Murata's human resources

Acquiring and developing human resources

"Acquiring and developing human resources" to respond to changing business environments

Coping with change at Murata

Our business environment will continue to change rapidly as business models become more diverse, processes switch over to digital, and changes are made to the frameworks of international society. Our lifestyles and how we work have also dramatically changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we continue to acquire new employees through M&As and active hiring. Changes such as these will continue to occur within Murata, and our stakeholders will only expect more from us.
Under the assumption that change will be constant, we aim to develop human resources who can view Murata's future as their own, provide a clear vision, work dynamically, and enhance our internal and external networks while creating innovation through co-creation, in order to cope with these changes.

Acquiring and developing human resources at Murata

Murata seeks to hire personnel who sympathize with our company philosophy and who think for themselves and act independently, perform their jobs in a way that involves the people around them and value teamwork, challenge themselves to realize ambitious goals, are conscientious and will keep at a job until it is finished, and value speed in their work. Because people's strengths lie in different elements, we believe that leads to diversity.
At Murata, we see the fostering of human resources as our most important management objectives and we make efforts in this area on an ongoing basis. We have formulated a policy for fostering human resources as a pillar of these efforts, and we are working to ensure that the policy becomes entrenched in the company. The policy states that Murata will realize a corporate culture of mutual nurturing and development by heightening three abilities – the ability of the individual to be nurtured, the ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture, and the ability of the company to cultivate and develop. We provide our employees with education and work opportunities that enable each individual to make the most of their strengths and unique characteristics and maximize their innate talents and abilities. Based on this policy, we offer a variety of human resources development programs and support for career formation.

Actions to acquire and develop human resources

1．Human resource attraction and acquisition

At Murata, we believe that a company is defined by the people it hires, and that a company's people are at the core of value creation.

Toward that end, we maintain a close relationship with society and actively disseminate Murata's vision and important values, and seek employees who understand the company philosophy, agree with it, and will put it into practice, and who are capable of solving issues with customers and society. We are also actively focused on acquiring employees with crucial strengths in management transformation and portfolio management, in order to achieve Vision2030.

2．Human resource development

At Murata, we believe that promoting growth through providing employees with rich experience and opportunities for development will serve as a foundation for the continuous growth of the company.

Murata has developed a multi-level remuneration system based on long-term career development. By aligning the company’s needs with the career plans of individuals, we have strengthened our human capital by developing rotations for growth, developing specialized skills for technological development and monozukuri, and fostering management skills to transform individual strengths into organizational strengths. We will continue to enhance the abilities of our employees and organization alike, so that we can continue to create value.

We aim to provide fair opportunities based on each employee's skills and expertise, and will realize a corporate culture of mutual nurturing and development by heightening three abilities – the ability of the individual to be nurtured, the ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture, and the ability of the company to cultivate and develop.

• The ability of the individual to be nurtured: The desire for independent growth in all of our employees
• The ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture: A nurturing mindset, management ability
• The ability of the company to cultivate and develop: Support to heighten the above two abilities.*

*The “ability of the company to cultivate and develop” refers to the provision of support to heighten both the “ability of the individual to be nurtured” and the “ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture.”
For example, we are conducting initiatives including hierarchy-based training, optional training, selective training, occupational training, and personal development programs in order to support the “ability of the individual to be nurtured.”
In addition, to support the “ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture,” we are conducting initiatives including training to enhance management ability. By means of these initiatives, we are seeking to further cultivate a corporate culture in which every individual is able to utilize their strengths and distinctive characteristics and maximize their innate talents and abilities.

Related initiatives

Examples of initiatives to enhance individuals’ “power to grow”
We provide training by level/function, selective training, and self-improvement programs to support employees’ “power to grow.”

One example of training by level is practical plant training conducted for new employees. Trainees learn how Murata creates value by experiencing what it is like to work in the manufacturing field, providing them with the opportunity to see for themselves how electronic components can contribute to society. This increases employee engagement and helps to reduce the number of employees leaving the company early on in their careers (within three years), which has a positive effect on business.

