Support diverse talent with motivating challenges and job satisfaction

• Demonstrating ability and fostering motivation (developing talent)
• Securing diverse human resources (promoting diversity)
• Creating healthy working environments (reforming working styles)

Relevant stakeholders

Direct: Employees, local communities, suppliers
Indirect: Shareholders and investors, creditors, NGOs, industry groups

As part of our efforts to build a management foundation to support sustainable growth, we stipulated the development of a framework in the Medium-Term ’21 Plan that would enable diverse human resources to work together organically and play an active role based on enthusiastic job satisfaction, as well as a training system that upholds individuality, quality and ability. We conduct flat evaluations based on ability, aptitude and performance, and develop human resource base designed to ensure the best mix of human resources to enable diverse talent, regardless of their nationality, gender, age, background or other factors, to grow and flourish, and to get the right people into the right jobs. In terms of human capital investment, we inject resources into various initiatives with a view to developing talent, promoting diversity and creating healthy working environments. We aim to help create value through our business by, for example, investing in systems that promote the planned development of business managers and professional talent in each organizational function, investing in the building of office environments and human resource systems that make diverse employees feel comfortable, and creating working arrangements and tools that help improve employee performance and communication.

Toyo Tire Group Charter of Corporate Behavior

Global Human Rights & Labor Policy

The Toyo Tire Group established the Global Human Rights & Labor Policy in January 2019. This policy endorses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact. As our Group business globalizes and our stakeholders diversify, we strive to carry out our activities in a way that respects the human rights of everyone involved in our corporate activities, including people in our workplaces, at our suppliers, and within the communities where we operate. This will help us contribute to creating an inclusive society that supports everyone, including socially vulnerable people, by protecting them from exclusion, conflict, loneliness and isolation. Group employees also recognize that they may potentially cause, contribute to or be complicit in adverse impacts on human rights through their own activities, and work to prevent this.

See below for English and Chinese versions

• Global Human Rights & Labor Policy
• 全球人权与劳动政策

Read more about our human rights due diligence.

In 2021, we launched a new human resource evaluation system to define a clearer picture of the type of talent required to support sustainable growth for the Toyo Tire Group, to clarify company expectations for individual roles at different levels, and to better motivate talent to achieve results and pursue personal growth. We are building an integrated system by promoting well-balanced evaluations with an emphasis on dialogue, raising remuneration levels, and introducing training programs that help improve individual capabilities. In 2023, we clarified our expectations regarding the ideal human resources profile and expected roles at our production sites.
A survey conducted after its launch confirmed that the new system and related measures are increasing employee motivation as anticipated. Going forward, we will continue to invest in human capital to drive improvements and revisions to our human resources system with the aims of increasing talent retention for positions that have had issues with working environments or treatment, promoting sustainable corporate management and maintaining and increasing our company’s social value.
To encourage the active growth of all employees, once per year we also hold individual career-building interviews between employees and their line managers to discuss skill strengths and weaknesses, promote development and formulate human resource development plans.
Having positioned talent development as the cornerstone of this new system, since 2022 we have been expanding each of our training and education programs. In our level-specific training for core employees, we have added training on conceptual points designed to help employees correctly follow company philosophy at each level, as well as mandatory training to help core employees acquire vital basic knowledge on digital transformation (DX), ESG or other subjects. We also conduct a several-month program to focus on acquiring the mindset and skills necessary to fulfil role expectations and apply that learning in the workplace. We have also updated our training for divisional general managers and general managers to help them acquire the necessary qualities and skills for developing effective management perspectives, managing their own personal transformations, and displaying leadership on medium- to long-term issues. Furthermore, as part of our drive to train more management candidates, we are also promoting cross-border training at excellent universities and other planned personnel transfers including overseas transfer, to help build a firm pool of human resources.

