Most of their development programmes used to be targeting only on a selected employees who are to be appointed long-term International Assignment (3-5 years) and/or employees who are to be engaged in international and overseas related operation. Also their development and training programmes used to focus on English skills.
However, at least some of them started to realize all their employees need to have skills, competencies and mindset to work globally to certain extent. Also a few leaders in global talent development are now aware of the necessity and importance of leading and managing members of diverse team.
The author sincerely hopes that more Japanese companies would follower such companies. She hopes that they would implement programmes to make their employees learn from live experience the skills, competencies and mindset required to work in a global business environment, collaborating with members of the global network.
References:-
“Global Talent Development”, featured article of Vol. 3808 of Rosei Jiho issued on October 28, 2011, p10-p73 (in Japanese)
https://www.rosei.jp/readers
Resources:-
Japanese companies are still far behind their western counterparts but they have started to evolve their global talent development programme when they used to provide such programme to only selected employees, focusing on English language skills. Some of them started to provide programmes to all their employees including those in Japan sales department, aiming to develop their employees so that they can lead and manage diverse team members.
2011年12月11日日曜日
2011年12月4日日曜日
Japanese Companies Joining War for Global Talent (Part 1)
Osaka – Sunday, December 4, 2011
As explained in the previous articles How Japanese Companies Started Acquiring and Retaining Global Talent and Japanese Companies Are Changing Global Talent Development Strategy, globalization of their human to globalize their organization and business is now the focus of the Japanese companies to compete and survive in today’s global economy. That is to say they have entered the War for Global Talent with their competitors of non-Japanese global companies.
There have been online and offline articles in variety of media about this topic lately and having read them the author realized that there are 4 main things the Japanese companies are focusing on, which she would like to briefly introduce in this article.
1. Acquire Non-Japanese New Graduates
Recruiting non-Japanese employees used to be only done locally; i.e. local employees used to be hired, assigned and developed all locally and they were mostly assigned to local positions.
However, Japanese companies started to realize that they need to acquire talent from around the globe. And because recruiting mid-careers is still not so popular in Japan, they have started to recruit non-Japanese new graduates.
1) Recruit Non-Japanese Who Have Studied in Universities in Japan
This is the first attempt by the Japanese companies because non-Japanese students who have been studying in universities in Japan would be fluent in Japanese and are used to Japanese culture. This is extremely important for Japanese companies because one of the requirements that most Japanese companies present in recruiting non-Japanese new graduates is proficiency in Japanese.
This was the case of an American colleague of the author of her previous employer and the case of her colleagues in her current site. They are both very fluent in Japanese, especially the latter, who has married to a Japanese wife and has the visa with which he can to live in Japan forever.
2) Recruit Non-Japanese Who Have Studied in Universities Outside Japan
This option is quite new for Japanese companies. The new graduates who are recruited are mostly Chinese university students from prestigious universities in China.
For example, Nikkei, Japan’s leading newspaper specialized in business and economy, reported on December 3 that a Japanese leading recruiting company called Recruit planned and hosted events in Beijing and Shanghai in November. 42 Japanese companies including NTT, Kyocera, Kao and Mitsubishi Corporation participated in the event.
They interviewed university students who are to graduate from top class universities such as Tshinghua University in summer of 2012. They were successful in meeting and interviewing as many as 1,000 students who were fluent in Japanese as well as English. Such students are interested in working for Japanese companies because they want to see whether their competencies and skills are competitive outside their country. Approximately 150 students were offered the job.
The reason for Japanese companies now proactively recruiting Chinese new graduates is the fact that they would be able to hire globally competitive Chinese students, when China is an important market in their global business strategy. This attributes to the fact that there are as many as 7 million students in China in a year group, which is 10 times as many as in Japan.
Chinese students who attend such an event are in general more fluent in English than Japanese students, and can speak Japanese as well.
