Talent Development

In recent years, the environment surrounding employees and organizations has changed dramatically through not only globalization but also shifts in society's values and needs.
Under these circumstances, it is critical for the Brother Group to continue being the company chosen by customers with the spirit of "At your side." and to foster a corporate culture in which employees can work with even stronger motivation. To accomplish these goals, Brother Industries, Ltd. (BIL) formulated a "Human Resource Policy" in FY2023. Under this Human Resource Policy, we will promote activities to "encourage employees to take on challenges" and "improve employee engagement" as set forth in its medium-term business strategy "CS B2024." The Group also aims to realize the Brother Group Vision "At your side 2030" and to achieve eternal prosperity. Furthermore, the Group is implementing talent development and various other personnel measures, including a new personnel system, to enable employees to maximize their abilities.

Based on the Human Resource Policy, BIL believes that it is important for the organization and its people to work together to achieve eternal prosperity, with each of the diverse individuals constantly taking on challenges. To promote this sustainable growth, BIL takes a generational approach by classifying employees into four generations from an employee lifecycle point of view.

The system is reformed so as to facilitate the measures for each group: younger employees to receive role-based training and early promotion, mid-level employees to receive more flexible positioning and compensation, managers to make role-based contributions and strengthen their abilities, and older employees to achieve results and create value in their new roles.
Under this reform, BIL revised its human resource system in FY2023 in order to ensure that all BIL employees can demonstrate their abilities, and to "encourage employees to take on challenges" and "improve employee engagement" as set forth in its medium-term business strategy "CS B2024". Under this human resource system, the conventional position-based grading system,^*1 which emphasized years of service and experience, has been replaced with a role-based grading system,^*2 which emphasizes the roles that employees play. In line with the change to the role-based grading system, the evaluation and compensation systems have also been revised.

1. A system that places importance on years of experience and grades employees based on their individual abilities and capabilities
2. A system that assigns grades and benefits based on the weight of the role (position) an employee assumes

Role-based Grading System and Compensation System

In April 2023, BIL transitioned from a position-based grading system to a role-based grading system and changed its compensation system accordingly. In this new system, the roles that employees play are emphasized and compensation is determined according to those roles.

Under the conventional position-based grading system, compensation increases with years of service, making it difficult to reflect the great achievements of younger employees in their compensation and requiring a certain period of service for promotion.
Under the newly introduced role-based grading system, grades and compensation are determined according to the role that each employee assumes, regardless of length of service, age or other factors. This system reduces seniority-based elements and better rewards those who produce great achievements and contributions. This system also promotes the early promotion of outstanding talents by shortening the retention period required for promotion of younger employees who bring great achievements and contribution to the company.
Under this system, BIL will encourage "true autonomy and efforts," as stated in the Human Resource Policy, by assigning roles according to ability and promoting the optimal allocation of talents while maximizing organizational strength by "properly rewarding achievements and contributions."

Evaluation System

BIL also reviewed its evaluation system in conjunction with the above transition to a role-based grading system. Under the new evaluation system, BIL will realize "properly rewarding achievements and contributions," as stated in the Human Resource Policy.

Based on the results of the employee engagement survey conducted in FY2022, BIL has reaffirmed the importance of "goal setting" as a factor to increase employee engagement. Accordingly, in addition to the introduction of the new evaluation system, BIL, since FY2023, has changed to a "goal-setting" system that can further encourage employees to take on new challenges.
In addition, BIL has created and published a new Role Definition Chart for each position and role, distributed videos and e-learning programs on the approach to goal setting and personnel evaluation, and conducted training programs for evaluators and employees in order to deepen all employees' understanding of the new evaluation system and enable them to set and evaluate goals with a common understanding.

After the evaluation is determined, feedback is provided on the evaluation results to inform employees of their strengths and challenges so that they can set their own goals for the following fiscal year. The results of the evaluation are reflected in salaries and bonuses for a highly transparent compensation system. This transparent system helps supervisors and subordinates to enhance mutual understanding and acceptance, thereby properly rewarding achievements and contributions and encouraging employees in "true autonomy and efforts."

Incremental Extension of the Retirement Age to 65

Once the role-based human resource system described above becomes firmly established, BIL will shift the retirement age to 65 for employees who will turn 60 years old in FY2029. This extension of the retirement age will be incrementally implemented starting in FY2026. In conjunction with the extension of the retirement age, the Brother Reemployment System will also be revised to encourage older employees to take on new challenges and to promote their success.
BIL believes that this shift will provide a system with no uniform reduction in compensation until the age of 65, thereby properly rewarding the contributions of older employees who produce great achievements by utilizing their experience, knowledge and skills cultivated over many years.

For more information on the promotion of older workers' success at BIL, please visit the following website.

BIL has introduced various systems to support diverse work styles and work-life balance to achieve "Respect for Diversity," which is set forth in the Human Resource Policy.

For more information, please visit the following websites.

