To execute our business strategy, we consider our most important human resources to be our mid-level workforce, which bridges junior and senior employees while driving the workplace. That is why continuously hiring young employees to grow into this mid-level group is vital for sustainable growth. Attracting experienced workers from diverse backgrounds who can increase diversity in the Group is also critical. To achieve this, we actively conduct year-round recruitment through a wide variety of channels to attract a diverse range of talent, including recent graduates, experienced workers, women, people with disabilities, and foreign nationals.

We believe that leveraging diversity and having workers autonomously take on challenges breeds innovation and maximizes organizational results. In our human capital strategy, which aims to achieve this, we focus first on developing the abilities of the individual. We define individual abilities as portable skills—foundational skills required regardless of role or position—and technical skills—specialized abilities acquired through work experience—and aim to boost these skills through HR initiatives.
To connect increased individual skills to organizational success, increasing management ability in the workplace is vital.
That is why, starting in fiscal 2024, we have begun implementing training for all organizational managers to drive organizational transformation and promote management skills that encourage workers to take on challenges by ensuring psychological safety.

In a rapidly changing business environment full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, called VUCA, achieving sustainable growth for the Group requires ongoing innovation. To breed such innovation, we must transform our organizational culture into one where employees feel encouraged to take risks and pursue challenges without fear of failure, backed by a high level of psychological safety.
That is why, starting in fiscal 2023, we launched the Organizational Culture Reform Project Team that comprises employees who answered our call with a passion for driving change, which plays a leading role in advancing cultural reform efforts within the Group. In these efforts, the team works closely with management, promoting effective, rapid cultural reform through a combination of both bottom-up and top-down approaches.
To promote cultural reform within our human capital strategy as well, we are working toward a transformation in mindset among officers and employees through revisions to the evaluation system. We also have managers set “challenge goals” in their annual performance targets to support strategic action.

The Group established a corporate philosophy for JSW Group based around its Purpose in fiscal 2022.
Efforts are currently underway to help the Purpose resonate with all officers and employees, starting with organizational managers. At workplaces, organizational managers lead workshops to discuss the connection between the Purpose and daily operations to instill this among workers.
The Group also recognizes that leveraging diverse talent to connect different perspectives and ideas to new value is essential in executing its management strategy. To further embody our Purpose requires that we expand the breadth of this diversity.
To achieve this, it is vital to bolster efforts to create a work environment where workers can fully express their individuality as well as create training programs tailored to idiosyncrasies. This is why the Group has added “E” and “B” to the existing definition of diversity, previously termed “D&I,” to create the new term “DEI&B.”

Acquisition of human resources that match our business strategy

JSW Group’s workforce includes many highly skilled mid-tier personnel in their 30s to 40s who have plenty of experience. In order to execute our business strategy and achieve sustainable growth, we need to maintain and increase the number of business leaders in this age group.
In addition, while focusing on hiring new graduates as young employees who will grow into the middle tier of the future, we actively recruit experienced employees throughout the year.

Acquisition of diverse human resources

In order to promote DEI&B, which is a materiality, we will recruit human resources with various attributes and qualities to improve diversity. To ensure diversity in attributes, our highest priority is to increase the ratio of female employees, which currently remains low. In particular, we are working to increase the ratio of female employees to recruit more female candidates by actively following up with female employees in the process of selecting female candidates. We also utilize various channels for people with disabilities and foreign nationals, and promote recruitment activities that emphasize matching with their career aspirations.
Meanwhile, as an initiative to recruit diverse human resources in terms of qualifications, in order to recruit unique human resources who excel in one skill, we established a new recruitment path for new graduates in fiscal 2024 called the “passionate recruitment course” that is different from the conventional selection flow. In addition, as a result of our focus on hiring experienced employees, nearly 40% of the total number of employees hired in fiscal 2023 were experienced employees, and many people with various experiences, backgrounds, and skills joined the Company, leading to an improvement in the diversity of human resources.

Level-specific training and self-development support

We provide level-specific training for all employees, from new hires to managers.
Furthermore, to support self-development, we make online learning platforms available, and strive to create an environment where people can acquire the skills they are seeking.