Also according to Mr. Obata, who had started his career in the company Recruit and has recently been engaged in business of recruiting Chinese university new graduates in China, Chinese university students are in general also more conscious than Japanese students in improving their competitiveness in the global labour market.
The company Recruit commented that majority of the 42 companies are expecting to hire students who could be potential candidates to fill key management positions in the future.
2. Assign Non-Japanese to Key Management Positions Throughout the Group Company
Most employees working in Global HQ in Japan have been Japanese and the top and/or senior management of the worldwide local sites have been Japanese expatriates from the Japan HQ; however, that will also change gradually.
1) Diversify Employees Working in Global HQ in Japan
According to Nikkei, Aeon, the leading retailer in Japan, has set a target of making half of their employees working in Global HQ in Japan non-Japanese by 2020.
This is why they only did seminar for recruiting new graduates only once in Japan this year and they spent all remaining resources to doing seminars abroad to recruit non-Japanese students. In fact, 400 students out of 2,000 who will join them in April 2012 are non-Japanese students who are to graduate from universities abroad.
2) Localize and/or Diversify Local Management
This had started in such companies as Panasonic around 2005 and according to Nikkei, Aeon and Hitachi also started.
This is to allocate optimum human resource to key management positions of worldwide local sites, breaking the “glass ceiling”. This very often is assigning high-performing local employees to such positions who better understand all the circumstances of the country thus they would have better chance of managing the site and the employees compared to Japanese expatriates from the Global HQ.
For this reason, Aeon assigned a Malaysian female who had been working with them throughout her career as the top management of their Malaysia site this June.
Hitachi started to review their human resources of senior management positions of their worldwide sites this year, with the objective of achieving optimum allocation of their human resources based on their HRM system around the globe, especially in emerging markets.
3. Integrate Worldwide Human Resource DB and Evaluation System
Global companies such as IBM and P&G have been going through globalization since 1990s to establish a system in which information of high-performing worldwide employees are shared so that they can allocate with optimization employees to key management positions around the globe. Senior management of the group company of global companies is composed of diverse talent, such as Nestle, whose senior management is composed from people from 9 different nationalities.
Such HR system inevitable to attract and retain best talent from around the globe had not been established in Japanese companies; however, a few innovative Japanese companies started to realize the necessity of such system.
According to Nikkei, Hitachi integrated information of their 370,000 group-wide human resources in their DB and grades of worldwide line managers earlier this year. This is to select optimum human resources from worldwide for key positions and projects in order to compete with their global counterparts.
Fuji Xerox also has a plan of establishing a similar human resource DB with the very same objective, according to Rosei Jiho, a Japanese HRM magazine. They are fully aware that they need to integrate HR system which is currently different from country to country to develop a common platform throughout the group, especially evaluation and rewards system.
4. Provide Ttraining and International Assignments
This has been the primary ways of developing global talents and similarly to their global counterparts, Japanese companies have been improving and evolving their global talent development.
The author would like to introduce some of the examples in the upcoming article.
References:-
Nikkei’s article on p1 issued on December 3, 2011, about leveraging human resources by Japanese companies (in Japanese)
“Global Talent Development”, featured article of Vol. 3808 of Rosei Jiho issued on October 28, 2011, p10-p73 (in Japanese)
https://www.rosei.jp/readers
Online articles about recent recruiting trends in China and Japan by Japanese companies written by Mr. Shigekazu Obata (in Japanese)
http://diamond.jp/category/s-syukatsurepo
Resources:-
Japanese companies have been far behind in acquiring, developing, retaining and allocating with optimization global talent but they have realized that globalization of their business and organization is critical to compete and survive in the today’s global economy and that they would need to join War for Global Talent. Thus they have in earnest started recruiting non-Japanese new graduates from around the globe, localizing and diversifying people assigned to key worldwide management positions, and integrate group-wide human resource information, in addition to improving training and International Assignments.
