Basic Talent Development Policy
Respecting the diversity and individuality of employees and developing globally-minded human resources capable of delivering superior value
The basic talent development policy of the Brother Group is to develop self-directed employees. In line with this policy, the group aims to help each and every employee understand and sympathize with Brother's vision, translate it into action voluntarily, and achieve results.
Regarding the company's relationship with its employees, as stated in the "Our Associates" section of the Brother Group Global Charter, the Brother Group gives priority to:
- respecting diversity;
- enabling associates to utilize their talents and abilities to the fullest; and
- giving them great opportunity through challenging work assignments.
The Brother Group believes that talent development tailored to individual countries, regions, and business segments and the upgrade of relevant systems lead to helping employees fully use their talents and skills over a long period of time. Based on this idea, the group is committed to creating a better talent development environment and building various systems. In recent years, the work style environment is rapidly changing, mainly reflecting globalization, improvements to information technology, and the diversification of lifestyles. In light of this, the group aims to implement talent development and education that will facilitate more proactive career development for its employees. The group has also been promoting active participation of employees in training programs to enable them to acquire globally competitive skills.
As a part of these activities, we are providing a career design program for employees at milestone ages to review their experiences and changes in their environments and visualize their future visions, extension training that accepts employees that wish to participate to learn necessary skills, and an overseas dispatch training program designed for young employees to gain experience overseas early on in their careers. We have prepared more than 20 programs for new managers, including harassment and human rights training, which covers various case studies that are based on actual incidents. Every year 50 or more employees participate in these programs.
Education system (Brother Industries, Ltd.) [PDF/712KB]- New manager training (Brother Industries, Ltd.) [PDF/128KB]
Details of employee development training and education (Brother Industries, Ltd.)
| Total hours*1, 2 | 99,274 hours |
|---|---|
| Average amount of money per employee*1, 2 | 79,778 yen |
| Average number of days per employee*1, 2 | 1.09 days |
| Average amount of time per employee*1, 2 | 26.12 hours |
| Training types*1, 2 | position-based education, new manager training, extension training, etc. |
- FY2019
- The data cover only the training programs conducted by the Human Resources Dept. and the Production Strategy Planning Dept.
Besides these programs, in FY2017, the group started one-on-one meetings between supervisors and subordinates in Japan and has been widely introducing this initiative throughout the entire company.
The Brother Group will continue to foster human resources on a global scale and in a well-planned, long-term manner.
Brother Develops Talent Who Can Tackle Global Business Challenges
Employees develop a broad perspective and high expertise through various experiences
Since FY2008, the Brother Group has conducted the "trainee program," a training program that sends trainees from Brother Industries, Ltd. (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 two years 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 sales persons 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.
In this way, the Brother Group gives developers and engineers opportunities to learn other work than their own, and thus strives to develop human resources who can promote the "Brother Value Chain Management" (BVCM), Brother's unique management system to deliver superior value to customers.
In FY2019, BIL sent 37 trainees to group companies in various countries, including Germany and Indonesia, while taking in 14 trainees from group companies in the Philippines and China. One manufacturing engineer, who was in their twelfth year at BIL, was dispatched to Brother Machinery Xian Co., Ltd.(BMX), a group manufacturing facility that operates a machinery business in Xi'an, China. By working together with local employees and carefully confirming each step of operations, this manufacturing engineer was able to experience the actual site of events that could not be replicated in Japan, including reviewing and reducing measurement values and the time it takes to carry out processes overall.
Process verification at BMX
The Brother Group will remain committed to fostering globally-minded human resources who can deliver superior value.
Comment from an employee who participated in the trainee program:
Becoming global talent that can contribute to business overall
Production Department, Machinery Business Division, Brother Industries, Ltd.
Hajime Okita
I spent three months working as a team member with the local employees at the manufacturing facility in BMX carrying out improvement activities. My goal was to reduce the number of processes at the manufacturing facility in Xi'an. Naturally, I was proactive in offering up my own comments but I also made it a point to use data and easy-to-understand words to communicate smoothly with local employees and ensure we were on the same page. It was due to the nature of the local facility that I was able to cooperate with local employees to confirm the differences between manufacturing facilities in Japan and China, achieve visualization of manufacturing processes and manage tasks, and realize a training program by preparing a training manual.
Going forward, I aim to undertake improvement activities and talent development to deliver products that are safe, secure, and satisfying for customers while remaining conscious of the need to strengthen collaborations between departments and facilities.
Brother Conducts a Training Program to Quickly Develop Young Designers
Interaction between designers and development engineers gives shape to "At your side." *
In 2017, the Design Department of Development Center at BIL launched a workshop training program designed to quickly develop young designers by allowing them to work with experienced designers and development engineers.
This program enables young designers to learn design skills from veteran designers through frequent discussions with them and to gain a deeper understanding of product features through communication with development engineers. Participants use a product of another company as an educational object and analyze the reasons for the adoption of its design and discuss the differences between the company's attitude to manufacturing and Brother's, and thus nurturing their design perspectives in a way that keeps up with changing product trends. In addition, they engage in six practical exercises to discover the differences in thinking between positions and so forth, considering engineers' well-thought-out ideas and designers' ingenuity.
Designers and development engineers exchanging opinions
Six exercises in the training program
Through this program, young designers increase their ability to clearly explain the rationale for their design choices in a concrete, not an abstract, way. They can also realize that the role of designers is not merely creating beautifully designed products but also creating products that satisfy customer demands and provide enhanced ease of use based on the "At your side." spirit.
The Brother Group will remain committed to developing talent who can deliver superior value.
- "At your side." : Brother's corporate message of placing its customers first everywhere, ever time