Growth support for organizational managers

Based on the results of the engagement survey, we believe that to raise the level of performance for the organization as a whole, it is important to enhance the skills of organizational managers who drive the workplace to achieve strategic goals.
Firstly, we consider it important for the organizational managers to develop the skills to enhance the psychological safety and job satisfaction of workplace members, and therefore have strengthened the training to acquire management skills with a view to contributing not only to improved engagement but also to organizational change and innovation.
In addition, because the personnel composition and issues vary from workplace to workplace, by designing a variety of educational content for organizational managers that takes into consideration the various learning needs of each workplace, we will support these managers in enhancing their skills appropriate to the actual situation of each workplace.
We also actively fast-track young high performers into management in anticipation of future advancement to senior management. We task these individuals with critical missions involving significant responsibility, and actively conduct development measures through internal recruitment and rotation.

IT skills education

All employees have been categorized into levels according to responsibilities and IT skills, and the target percentage of employees at each level has been set. As we work to achieve these percentages, we are developing an environment to provide appropriate educational content to employees with various skill levels, thereby working to improve IT literacy throughout JSW Group. In addition to the foregoing, we will also work to develop department leaders, familiar with business as well as IT, who will promote digitization of business operations to derive concrete results from DX activities.

Support and monetary incentive programs for technology and skills transfer, and acquisition of official certifications

We have established in-house training environments such as Ginou-Dojo (Technical Skills Dojo) (Hiroshima Plant) and Hagane-Juku (Steel Academy) (Japan Steel Works M&E Muroran Plant). We are transmitting skills that have been passed down by generations of skilled technicians to younger employees, and broadening the base of employees with deep technical backgrounds. We also encourage employees to obtain official certifications and reward them when they do, and have introduced a skills certification system to promote autonomous learning and growth.

Global business skills

We offer employees educational opportunities to acquire global business skills. In addition to improving skills such as negotiating and giving presentations in English, this training also gives participants the opportunity to learn styles of thinking that have global resonance.
Moreover, we provide the basic and specialized education required for global business, such as language training including study abroad, and workplace rotation for personnel development, including to the Company’s international locations. Through the synergistic effects of these efforts, we are fostering the human resources who will lead the development of our business on a global scale.
Going forward, we will begin to structure an educational system to effect management skills acquisition, including the expertise to formulate and execute growth strategies and establish corresponding management structures, and knowledge of M&A.

Separate systems have been established for general employees (non-managers) and managers. Evaluation of general employees focuses on job performance. At the assistant manager level, the highest general employee level, the Company sets goals based on the individual’s scope of responsibility, and evaluates based on achievement of those goals. For management-level employees, an MBO system has been put in place, where they set goals autonomously with respect to problem-solving and organizational development linked to business objectives, and work autonomously to achieve them.
Communication with supervisors is mandatory in setting goals for managers and assistant managers. Such communication reinforces the link between management and individual goals, and ensures that all employees can exercise their individual abilities and play an active role in furthering the organization’s pursuit of management strategy.
In the past, the MBO system for managers had set targets for a single fiscal year, which was inconsistent with the medium-term targets. Starting in fiscal 2024, we have clarified the setting of targets over a multi-year span for the execution of the mediumterm management plan, and set new challenge targets so as not to operate the system in a conservative manner.

We have been conducting an engagement survey annually since fiscal 2022. Based on the results of these efforts, we are enhancing education for organizational managers so that all employees can play an active role, eliminating disparities in management among workplaces and raising the level of management.
In addition, since scores tended to gradually decrease as employees continued to work after joining the Company, we are strengthening the environment in which young employees can fully demonstrate their abilities by enhancing follow-up after joining the Company.
Female employees have higher scores than male employees, but the results of the analysis show that they need support in terms of career awareness, and in order to stay close to their respective career visions, we will consider support measures including support for female employees, including their superiors.

In addition to establishing a childcare and family care leave system and ensuring that it conforms with current law, we are working to create an environment that facilitates a balance of work with childcare and family care, with telecommuting, staggered work hours, and an hourly paid leave system.
In terms of education, we are promoting measures to support self-development, so that employees can upgrade their skills in line with their motivation.

To accommodate the diverse values and needs of our employees, we are undertaking to enhance our system by offering them a cafeteria (benefit) plan from which they can select the benefits that fit their needs.

As part of its "global recruitment" activities, JSW Group continues to hire international students and people with long-term overseas residency experience every year. In addition, the entire group, including affiliated companies, employs over 500 people worldwide, including our expatriates/local hires. In the future, we will consider exchanging human resources with our overseas subsidiaries while strengthening the training of foreign nationals.

Flexible work styles (flextime system, work interval system, etc.) will be considered in the future.