As explained in the previous articles How Japanese Companies Started Acquiring and Retaining Global Talent and Japanese Companies Are Changing Global Talent Development Strategy, globalization of their human to globalize their organization and business is now the focus of the Japanese companies to compete and survive in today’s global economy. That is to say they have entered the War for Global Talent with their competitors of non-Japanese global companies.
There have been online and offline articles in variety of media about this topic lately and having read them the author realized that there are 4 main things the Japanese companies are focusing on, which she would like to briefly introduce in this article.
1. Acquire Non-Japanese New Graduates
Recruiting non-Japanese employees used to be only done locally; i.e. local employees used to be hired, assigned and developed all locally and they were mostly assigned to local positions.
However, Japanese companies started to realize that they need to acquire talent from around the globe. And because recruiting mid-careers is still not so popular in Japan, they have started to recruit non-Japanese new graduates.
1) Recruit Non-Japanese Who Have Studied in Universities in Japan
This is the first attempt by the Japanese companies because non-Japanese students who have been studying in universities in Japan would be fluent in Japanese and are used to Japanese culture. This is extremely important for Japanese companies because one of the requirements that most Japanese companies present in recruiting non-Japanese new graduates is proficiency in Japanese.
This was the case of an American colleague of the author of her previous employer and the case of her colleagues in her current site. They are both very fluent in Japanese, especially the latter, who has married to a Japanese wife and has the visa with which he can to live in Japan forever.
2) Recruit Non-Japanese Who Have Studied in Universities Outside Japan
This option is quite new for Japanese companies. The new graduates who are recruited are mostly Chinese university students from prestigious universities in China.
For example, Nikkei, Japan’s leading newspaper specialized in business and economy, reported on December 3 that a Japanese leading recruiting company called Recruit planned and hosted events in Beijing and Shanghai in November. 42 Japanese companies including NTT, Kyocera, Kao and Mitsubishi Corporation participated in the event.
They interviewed university students who are to graduate from top class universities such as Tshinghua University in summer of 2012. They were successful in meeting and interviewing as many as 1,000 students who were fluent in Japanese as well as English. Such students are interested in working for Japanese companies because they want to see whether their competencies and skills are competitive outside their country. Approximately 150 students were offered the job.
The reason for Japanese companies now proactively recruiting Chinese new graduates is the fact that they would be able to hire globally competitive Chinese students, when China is an important market in their global business strategy. This attributes to the fact that there are as many as 7 million students in China in a year group, which is 10 times as many as in Japan.
Chinese students who attend such an event are in general more fluent in English than Japanese students, and can speak Japanese as well.
Also according to Mr. Obata, who had started his career in the company Recruit and has recently been engaged in business of recruiting Chinese university new graduates in China, Chinese university students are in general also more conscious than Japanese students in improving their competitiveness in the global labour market.
The company Recruit commented that majority of the 42 companies are expecting to hire students who could be potential candidates to fill key management positions in the future.
2. Assign Non-Japanese to Key Management Positions Throughout the Group Company
Most employees working in Global HQ in Japan have been Japanese and the top and/or senior management of the worldwide local sites have been Japanese expatriates from the Japan HQ; however, that will also change gradually.
1) Diversify Employees Working in Global HQ in Japan
According to Nikkei, Aeon, the leading retailer in Japan, has set a target of making half of their employees working in Global HQ in Japan non-Japanese by 2020.
This is why they only did seminar for recruiting new graduates only once in Japan this year and they spent all remaining resources to doing seminars abroad to recruit non-Japanese students. In fact, 400 students out of 2,000 who will join them in April 2012 are non-Japanese students who are to graduate from universities abroad.
2) Localize and/or Diversify Local Management
This had started in such companies as Panasonic around 2005 and according to Nikkei, Aeon and Hitachi also started.
This is to allocate optimum human resource to key management positions of worldwide local sites, breaking the “glass ceiling”. This very often is assigning high-performing local employees to such positions who better understand all the circumstances of the country thus they would have better chance of managing the site and the employees compared to Japanese expatriates from the Global HQ.