Aims of level-specific training

• *1 Included in the training hours of the training by level

Developing talent with technical expertise

With an eye toward a future predicted to have dramatically different market conditions through a mobility revolution, we are focusing on the development of professionals who can transform difficulties and crises into opportunities for sustainable growth. To develop the talent that supports our Group’s essential technological innovations, our education and training emphasizes basic knowledge, external company relations and the passing down of technology.
In addition to our company-wide training systems, we have also set up a specialized educational curriculum for young engineers run by the R&D function in which senior employees serve as instructors to help improve specialist capabilities. They also pass on knowledge and expertise that can be difficult to standardize or verbalize. In 2020, we added lectures on sustainable development goals (SDGs) designed to promote awareness of the role that technological development plays in solving social issues and to incorporate SDG considerations into R&D workflows.
Going forward, we will need even more human resources who can use their machine learning, deep learning and other AI-related knowledge and skills to transform our operations and overall business. To avoid over-reliance on AI-generated results, we will strive to train engineers who can design products and systems based on an accurate understanding of the fundamental principles of why things are the way they are, and who can use AI to expand their own thinking skills and capacities.

Developing talent with sales expertise

Tire distributors associated with the Toyo Tire Group work to develop human resources training that strengthens expertise through education and training and improves the skills of people in charge of customer service so that our customers can always feel comfortable and secure when selecting Toyo Tire products. Our subsidiary companies in the United States offer selective All American Leadership training and T3 online product modules as a digital training system on an ongoing basis. T3+ mobile gaming platform has also been added to existing platforms in the digital training system to facilitate the acquisition of greater product expertise. Furthermore, we have introduced a mentoring system that enables junior and new sales members to receive coaching and counseling from highly experienced veteran sales people and deepen their understanding on the products and company.

Read more about our ongoing initiatives in Japan.

Developing talent with production expertise

Retaining and passing on skills and know-how are important challenges when it comes to maintaining flexible production. We have a range of measures to retain and nurture human resources based on the nature of each plant and trends in the labor market of the country.
In Japan, where there are clear signs of a decrease in working population causing labor shortages, we make planned investments to improve the working conditions in the plants that have been in operation for a long time in order to increase human resource retention rate. Equipment weight reduction and automation as well as work standardization as part of Group-wide digital transformation reduce the burden on workers and make it easier for older employees and women to work with us, as well as eliminating reliance on specific personnel and their skills. Conversely, at our plant in North America, where the labor market is highly dynamic, we work from the assumption that the labor retention rate cannot be improved significantly and provide short-term training and skills development programs instead. In addition to the standard operating procedure videos designed for all production sites, we also provide a full range of on-the-job training, with trainers assigned to each production process, to promote efficient and effective job readiness.
In addition to the compliance training offered to all employees, our subsidiary in Thailand also provides internal audit training on quality management for employees in certain occupations.
We are currently considering offering leadership training for managers and seeking to enhance training opportunities that are specific to an employee’s level within the company and job type.

Training held in 2024(Japan)

• Basic courses for young employees by mid-level employees
• Competency development courses for mid-level employees by external lecturers
• Participation in external training courses

Training held in 2024 (Toyo Tire Corporation)

• ・Level-specific training
• ・Selective training
• ・Other training

Read more about the details of our level-specific, selective and other training.

Employee opinion survey

It is important that our employees should feel proud of what they do and are motivated to create value. We have been conducting an employee awareness survey once every two years since 2021 to capture a snapshot of our organizational culture (The Toyo Tire Corporation response rate in the second employee awareness survey reached approximately 95%).
The survey results and detailed analysis are shared with the Executive Committee and feedback is provided to each department. Our efforts to create and implement improvement action plans based on deep reflection are starting to bear fruit as the cycle takes hold. Each department is encouraged to implement autonomous and proactive initiatives based on their individual strengths and weaknesses. The Human Resources Department regularly monitors the progress of each department, and incorporates common issues into the development of company-wide policies and system reviews. The 2023 survey pinpointed issues relating to shift workload in the production department so we set up a project to promote improvements together with labor and management. Linking our philosophy, systems, events, and communication will enable us to form a unique culture and increase employee job satisfaction.