Examples of initiatives conducted to heighten the “Ability of superiors and the work environment to nurture”

Initiatives to enhance management ability
Murata actively conducts initiatives aimed at enhancing the management ability of its managers. One of these is Murata Management Basic (MMB) training, a program spanning approximately eight months that involves group training and repeated practice in the actual workplace. Members of our management team from across the entire range of job types and departments in the Murata Group participate. In addition to teaching participants the basics of management, the aim of the program is to strengthen mutual bonds between participants by encouraging them to discuss a variety of issues. Since launching the program in 2008, a total of 1,977 individuals have participated as of the end of fiscal 2022.
We are also holding workshops at various locations in order to deepen understanding of the importance of developing a mindset that recognizes that the responsibility for fostering management candidates is their own, and of consciously providing subordinates with work and encouraging self-reflection and introspection.
In addition, managers establish annual policies for the organization and their progress on these policies are evaluated through team-based performance appraisals.

Fair evaluation, development, and job assignment
At Murata, we have established a personnel evaluation system focused on a job class system based on employee ability, where evaluation results are taken into consideration when developing employees, making use of them, and providing them with suitable remuneration.

We conduct work evaluations twice per year to evaluate professional achievements, and skill evaluations once per year to evaluate work skills. The results of these evaluations are fed back into the HR development cycle.

Work evaluations

Goals are set at the beginning of the FY. The employee's "goal achievement" and "degree to which actions are put into practice" (the process by which goals are achieved) are then evaluated twice per year.
The employee works closely with their direct manager in deciding goals to achieve and the actions required to achieve them, through daily communication and feedback, in order to develop and produce results for the organization.

Skill evaluations

These are used to provide a multifaceted evaluation of an employee's abilities, with the employee's development taken into consideration.

Skills evaluated

This series of evaluation cycles is used to make human resource assignment and development decisions, in order to continue to develop individuals and organizations.

3．Continuous development of next-generation executive candidates

At Murata, we believe that continuing to develop the next-generation leaders is an important mission for the company, in order to realize what Murata wants to be (Vision2030) and so that the company can continue to create value.

Since our founding, we have continued to evolve our corporate organization as our management demonstrates leadership in order to manage our business in a way that takes changes over time into consideration. We will continue to keep an eye on changes in our business environment while we develop leaders to manage the company in order to continue to provide value to society. Toward that end, we continue to develop the future candidates for executive positions.

Related initiatives

Multi-level development program
At Murata, we have established the Middle Leadership Program (MLP) for management level employees, as a core initiative in developing the future candidates for executive positions. During this two-year program, trainees study various topics with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of themselves and transforming themselves, and receive advice not only from their direct managers but from multiple executive officers as well. Putting things into practice is crucial for both training and work, and from launching the program in fiscal 2016 until fiscal 2022, 44 of the 66 MLP trainees were provided with proactive opportunities, such as being promoted to the department manager level. We also provide members of management with opportunities to frankly discuss the development of the next-generation executive candidates. Each year, 10 to 20 individuals are selected to discuss individual development plans among members of the management team, in order to transfer employees that require additional experience, make management aware of promising leadership candidates, and support the development of these candidates. We had 10 new participants in fiscal 2022, and training is conducted by carefully selected employees (ranking within the top 0.1% of employees). In FY2022, we also launched a development program called Make2030 that is linked with our management policies (Vision2030 and Mid-term Direction 2024), aimed at employees interested in management. This program is meant to provide a fast track for participants in increasing sensitivity to environmental changes, strengthening hypothetical thinking, promoting cooperation across organizational boundaries, and acting while independently considering the future of the company. We are developing the next-generation executive candidates both inside and outside Japan. Murata is a truly global business with an overseas sales ratio of approximately 90%, and we will need to increase our overseas production ratio as we continue to grow. Continuing to develop initiatives for local leaders overseas will be crucial in accomplishing this. We have established the Global Leadership Program in order to continue to develop and enhance employees who agree with Murata's philosophies and can inherit the DNA of the company, and who can contribute toward expanding our global business while maintaining a company-wide perspective.

4．DX human resource acquisition and development

The digitalization of Murata's value creation process will elevate Murata's strength of "on-site transformation" from individual optimization to "autonomous and decentralized transformation" with collectiveness and progressiveness. This will in turn help us cultivate a corporate culture that continues to carry out Murata philosophy and bring about innovation.

We will need to focus on tackling the following four initiatives in order to promote DX, and believe that acquiring and developing DX human resources will be an important issue from a human capital perspective.

• Rebuild value chains that have been optimized along business lines but have become silos, along with businesses, processes, and systems
• Acquire and develop DX human resources (launch systems, hiring, and developing)
• Promote data management, coordination, and usage
• Make use of digital to transform monozukuri field