For this reason, Aeon assigned a Malaysian female who had been working with them throughout her career as the top management of their Malaysia site this June.
Hitachi started to review their human resources of senior management positions of their worldwide sites this year, with the objective of achieving optimum allocation of their human resources based on their HRM system around the globe, especially in emerging markets.
3. Integrate Worldwide Human Resource DB and Evaluation System
Global companies such as IBM and P&G have been going through globalization since 1990s to establish a system in which information of high-performing worldwide employees are shared so that they can allocate with optimization employees to key management positions around the globe. Senior management of the group company of global companies is composed of diverse talent, such as Nestle, whose senior management is composed from people from 9 different nationalities.
Such HR system inevitable to attract and retain best talent from around the globe had not been established in Japanese companies; however, a few innovative Japanese companies started to realize the necessity of such system.
According to Nikkei, Hitachi integrated information of their 370,000 group-wide human resources in their DB and grades of worldwide line managers earlier this year. This is to select optimum human resources from worldwide for key positions and projects in order to compete with their global counterparts.
Fuji Xerox also has a plan of establishing a similar human resource DB with the very same objective, according to Rosei Jiho, a Japanese HRM magazine. They are fully aware that they need to integrate HR system which is currently different from country to country to develop a common platform throughout the group, especially evaluation and rewards system.
4. Provide Ttraining and International Assignments
This has been the primary ways of developing global talents and similarly to their global counterparts, Japanese companies have been improving and evolving their global talent development.
The author would like to introduce some of the examples in the upcoming article.
References:-
Nikkei’s article on p1 issued on December 3, 2011, about leveraging human resources by Japanese companies (in Japanese)
“Global Talent Development”, featured article of Vol. 3808 of Rosei Jiho issued on October 28, 2011, p10-p73 (in Japanese)
https://www.rosei.jp/readers
Online articles about recent recruiting trends in China and Japan by Japanese companies written by Mr. Shigekazu Obata (in Japanese)
http://diamond.jp/category/s-syukatsurepo
Resources:-
Japanese companies have been far behind in acquiring, developing, retaining and allocating with optimization global talent but they have realized that globalization of their business and organization is critical to compete and survive in the today’s global economy and that they would need to join War for Global Talent. Thus they have in earnest started recruiting non-Japanese new graduates from around the globe, localizing and diversifying people assigned to key worldwide management positions, and integrate group-wide human resource information, in addition to improving training and International Assignments.
2011年1月24日月曜日
Japanese Companies Are Changing Global Talent Development Strategy
Osaka – Monday, 24 January, 2011
Following the previous article How Japanese Companies Started Acquiring and Retaining Global Talent, this article introduced how Japanese companies have been developing Japanese employees to make them global talents and what additional actions they started to take. This is because they are short of global talents when they are to globalize their business.
Globalization of the Japanese employees would lead to fostering a global culture with D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) mindset. This would help develop and retain non-Japanese global talent successfully acquired as mentioned in the previous article as well thus would further drive globalization and D&I culture, which is a requirement to survive in the global economy.
1. How can “Japanese business person of global talent” be defined?
Japanese business person of global talent has been a hot topic in media lately in Japan and the definition seems to vary from people to people.
Having said that, based on the articles and discussions on this topic and from her own experience, the author would like to define as “a business person with global employability in today’s global and flat world”. Such global business person would have hard and soft skills and competencies, and mindset such as the following.
- Solid expertise in his/her specialty
- English proficiency
- IT literacy
- Financial literacy
- Logical thinking, analytics, conceptualization
- Communication skills (including inter-cultural communication skills and inter-personal skills)
- Global mindset, D&I spirit
2. What have Japanese companies been focusing on in globalizing their Japanese employees?
Japanese companies have been focusing mostly on developing English fluency. For this reason, many large companies have made all employees to take TOEIC. And for example some companies made the policy that TOEIC 450 points (out of 1000 points) is a requirement to become a manager and TOEIC 650 points is a requirement to work in an international department.