Securing diverse human resources

Fostering a culture of mutual respect among diverse human resources and establishing a culture of cooperation and collaboration are both important for creating unique Toyo Tire value. We work together with universities when recruiting new graduates to ensure we secure talented human resources, opening our doors to foreign students studying at Japanese universities and Japanese students studying at overseas universities, and actively approaching doctoral degree holders. At the same time, we are striving to increase our proportion of mid-career hires with experience at other companies, who are important in supporting our growth stage. Meanwhile, we are rehiring human resources who have turned 60 and are creating mechanisms to facilitate the active participation of people with disabilities. We have also built a job evaluation structure that can respond flexibly to diverse employees’ job and career preferences in both specified and general employment. In spring 2024, we introduced evaluation standards that would enable us to treat both human resources with outstanding management skills or the power to drive management strategy and personnel with specialist technological expertise or specific skills who have reached retirement age in the same way as we treat our current managers and employees under the age of 60. This move was designed to improve motivation among elder employees and encourage the nurturing of future successors. We expect these new structures and standards to have a positive internal impact and help invigorate our organization.
While the Group has a uniform compensation system for men and women with the same job qualifications and the same level of responsibility, our analysis shows that the differing ratios of men and women in management positions affect wage performance.
In efforts to change this, we have a number of measures in place including diversity and inclusion e-learning to improve employee awareness, and lectures by external experts to promote women’s empowerment. In addition, we are actively engaging in the development and promotion of women employees to ultimately eliminate wage disparities. In specific terms, over five years from 2016 to 2020, we doubled the percentage of women at the junior management level (assistant managers who become candidates for managerial positions) from 2.03% in 2016 to 4.65% in 2020. In further efforts to promote more women into management, for the five-year period starting in 2021, we also set a target for promotion of women from junior management level to manager level or higher, with the ratio of women promoted to be 0.8-1.2 times that of men. The 1.2 target has been achieved based on the average of the last three years from 2023 to 2025 (three-year average of 1.2 from 2023-2025, compared to 0.7 as of the end of 2020).

Employment situation

The Toyo Tire Group is committed to ensuring fair employment practices and treatment of employees, and to creating workplaces where a diverse team members can flourish regardless of nationality, gender, age or other characteristics. We are actively engaging in local hiring at each of our locations for continuing sustainable growth together with the local communities where we operate.
In our human resources recruitment, we strive to secure a diverse range of talent across the world, by, for example, recruiting both new graduates and mid-career candidates, rehiring retirees, and employing people with disabilities. As an illustration of those efforts, we no longer advertise recruitment targets for women and non-Japanese candidates when hiring new graduates, and have adopted a policy of fair, unbiased evaluation and recruitment for all talent.
In order to acquire the best talent, beginning with our fiscal 2024 new graduate hiring, we have also started using direct recruitment to approach students who fit our desired profile in addition to receiving applications from interested candidates via job hunting websites for students. We have resumed in-person, on-the-job training internships, which were discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide more earnest work experience opportunities.
Our subsidiary, Toyo Tire Refine Corporation, is trying to secure talent that fulfills the appropriate qualification requirements by actively encouraging work placements with a view to future employment through special needs schools, welfare-related organizations, and vocational training schools. We hold meetings with people with disabilities, their families, and support workers at least once a year in order to strengthen cooperation, and strive to create an environment where all stakeholders feel they can consult us on any matter. As a direct result of these initiatives, employees involved in vulcanization support and cleaning activities at the Corporate Technology Center earned Outstanding Work by Persons with Disabilities awards at the 2023 Hyogo Employment Festival for Persons with Disabilities. This program recognizes workers from select institutions in Hyogo Prefecture striving to promote the employment of people with disabilities who produced great results as exemplary professionals and have also demonstrated a long period of dedicated service.
Going forward, we will continue to strive to secure appropriate human resources and create safe and secure working environments by cooperating with relevant organizations and providing regular interview opportunities.

Diversity and equal opportunities

To promote the empowerment of all employees, we have established different types of personnel systems and a talent development plan, and offer career counseling for each employee. To encourage understanding of diversity from multiple perspectives, we are also enhancing thematic training opportunities on a variety of topics including LGBT, empowering women, harassment, and unconscious bias.
Toyo Tire Japan Co., Ltd. has established a human resources empowerment committee as part of its efforts to create workplaces that encourage both men and women to challenge themselves, to help employees build careers that recognize and respect diverse values and lifestyle choices, and to promote diverse workplace communication to achieve those aims. The committee was originally established to promote the career advancement and empowerment of female employees in particular. However, we subsequently broadened the committee focus to incorporate all employees in recognition of the fact that encouraging active participation and improved awareness among managers, supervisors, and male employees is also important. The company has been proactive in reviewing job descriptions, responsibilities and authority with a view to advancing the careers of female employees, and the number of women in management positions is rising as a result.
Moreover, as part of our efforts to create gender-balanced working environments, we have reviewed our company dress code at some locations, including our headquarters, to allow male employees to wear business casual.

