Human Resource Development

We are looking for people who think things through for themselves, take action toward high goals, and continually seek to change and improve. To further secure and develop such talent, we are building organizations and creating environments that draw out, develop and make full use of the capabilities of every employee. We will continue to promote the creation of “stages” where employees can demonstrate their individual strengths to realize our materiality (Five Gears that drive Zeon), including “Creating a truly exciting company.”

Overall view of and KPIs for the creation of “stages” where employees can demonstrate their individual strengths in Phase 3 of the Medium-Term Business Plan

The overall view of the creation of “stages” where employees can demonstrate their individual strengths consists of: 1. promoting human resources management that fosters employee growth and motivation, 2. strengthening the alignment between management strategy and human resources strategy, and 3. developing a workplace environment that is easy to work in and supports uninterrupted career development. We have set KPIs through FY2028 and will continue implementing the actions, as shown in the diagram to achieve them.

The company has been conducting an employee engagement survey annually since FY2021 to visualize issues and link them to human resources strategy initiatives aimed at realizing our materiality. In this survey, our assessments focus on two outcome indicators: employee engagement, which measures mutual trust between employees and the company; and an environment that enables employees to make the most of their abilities, which measures the organizational conditions that allow individuals to demonstrate and utilize their capabilities. We consider and implement measures to maximize the capabilities of both employees and the organization and to drive growth on both sides.

Our employee engagement survey is one that is used globally, and it benchmarks results against the averages of high-performing global and Japanese companies. As a result, various organizational issues that previously tended to be perceived intuitively can now be visualized more objectively.

The results for FY2025 showed that employee engagement was 53% and the environment that enables employees to make the most of their abilities was 54%, both at the same level as the previous fiscal year’s results. To achieve the FY2030 target of 75%, we believe that continued positive encouragement is necessary to enable employees to feel motivated to “go above and beyond what is expected.” To that end, we will advance a human resource management transformation centered on personnel system reforms, which are key to this effort.

Trends in employee engagement survey indicators

We updated our personnel system for managerial and supervisory employees in July 2023 and introduced a new job-based system. In the former system, grades and compensation were used as stepping stones to management roles, based on employees’ ability to perform their duties. However, as the roles (i.e., job duties) employees are expected to perform have become increasingly diverse, we determined that in order to respond to employees’ aspirations and create “stages” that allow them to demonstrate their individual strengths, it was essential to transition to a personnel system that draws out employees’ diverse strengths and supports their growth. This led to the revision of our personnel system. First, while retaining the conventional skill-based qualification system and operating a hybrid model, we developed a talent portfolio and clarified the job requirements expected of managerial roles, with the aim of ensuring appropriate staffing levels to achieve our management and business strategy. Based on these efforts, we reorganized our grade structure, completely abolished the skill-based qualification system in FY2025 and transitioned fully to a job-based grading system. Under this system, we clearly define the jobs and roles that contribute to the achievement of our management strategy and clarify the authority and responsibilities associated with each position. The system is designed to ensure that delivering results based on each job and role directly contributes to the challenge of enhancing corporate value, while the value created is rigorously evaluated, with differences in performance appropriately reflected in compensation. Through this system, we aim to foster a group of professional talent committed to enhancing corporate value. Looking ahead to the planned revision of the personnel system for non-managerial employees, we aim to establish a system that encourages employees’ autonomy and willingness to take on challenges, thereby strengthening the talent that supports competitive operations and drives innovation. Through dialogue with non-managerial employees and other internal stakeholders, we will identify issues related to work styles and career development while considering measures to support employees’ self-directed career development.

Direction of personnel system reforms

We are undertaking initiatives to support women’s success, with the objective of creating a company where diverse talent can demonstrate their individual strengths and thrive.
Recognizing the extremely low number of female employees as an issue, we have proactively worked to expand the hiring of women. Specifically, for the recruitment of new graduates with a university degree or higher, we have set targets of at least 50% women for administrative staff and 30% for technical staff, and we have been promoting recruitment activities accordingly. As a result of these efforts, the number of our female employees has increased 2.1 times compared to 10 years ago, and their share of the total workforce has increased from 10.4% to 14.1%.
Although the percentage of women in managerial positions stood at only 5.7% as of the end of March 2026, we believe that this expansion of the base of female employees will lead to an increase in the number of female managers in the future, and we are strengthening initiatives to make this a reality. By fully transitioning to a job-based grading system for managerial and supervisory employees in October 2025, we clarified the job responsibilities and talent requirements for managerial positions. Going forward, we will identify the talent requirements and gaps for promotion and develop a pool of managerial candidates. Through initiatives such as a sponsorship program, we will also strengthen support for female managers and female managerial candidates.