3. What kind of training and development programme have Japanese companies been providing to their employees to make them globalized?
1) English courses
Many companies provide English courses of different levels to meet needs of different English proficiency employees.
2) Overseas Training
Some large companies have overseas training programme. They would select a few “overseas talent” from new graduates and send them to overseas sites for 2 years immediately after a few months orientation training. In the first year the new graduate employees go to a local university to learn English and in the second year they work in the site (sales company, factory etc.). Living, learning and working abroad would not only improve their English but also foster inter-cultural communication skills and global mindset.
After their 2 year overseas training they return to Japan and are usually allocated to international/overseas department.
3) International Assignments
Limited people, very often employees who were allocated in international/overseas department, are sent to sales companies and other sites outside Japan as international assignment for 3 to 5 years per assignment. This would have greater effect in terms of developing global talent than 2 year overseas training.
4) MBA / Business School
Many large companies select candidates among those who applied, train their English and send them to MBA courses in the U.S. Also a few senior people, candidate for senior executive, are sent to study for 6-12 months in business school in the U.S. or Europe. These are aimed to acquire business administration knowledge and logical thinking but would also make the candidates to improve English and to foster global mindset and make them being able to work with diverse team.
3. What are additional actions that Japanese companies to take to further drive globalization of their Japanese employees?
1) International Assignment to all employees graduated from university
Last year many leading trading companies announced the policy of sending all their employees graduated from university for a year or two abroad as international assignment before they become 28 years old.
And, earlier this month, the top 2 trading companies additional announced that with growing China market, they are to send their employees for a year to two to their sites in China as international assignment before they become 28 years old. In the future they aim to make half of their employees be able to communicate in Chinese.
2) English as official language in the workplace
Last year Fast Retailing and Rakuten made English the official language used in the company, although currently the proportion of their overseas business is still low, something like 10% or 20% at the most. The reason is because they plan to grow their overseas business and they believe it would be necessary for all their employees to be able to communicate in English.
English was used in meetings in which non-Japanese participants were included but these two companies now use English in meetings even if the participants are all Japanese. The news about the 2 companies provoked much discussion among many business persons in all industry of all levels of the organization.
3) Hiring exlusively candidates with high English communication skills
Only a few days ago Takeda Pharmaceutical, the pharmaceutical leader in Japan, announced the new policy of one of the new requirements for new graduates in applying to work with them is to have TOEIC score of 730 points or more, regardless of what they studied in university.
4. The author’s final thoughts
Developing Japanese employees to make them global talent does not only mean improving hard skill of their English although it is an important factor. English is simply a tool of communication and other skills such as of their specialty, logical thinking, analytics and conceptualization are also extremely important.
What might be even more important are “soft” skills and competencies such as global and D&I mindset that makes them comfortable working in a diverse team of different culture and background that requires such skills as inter-cultural communication skill. These “soft” skills can only be acquired through experience at work or virtual situation such as in MBA courses and therefore strategic international rotation by international assignments needs to be designed for global talent development as well as achieving short-term goal.
Last but not least, fostering global and D&I mindset among employees does not necessarily mean they all should live and work abroad. It can be fostered even in Japan as long as they work in an environment in which people of different culture and background (including ethnicity) work as a team. For this reason, although few local employees abroad were transferred to work in Japan until today, it is important that international rotation includes people coming into Japan from other countries as well as people going to other countries from Japan. This is eliminating boundaries among countries and regions while respecting each country and region.
Following the previous article How Japanese Companies Started Acquiring and Retaining Global Talent, this article introduced how Japanese companies have been developing Japanese employees to make them global talents and what additional actions they started to take. This is because they are short of global talents when they are to globalize their business.
Globalization of the Japanese employees would lead to fostering a global culture with D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) mindset. This would help develop and retain non-Japanese global talent successfully acquired as mentioned in the previous article as well thus would further drive globalization and D&I culture, which is a requirement to survive in the global economy.