• Respect for Diversity
• Comfortable Working Environment

BIL supports each employee to grow in his or her own way and build an autonomous career while utilizing his or her own skills and strengths. Examples include a career ownership program for employees at milestone ages to review their experiences and to visualize their future visions; extension training that accepts employees who wish to participate to learn various skills; and an overseas dispatch training program designed for young employees to gain experience overseas early on in their careers. BIL also provides e-learning options as an opportunity for self-development and subsidizes full or half tuition costs upon completion of a specified course.

In addition, BIL offers more than 20 training programs for new managers, including those on harassment, human rights, and compliance programs, in addition to management training. Besides these programs, we started one-on-one meetings between supervisors and subordinates in FY2017, to encourage the growth of employees, and the meetings are currently being conducted for 80% of the employees.

• Education system (Brother Industries, Ltd.) [PDF/627KB]

1. Covers only company-wide training programs conducted by the Human Resources Dept. and the Production Strategy Planning Dept. (OFFJT)
2. The trainee programs were suspended between FY2020 and FY2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but gradually resumed from FY2022.
3. Includes training and education programs provided by each department in addition to training programs conducted by the Human Resources Dept. and the Production Strategy Planning Dept. (For FY2019 through FY2022, the amounts have been updated from previously published data to include education and training programs provided by each department.)

Since FY2008, the Brother Group has conducted the "trainee program," a training program that sends trainees from BIL to the group companies outside Japan and vice versa, aiming to foster talent who have a broad vision, high expertise, and the ability to respond to global business challenges.

This training is designed for young employees selected based on Brother's talent development plan to receive on-the-job training ranging from three months to one year in line with the training plans formulated beforehand by both their dispatchers and receivers. The initial focus of this program was to provide trainees with training associated with their area of expertise. However, in FY2015, it started offering training to help trainees gain new knowledge through experience outside their specialty. Such training, for example, includes giving an opportunity for developers to visit customers with salespersons to directly listen to the needs and usage conditions of the customers.

In FY2018, the program also started short-term training for engineers in their twenties to learn at manufacturing or repair sites outside Japan for one month. This short-term dispatch program has been providing an opportunity for developers and engineers to broaden their perspectives by learning about operations that differ from their usual scope of responsibilities, improving cooperation with overseas manufacturing facilities, and visiting customers to directly learn about their real challenges.

In FY2023, 26 employees were dispatched from BIL to Group companies in Germany, Taiwan, and other countries, and 14 employees from Group companies in the Philippines and China to BIL.
The Brother Group will remain committed to fostering globally-minded talents who can deliver superior value.

I participated in a three-month trainee training program at the European sales overseeing company of the Printing & Solutions Business in the UK. I visited customers in the UK, France and Germany who use Brother's commercial & industrial use label printers to ask them how they actually use the products and interview them about issues that they are facing. At first, it was difficult to find out what they really think due to the language barrier and other obstacles; however, by clarifying the purpose of the visit first and directly communicating my thoughts to each customer, I gradually began to receive a variety of information from them. Eventually, through interviews, I was able to understand issues that even the customers themselves were unaware of, and one of the customers told me that they were glad that I had taken them seriously.
From this experience, I would like to aim to provide customers with true value by being conscious of taking customers seriously, learning the nature of the issues that they face, and communicating these issues directly to developers myself.

I was dispatched to BIL from BIVN, a manufacturing facility in Vietnam. At BIL, I actually experienced safety and health initiatives at the Mizuho Factory and the Hoshizaki Factory and acquired a variety of knowledge and learned various skills. Specifically, I learned how to balance work efficiency and safety by checking the operation of cooperative robots and conducting risk assessments at production sites. In addition, through participation in safety and health patrols and fire drills at BIL's production sites and learning how to use an AED, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the safety and health concept.
Through experiencing more than 90 other initiatives, I was exposed to BIL's high awareness of safety and health, and I feel that my own understanding and awareness of safety and health has been further improved.
To further raise the safety awareness of employees working at BIVN, I would like to apply the Japanese safety and health disaster prevention activities that I learned about from this training program to BIVN.

The Brother Group is promoting the use of digital technology to "transform business models in each business" and "build resilient and sustainable supply chains" as part of "management foundation transformation for a sustainable future," a key theme in its medium-term business strategy, CS B2024. Furthermore, in order to "encourage employees to take on challenges," the Brother Group is also strengthening the development of talents who can lead DX^*.

The Brother Group's DX strategy consists of three pillars: 1) Business DX (business model transformation in each business), 2) Operational DX (building a robust and sustainable supply chain), and 3) Building DX infrastructure (thorough use of digital technology and talent development). To build the foundation, we are promoting the continuous development of DX talents throughout the Group. The development of DX talent is divided into three levels: "Core DX talents," "Leaders of Digital Utilization Promotions," and "All employees."

• Abbreviation for digital transformation. Transformation of business and life through information technology (IT) such as high-speed Internet, cloud services, and artificial intelligence (AI).