Approach to Human Capital
Our Approach
Our aim is to create human resources who will provide “Enjoyment and Peace of Mind” to customers, and therefore “delivering happiness to all.”
In the rapidly changing business environment, the SUBARU Group is committed to human capital management with the approach that the human resources that drive our operations are the foundation of our competitiveness and sustainable growth.
To flexibly adapt to changes in the environment and powerfully drive transformation, we have positioned linking the growth of the individual, in which people think and act on their own initiative, and the growth of the organization as an item of utmost importance. Accordingly, we are taking a range of actions under priority themes such as human resource development and corporate culture reforms, with the goal of building human resources who will lead the future of SUBARU. We also believe that the mental and physical health of our employees is of paramount importance in order for them to maximize their potential for transformation, and we are working to create workplaces with safety and security.
Under our new management structure, we will further deepen these efforts and aim for “Monozukuri Innovation” and “Value Creation” through people and organizations with true competitiveness, and continue to strive toward our vision of becoming a company “delivering happiness to all.”
Management System
Human Resource Strategy Promotion System
Employee attitudes survey
SUBARU regards employee engagement as one of the key management indicators for evaluating company initiatives, and has been conducting the annual Employee Attitudes Survey since FYE March 2018 to use it as a tool for addressing organizational issues. The survey results are utilized in personnel policies and corporate culture reform efforts, as well as to identify issues and formulate countermeasures at each workplace. Since FYE March 2023, points for improvement in the employee engagement rating have been used as a qualitative (non-financial) evaluation criterion for executive compensation.
From FYE March 2024, we have adjusted the survey, modifying the calculation method for the engagement score with the aim of making it easier to analyze the survey results and compare them with other companies, and to clarify SUBARU’s strengths and challenges. These changes allow us to focus on planning countermeasures, and by adding indicators that could not be measured before, we are working to visualize the penetration of management strategies and the status of improvements in business processes across teams. In addition, SUBARU has decided to set a new target engagement score of 70% for 2028, in line with the change in survey method. Given our current situation, this target score to be achieved will be our global average, and we have adjusted our target achievement period to 2028, which is also a milestone year for the initiatives toward our vision for 2030 set out in the SUBARU New Management Policy.
In the survey conducted in October 2023, the engagement score was 49%, which was below the global average. The survey results showed that the percentage of positive responses to questions in categories such as management strategy and business processes was low, and that there was a divergence from companies with good business performance. We will seriously address the challenges identified in this survey and other results, and work to analyze the causes of said challenges and how to improve them to carry out the SUBARU New Management Policy and become a company “delivering happiness to all.”
Future challenges
Actions in the management strategy category
Our analysis reveals that one factor is the uncertainty about the feasibility of the unprecedented challenges we will tackle according to the SUBARU New Management Policy. In response, the President and Deputy President have started holding dialogue sessions to directly communicate their thoughts and ideas to employees. The dialogue sessions are being held with employees selected from departments, positions, and age groups that have scored lower than the average for SUBARU as a whole, allowing us to directly hear raw feedback not perceptible from data alone, while also carefully communicating the management's thoughts on achieving the new policies. We also hold dialogue sessions with the heads of departments who oversee each workplace to discuss the issues faced by each workplace as they work to put the policies into practice. These dialogue sessions focus on having small-group discussions to engage attentively with each individual, and we are striving to use these as a way to spur employees to take on challenges with a sense of urgency.
Actions in the business process category
Challenges highlighted here were found in the areas of collaborative systems across organizations and work processes. As overall business complexity increases, the areas that need to be addressed are becoming more diverse, and with advancing specialization, we have analyzed that one contributing factor in the areas above is the lack of communication between organizations. We see these as major issues that must be overcome as we work to become “one SUBARU” in order to achieve the SUBARU New Management Policy. We will work to resolve these issues from all angles, including creating a workplace environment that encourages cross-departmental collaboration, fostering a corporate culture that ensures psychological safety, and implementing business transformation that makes use of IT and AI.
Risks in Securing and Training Human Resources
So that each and every employee can become a driving force for achieving both the sustainable growth of the SUBARU Group and the realization of a sustainable society, SUBARU aims to train human resources who can act autonomously and play a leading role in creating change. We are also developing a corporate culture that encourages employees to develop their own careers and take on new challenges in an environment that allows diverse human resources to play an active role.
In securing human resources, we are hiring more aggressively than ever in specialized areas such as electrification, evolution of advanced safety technologies, and enhancement of IT fields.
Also, in order to continue offering customers our unique value, SUBARU employees need to be able to exert their unique talents informed by their own personal values and characteristics. This is why SUBARU issues promotions while valuing the differences in gender, nationality, culture, and lifestyle among its employees, striving to create workplace environments where everyone can make a meaningful contribution. We particularly regard occupational health and safety as a critical management issue, and under our fundamental philosophy of “SUBARU makes health and safety the first priority in all our work,” we are promoting efforts across all of SUBARU to prevent industrial accidents, prevent illness, and improve working environments. Going forward, if we are unable to secure human resources due to a tight labor market, intensifying competition for human resources, including from other industries, or labor problems that could lead to compliance issues, if there is insufficient action with regard to occupational health and safety, or if there is sustained turnover, the SUBARU Group’s business activities and management may be affected. Similarly, inadequate human resource development or the inability to create a workplace environment in which everyone can play an active role and in which employee diversity is respected may also affect the SUBARU Group’s business activities.