1. How can “Japanese business person of global talent” be defined?
Japanese business person of global talent has been a hot topic in media lately in Japan and the definition seems to vary from people to people.
Having said that, based on the articles and discussions on this topic and from her own experience, the author would like to define as “a business person with global employability in today’s global and flat world”. Such global business person would have hard and soft skills and competencies, and mindset such as the following.
- Solid expertise in his/her specialty
- English proficiency
- IT literacy
- Financial literacy
- Logical thinking, analytics, conceptualization
- Communication skills (including inter-cultural communication skills and inter-personal skills)
- Global mindset, D&I spirit
2. What have Japanese companies been focusing on in globalizing their Japanese employees?
Japanese companies have been focusing mostly on developing English fluency. For this reason, many large companies have made all employees to take TOEIC. And for example some companies made the policy that TOEIC 450 points (out of 1000 points) is a requirement to become a manager and TOEIC 650 points is a requirement to work in an international department.
3. What kind of training and development programme have Japanese companies been providing to their employees to make them globalized?
1) English courses
Many companies provide English courses of different levels to meet needs of different English proficiency employees.
2) Overseas Training
Some large companies have overseas training programme. They would select a few “overseas talent” from new graduates and send them to overseas sites for 2 years immediately after a few months orientation training. In the first year the new graduate employees go to a local university to learn English and in the second year they work in the site (sales company, factory etc.). Living, learning and working abroad would not only improve their English but also foster inter-cultural communication skills and global mindset.
After their 2 year overseas training they return to Japan and are usually allocated to international/overseas department.
3) International Assignments
Limited people, very often employees who were allocated in international/overseas department, are sent to sales companies and other sites outside Japan as international assignment for 3 to 5 years per assignment. This would have greater effect in terms of developing global talent than 2 year overseas training.
4) MBA / Business School
Many large companies select candidates among those who applied, train their English and send them to MBA courses in the U.S. Also a few senior people, candidate for senior executive, are sent to study for 6-12 months in business school in the U.S. or Europe. These are aimed to acquire business administration knowledge and logical thinking but would also make the candidates to improve English and to foster global mindset and make them being able to work with diverse team.
3. What are additional actions that Japanese companies to take to further drive globalization of their Japanese employees?
1) International Assignment to all employees graduated from university
Last year many leading trading companies announced the policy of sending all their employees graduated from university for a year or two abroad as international assignment before they become 28 years old.
And, earlier this month, the top 2 trading companies additional announced that with growing China market, they are to send their employees for a year to two to their sites in China as international assignment before they become 28 years old. In the future they aim to make half of their employees be able to communicate in Chinese.
2) English as official language in the workplace
Last year Fast Retailing and Rakuten made English the official language used in the company, although currently the proportion of their overseas business is still low, something like 10% or 20% at the most. The reason is because they plan to grow their overseas business and they believe it would be necessary for all their employees to be able to communicate in English.
English was used in meetings in which non-Japanese participants were included but these two companies now use English in meetings even if the participants are all Japanese. The news about the 2 companies provoked much discussion among many business persons in all industry of all levels of the organization.
3) Hiring exlusively candidates with high English communication skills
Only a few days ago Takeda Pharmaceutical, the pharmaceutical leader in Japan, announced the new policy of one of the new requirements for new graduates in applying to work with them is to have TOEIC score of 730 points or more, regardless of what they studied in university.
4. The author’s final thoughts
Developing Japanese employees to make them global talent does not only mean improving hard skill of their English although it is an important factor. English is simply a tool of communication and other skills such as of their specialty, logical thinking, analytics and conceptualization are also extremely important.
What might be even more important are “soft” skills and competencies such as global and D&I mindset that makes them comfortable working in a diverse team of different culture and background that requires such skills as inter-cultural communication skill. These “soft” skills can only be acquired through experience at work or virtual situation such as in MBA courses and therefore strategic international rotation by international assignments needs to be designed for global talent development as well as achieving short-term goal.