We are promoting DI&B, which adds “Belonging” to Diversity and Inclusion. Through various initiatives, we aim to ensure that all employees feel a sense of security and trust in knowing that they are accepted, and can feel that they truly have a place here (Belonging). This also contributes to Zeon’s materiality theme of “Creating a Truly Exciting Company,” and serves as a driving force that empowers each employee to take action on their own initiative. Fostering an organizational culture rooted in DI&B, where everyone can feel “I am glad I work here; this is where I belong,” is the very process of “creating ‘stages’ together where everyone can demonstrate their individual strengths,” as set out in our Medium-Term Business Plan. Based on this philosophy, we aim not only to respect diversity but also to turn it into a driving force for change and value creation, and ultimately to contribute to the creation of innovation. As for the promotion system, Zeon has a promotion department within the Human Resources Division, and is also rolling out DI&B promotion projects across the organization, conducting both top-down and bottom-up activities. Specifically, we work on DI&B-related issues, plan and hold the annual company-wide DI&B Week, and conduct training designed to develop leaders who can leverage diversity. Through these initiatives, we aim to embed DI&B throughout the Company while fostering leadership and building communities that support our organizational culture.

In FY2025, we hired 23 mid-career employees in a wide range of areas, including research and development, business, and digital. By actively promoting these employees to managerial roles, we are working to build an organization with diverse perspectives. In FY2025, we hired 73 new graduates. From the perspective of promoting women’s active participation, we are working to maintain and increase the proportion of women among head-office hires to at least 30%. As a result, the number of female employees who are steadily taking on roles as core personnel involved in management decision-making in the future is increasing. As our workforce has grown significantly as a result of our active recruitment efforts in recent years, we are focusing on implementing and establishing onboarding initiatives centered on two-way dialogue so that new employees can successfully settle into the company and fully demonstrate their individual abilities. These initiatives include support for establishing a foundation for daily life, training programs Zeon designs and delivers in-house, and support for building relationships with colleagues. For mid-career joiners in particular, Human Resources hosts informal sessions soon after they start at Zeon to deepen their understanding of Zeon’s manufacturing activities, while also providing training that helps them work with a high-level understanding of our Group. Furthermore, since FY2024, we have been conducting individual interviews to support their retention and early development as productive contributors.

Number of new hires (non-consolidated)

As we expand our business globally, it is of the utmost importance to our company that not only Japanese employees but also foreign-national employees play active roles. Having foreign-national employees play active roles in various departments contributes not only to their own growth but also the growth of the Japanese colleagues working alongside them, while promoting respect for diverse values and invigorating the organization as a whole. For some time, we have continuously pursued the recruitment of a multinational workforce, including hiring employees from outside Japan, irrespective of nationality. As of March 2026, we had 26 foreign-national employees, and this number has been on an upward trend compared with previous years. Of these, seven are active in managerial roles. Going forward, we will continue to pursue a policy of increasing the number of foreign-national employees who can serve as core personnel involved in management decision-making.

As of March 2026, Zeon had 46 employees stationed outside Japan, who are active in regions throughout the globe, driving our business outside Japan, mainly in Asian countries, along with North America, Europe, and other regions. In addition to offering our support to employees stationed outside Japan to ensure that they can live and work in safety, we aim to clarify the roles and duties required of each overseas assignment, as well as career visions that take employees’ growth into consideration. We will also create an environment in which employees can confidently take on challenges and put themselves forward for overseas assignments.

We created a personnel system for senior employees that applies to employees who are at or above the mandatory retirement age of 60 years. As of March 2026, a total of 160 senior employees (including personnel seconded to the Group companies) are working under this program and are active in various areas including assignments outside Japan.

The concept of this system is “creating stages (workplace) where employees who have entered or are about to enter their senior years can demonstrate their individual strengths for an even longer period in anticipation of an era of 100-year life spans.”

The adoption of this system will provide a framework for rehiring up to the age of 70, as well as increasing the variety of life options and providing environments in which employees can work in peace of mind. It will achieve this through the provision of attractive benefits and flexible work styles, including part-time work and side work, as a response to the desire of seniors to remain active and take on challenges even after the mandatory retirement age.

The Zeon Challenge Awards are presented annually to employees who contribute to corporate value enhancement and take on challenges. The prizes given for the President’s Award and other rewards are commensurate with the levels of these achievements.

Together with the monthly commendations presented to individual employees by division managers, the award responds to employees’ self-initiated challenges and provides a “stage” on which their individual strengths can be shown.