New hires

New hires at Toyo Tire Corporation (full-time employees including mid-career hires)

Read more about the details of New hires.

Employee diversity

Employee diversity at Toyo Tire Corporation (full-time employees)

Read more about the details of Employee diversity.

Diversity in management target
Women: Raising the ratio of women promoted to section manager or higher compared to that of men to 80% or more over five years between 2021 and 2025
We have achieved the targets set out in the action plan formulated based on Japan’s Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children, and have received “Kurumin certification” from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2021 for satisfying certain requirements. We remain committed to supporting the balance between a career and raising children.

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You can find details on our current action plan (for the period from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2025) here:

• General Employer Action Plan Based on Japan's Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children

Preventing low-wage labor

Toyo Tire Corporation pays appropriate wages that exceed the minimum and living wages based on Japan’s Minimum Wage Act, in order to improve the lives and health of our workers.

Labor and management relations

Toyo Tire Corporation recognizes The Toyo Tire Labor Union as the sole negotiating organization. Terms for consultation and negotiation with the union are clearly stipulated in the collective labor agreement. As of the end of October 2024, the union membership is formed of 3,301 general employees, excluding 488 company executives and managers (87.1% of general employees).
The Labor-Management Conference on Business Management Measures is held twice a year and the Central Conference is held annually to bring together labor and management representatives to share and discuss management issues and the Group's goals.

Promoting work-life balance

In 2023, we introduced a new working style system with a remote work option, which had been established during COVID-19 pandemic. At our head office, we also renovated our work spaces so that employees can choose their own seat each day, allowing them to concentrate and be more productive while also fostering better collaboration with colleagues. Survey results show that over 90% of employees are satisfied with these broader working style options and our new office style where they can work freely and autonomously. Our renovated head office also received an encouragement award from Nikkei Inc. and the New Office Promotion Association.
In 2024, we recommended employees work 100% remotely during heat waves to reduce the stress of commuting. We confirmed that this decision led to a high level of employee satisfaction from a work-life balance perspective, so in November of the same year, we added the 100% remote work option to our permanent system.
To overcome the challenges of a remote work environment, such as difficulties with communication or labor management, we established a remote work manual to inform employees of key considerations. We also incorporated curriculum for more active communication between line managers and their subordinates into our line care training for managers at our head office, in efforts to create comfortable working environments for employees.

Regarding the need to help employees achieve a good work-life balance, we seek to improve our understanding of any changes in our employees' lives caused by different life events and to provide ways to help them achieve a healthy work-life balance. We have set up various systems that allow employees to fulfill their childcare and nursing care responsibilities, such as mechanisms for taking leave that enable employees to concentrate on raising children up to two years of age and care for family members (for families requiring nursing care within the second degree of kinship, up to one year). We have also worked hard to establish systems and nurture a workplace environment that are more conducive to men taking childcare leave. In addition, we have established a system that allows employees to reinstate and use annual paid leave that expired from two years ago in the event of an injury or illness, childcare or nursing care, volunteer activities, hospital visits, hospitalization, pregnancy, infertility treatment, or other reasons. Meanwhile, following labor-management consultations, our administrative and technical bases have designated several promotional days a year for encouraging employees to take their annual leave and achieve a better work-life balance. At the same time, we encourage employees at production sites to systematically take annual paid leave in line with the annual production plan. In fiscal 2024, the annual leave utilization rate stood at 71.4%, an increase of 17 points over the past three years.
The updated 2024 action plan includes exploring the possibility of offering paid nursing care leave to look after sick children and expanding the number of days of paid childcare leave, and seeks to expand our childcare support system and improve workplace environments to help increase the rate of eligible employees taking childcare leave to 100%, irrespective of gender.