Last but not least, fostering global and D&I mindset among employees does not necessarily mean they all should live and work abroad. It can be fostered even in Japan as long as they work in an environment in which people of different culture and background (including ethnicity) work as a team. For this reason, although few local employees abroad were transferred to work in Japan until today, it is important that international rotation includes people coming into Japan from other countries as well as people going to other countries from Japan. This is eliminating boundaries among countries and regions while respecting each country and region.
2011年1月10日月曜日
Japanese Companies Join War for Global Talent
Osaka – Monday, 10 January, 2011
Japanese companies are taking actions for globalization of their human resources to survive in globalized economy. This includes hiring Japanese people with global mindset and strategically developing them, and hiring non-Japanese people. The former has been a hot topic discussed by HRM (human resource management) experts and management professionals lately and the author would like to discuss in one of her upcoming article.
The topic of this article is about how Japanese companies have started to proactively hire non-Japanese new graduates.
1. How have human resources of Japanese companies been until today?
Globalization of human resources of Japanese companies are far behind other developed countries and even some emerging countries. It seems to attribute to the mindset of Japanese top executes and the general public; to them abroad is something special for them. Also it might attribute to the fact that Japan market was sufficient for Japanese companies to survive.
Under such a situation, although many Japanese companies such as Toyota and Sony to name a few have been doing business worldwide, their human resources and systems have been domestic. There have been “barriers” between business in Japan market and overseas market thus departments are usually separate and job rotation between the two departments/markets has been not so popular. Executives of sites outside Japan were expatriates from Japan HQ. Local employees were all hired locally and never been rotated to positions in Japan HQ or any other countries and regions outside other than where they were locally hired.
2. Why Japanese companies started to globalize their human resources now?
It is because the situation has changed. Japan is no longer #2 in its GDP. Japan domestic market demand will no longer expand so Japanese companies need to grow their business abroad especially the emerging markets.
However, Japanese companies realized that they lack in human resources that can be competitive in today’s global economy. This is prominent from the survey result implemented by HRM consultant companies.
Therefore, they started to take measure to cope with the drastic change, and one of them is strategically hiring non-Japanese new graduates, especially Chinese, to develop as tomorrow’s leaders.
3. What are some strategies and actions of Japanese companies to hire non-Japanese?
1) In general
Lawson, a leader in convenience store industry (CEO is a MBA holder from a U.S. business school), was one of the first company to strategically some hire none-Japanese new graduates to “bring in new wind in their company”.
Then in late 2010 many Japanese companies, leaders in their industry and operating worldwide such as Mitsubishi Trading and Panasonic, decided to hire so many hundred new graduates from outside Japan, which is 50% or more of their total hiring of new graduates for some companies. They have started contacting top class universities abroad, hosting seminars for new graduates introducing their companies, opening positions and other relevant information.
2) A case of a local retailer
A TV programme that went on air in December 2010 introduced a case in which a local retailer (supermarket) in Kyushu, southern Japan, recruited a female Chinese new graduate. The background of the hiring is their plan of starting business in China in few years and they hired her to develop her as a key person in their business in China.
It is a risk for her to relocate to Japan, away from her family, but she is interested in Japan and she saw the future in working for a Japanese company in Japan, so she made her decision.
The company welcomed her warmly. They provided her with housing and all furniture, which she was satisfied with. They made her start her career in a shop floor so that she would fully understand the business, systems, procedures and company culture from real experience at the shop floor. This approach is often adopted by many Japanese companies. The staff members at her new workplace were all told about her hiring and welcomed her warmly to minimize her culture shock and help her get used to living and working in Japan. It is not long since she started working in Japan so we will have to see her case as a pilot.
4. The author’s final thoughts
Globalization of the organization and human resources was what the author found Japanese companies are far behind their western counterparts when she was working for a Japanese company, and she was convinced it is quite true when she started working for a European company.
