Osaka – Saturday, 15 January, 2011
As a follow-up of the previous article Japanese Companies Join War for Global Talent, this article introduces a case of Ricoh http://www.ricoh.com/ a typical Japanese company, of acquiring, developing and retaining global talent, which was introduced in a recent Japanese HRM (human resource management) publication http://www.busi-pub.com/.
1. How are sales and employees of the group company geographically diversified?
56% of worldwide sales come from overseas (outside Japan) and 62% of worldwide employees are located overseas. Geographical diversification of sales and employees are balanced for a Japanese company.
Sales by region
Region / Sales (billion yen) / %
Japan / 876.5 / 43.5
Americas / 557.6 / 27.7
Europe / 458.5 / 22.7
Others / 123.4 / 6.1
Total / 2016.0 /100.0
Employees
Region / Number of employee / %
Japan / 41,118 / 37.9
Americas / 35,000 / 32.3
Europe / 17,239 / 15.9
China / 10,143 / 9.3
Asia-Pacific / 5,025 / 4.6
Total / 108,525 / 100.0
2. Has the company been hiring non-Japanese in Japan already?
Yes and at present there are 84 non-Japanese employees (64 regular, 20 non-regular). Their country of origin are varied including China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, France, Russia, the U.S., Kenya, the U.K., Peru, and Malaysia. 80% of new graduate hiring of non-Japanese are engineers.
The reason for non-Japanese hiring is because the company is to increase the percentage of overseas sales, which means they would need more global talent.
300-350 people are hired annually and their target is to hire 30 of them who are non-Japanese, which they have been achieving. However, this does not mean they have been acquiring global talent globally because the process and requirements are exactly the same as Japanese graduates. This means that Japanese fluency would be one of the requirements, which is a big hurdle for majority of non-Japanese.
3. How is the company to change their global talent hiring?
They are to change the target and process of the recruiting. Non-Japanese living in Japan have been their target and therefore their recruiting has been all done in Japan but they will also target people living outside Japan.
The have recently tried something new, which is joining a group recruiting event held in Boston, the U.S. It turned out to be that 90% of the participants of the event are Japanese people studying in the U.S.
They knew there are many non-American participants for the event but they were shocked to know the reality that few non-Japanese students are interested in their company. Thus their challenge is how to attract attention and interest of non-Japanese people and how to navigate them to apply for their positions. Of course, engaging and retaining them would be the challenge as well.
4. What is the impact of increase in non-Japanese employees on workplace?
It is true that the ratio of non-Japanese employees in the company (non-consolidated, some 13,000) is still very low and not every departments has non-Japanese employees thus it takes time for the total company to globalize but there has been some positive impacts.
A Chinese new graduate was assigned as a first non-Japanese in a HR department and he has contributed to changing culture of the department. He casually teaches English and Chinese to members of the department who enjoy learning, which also facilitated communication. An American moved into another department, which encouraged members of the department to learn English.
5. What is the challenges the company is facing or to face in recruiting non-Japanese from outside Japan?
1) Appropriate hard and soft factors to admit non-Japanese employees in the workplace
(1) Hard factors
This is mainly about language issue, making internal infrastructure/DB (data base) and documents bilingual (Japanese and English). The change in the company’s hiring of global talent to be strategically assigned in Japan means they would hire people who cannot understand Japanese but since they have hired people who are fluent in Japanese they did not need to make internal infrastructure and documents bilingual.
(2) Soft factors
This is all about people and culture of the workplace in Japan. It is about people with global and D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) mindset and actions. It is about the D&I culture. This deserves much discussion and a book can be written on this topic so the author would like to refrain from discussion this issue in this article.
2) International job rotation
As explained in the previous article Japanese Companies Join War for Global Talent there were not truly international job rotation in Japanese companies but with acquiring, developing, retaining and engaging global talent and leverage them international rotation would be necessary for globalization of the company and its people. This is one important way of developing employees with global and D&I mindset and cultivating an organization of global, D&I culture.
In one of the upcoming article the author would like explain and discuss how Japanese companies are trying to globalize their Japanese employees.
References:-
Global HR Development of Ricoh (a special article) 2011 January edition of http://www.busi-pub.com/ (in Japanese)
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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