To her, it is a little late but she is happy that at least Japanese companies started to join “war for global talent”, a requirement to survive in the global, flat world.
In addition to change in their recruitment, Japanese companies would need to review their total HRM systems to successfully engage, retain and develop new global employees they have managed to hire.
Japanese companies are taking actions for globalization of their human resources to survive in globalized economy. This includes hiring Japanese people with global mindset and strategically developing them, and hiring non-Japanese people. The former has been a hot topic discussed by HRM (human resource management) experts and management professionals lately and the author would like to discuss in one of her upcoming article.
The topic of this article is about how Japanese companies have started to proactively hire non-Japanese new graduates.
1. How have human resources of Japanese companies been until today?
Globalization of human resources of Japanese companies are far behind other developed countries and even some emerging countries. It seems to attribute to the mindset of Japanese top executes and the general public; to them abroad is something special for them. Also it might attribute to the fact that Japan market was sufficient for Japanese companies to survive.
Under such a situation, although many Japanese companies such as Toyota and Sony to name a few have been doing business worldwide, their human resources and systems have been domestic. There have been “barriers” between business in Japan market and overseas market thus departments are usually separate and job rotation between the two departments/markets has been not so popular. Executives of sites outside Japan were expatriates from Japan HQ. Local employees were all hired locally and never been rotated to positions in Japan HQ or any other countries and regions outside other than where they were locally hired.
2. Why Japanese companies started to globalize their human resources now?
It is because the situation has changed. Japan is no longer #2 in its GDP. Japan domestic market demand will no longer expand so Japanese companies need to grow their business abroad especially the emerging markets.
However, Japanese companies realized that they lack in human resources that can be competitive in today’s global economy. This is prominent from the survey result implemented by HRM consultant companies.
Therefore, they started to take measure to cope with the drastic change, and one of them is strategically hiring non-Japanese new graduates, especially Chinese, to develop as tomorrow’s leaders.
3. What are some strategies and actions of Japanese companies to hire non-Japanese?
1) In general
Lawson, a leader in convenience store industry (CEO is a MBA holder from a U.S. business school), was one of the first company to strategically some hire none-Japanese new graduates to “bring in new wind in their company”.
Then in late 2010 many Japanese companies, leaders in their industry and operating worldwide such as Mitsubishi Trading and Panasonic, decided to hire so many hundred new graduates from outside Japan, which is 50% or more of their total hiring of new graduates for some companies. They have started contacting top class universities abroad, hosting seminars for new graduates introducing their companies, opening positions and other relevant information.
2) A case of a local retailer
A TV programme that went on air in December 2010 introduced a case in which a local retailer (supermarket) in Kyushu, southern Japan, recruited a female Chinese new graduate. The background of the hiring is their plan of starting business in China in few years and they hired her to develop her as a key person in their business in China.
It is a risk for her to relocate to Japan, away from her family, but she is interested in Japan and she saw the future in working for a Japanese company in Japan, so she made her decision.
The company welcomed her warmly. They provided her with housing and all furniture, which she was satisfied with. They made her start her career in a shop floor so that she would fully understand the business, systems, procedures and company culture from real experience at the shop floor. This approach is often adopted by many Japanese companies. The staff members at her new workplace were all told about her hiring and welcomed her warmly to minimize her culture shock and help her get used to living and working in Japan. It is not long since she started working in Japan so we will have to see her case as a pilot.
4. The author’s final thoughts
Globalization of the organization and human resources was what the author found Japanese companies are far behind their western counterparts when she was working for a Japanese company, and she was convinced it is quite true when she started working for a European company.
To her, it is a little late but she is happy that at least Japanese companies started to join “war for global talent”, a requirement to survive in the global, flat world.
In addition to change in their recruitment, Japanese companies would need to review their total HRM systems to successfully engage, retain and develop new global employees they have managed to hire.
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