Talent portfolio

The Kyowa Kirin Group has established the Kyowa Kirin Group Talent Management Basic Policy to realize its Business Philosophy and Vision, and to strengthen the creation of people and organizations that continue to create new value. In this policy, we have positioned talents as a source of innovation. In addition, Kyowa Kirin's Value Creation Stories clearly emphasize the importance of "employees who share Kyowa Kirin's Vision and Core Values," "teamwork of diverse talents," and "corporate culture of overcoming barriers to achieve the Vision (KABEGOE).” Base on the belief that bringing together the capabilities and challenges of each employee and promoting "value-creation activities" that links to life-changing value will allow us to achieve our Vision, we are focusing on providing opportunities to maximize the capabilities of individual talents and take on challenges. In each value chain of research, development, manufacturing, and sales, we are working to develop a work environment for healthy and diverse talents as well as foster the corporate culture, aiming to produce people who can do their best and try to innovate continuously with responsibility, high level of expertise, and a sense of mission to "make patients smile.

In order to sustainably develop our One Kyowa Kirin structure, we are enhancing a system to identify, train, and promote candidates for next- generation leaders for the future in various Regions and Functions. Under the current Medium-Term Business Plan which began in 2021, we established Global Talent Management Basics for 2021-2025 as our ideal state of HR in 2025 for the global talent management to strategically move forward. We have worked to identify global key positions and their talent requirements, develop a common global grading system, define the Leadership Principles, and introduce a global HR system (HRIS) as development of a common global HR infrastructure. These take important roles in talent management including recruitment, training, evaluation, transfer, deployment, and promotion. We aim to continuously develop talents to be global leaders by sharing HR data on a global basis in real time, promoting talent management based on data, and realizing allocation of the right people in the right position. In addition, as actual measures to strengthen the human resource pipeline, we are working on the formulation of individual development plans for each successor (Global Succession Plans), visualization and individual development plans for next-generation leader candidates, and the talent development program through short-term assignment on a global basis (Global Exchange Program). We have built the global HR Business Partner structure while coordinating with various Functions and regional human resource strategies, which enables us to integrate and effectively utilize our human resource strategies.

Kyowa Kirin Group conducts an engagement survey (Global Engagement And Motivation Survey) every year as a key indicator for maximizing the capabilities of each and every employee, and this survey is used to identify issues of organizational improvement and to consider measures to revitalize the organization. This survey focuses on two key factors for employees to maximize their abilities: "Employee Engagement" which indicates the degree of commitment to the company and the willingness to take voluntary action at work, and "Employee Enablement" which indicates achievement of the right person in the right position and work environment improvement to bring out the best in employees. Also, "Diversity and Inclusion" has been added to the indicators since 2020, so that diversity can be our strength.
According to the results of the 2023 survey, Employee Engagement improved by the same level as the previous year, Employee Enablement by 1 point, and Diversity and Inclusion by 1 point^*1.
Based on the findings of the survey, we are developing improvement plans and incorporating them into the action plans of every organization. We will continue to steadily implement PDCA cycles to resolve these issues.

The Kyowa Kirin Group aims to develop talents who can demonstrate leadership and generate innovation within the One Kyowa Kirin structure. In terms of talent development, we not only provide opportunities for growth through work, but also provide detailed talent development programs tailored to positions and objectives.
In Japan Region, we introduced a job-based grade and compensation system based on the global grading in April 2023. In addition to talent management of “the right person in the right position” within One Kyowa Kirin structure, we also enlightened our employees on the importance of taking ownership of their own careers. We have prepared job descriptions for all the management positions and disclosed them to all employees. Furthermore, we will increase the number of positions of internal job posting and its frequency, so that each individual will find a career that they want to realize within the Kyowa Kirin Group, and the company will support their efforts to realize this. Based on such an equal relationship committed to each other’s growth, we will plan and implement various related measures.

[Various related measures]

With regard to career measures, we believe it is important for all employees to always take ownership of their careers and envision their careers. For this reason, we think that it is essential to have self-direction to their career and mindset of trying to innovate from the start of their career. The My Career Series (My Career Prologue session, Starting session, and Leaping session) has started providing opportunities to think about his/her own career from the time of hiring, and continues to provide opportunities for learning and awareness after joining the company also. For managers who have direct reports, we have started career support workshops to learn about supporting the autonomous career of their direct reports. In addition, we have started individual career counseling which allows employees to consult with expert career counselors at any time.
When employees want to learn what is needed after sorting out their own “will / can / must” through career training, career interviews with their supervisors, and individual career counseling, they can take advantage of the "Challenge Support System" that supports employees’ learning in self-development. In 2023, we expanded the scope of the Challenge Support System to include support not only for the learning required for the current job, but also for the challenge of learning for the future at Kyowa Kirin.
For strengthening management, we have started the self-innovation training for managers and training for managers who have direct reports for the first time, aiming for synergy with the revision of HR system for management positions in 2023.
To accelerate development of new employees, we have launched ”three-year training program” in which new employees' supervisors, OJT instructors, and senior employees in the workplace work together to support the development of new employees until their third year with the company. The new employees and the employees involved will share what they want to be three years ahead. We also hold kick-off meetings for supervisors to share information and also provide training for OJT instructors, expecting to foster a corporate-wide culture of development.
Regarding the development of next-generation management talents, we select young leaders who will lead the future and develop them through the next-generation management talent training and long-term OJT/OFF-JT. OFF-JT provides a six-month training program focused on output to help the young talents plan and implement business strategies globally. We consider the talents developed here to be valuable leadership candidates, and after the training is completed, we will proactively assign positions to them, and implement continuous training through OJT such as business experience. In the future, we plan to link this activity with the next-generation management talent development program on a global scale for systematic development of global leaders who will lead the entire One Kyowa Kirin.
We also provide a variety of learning programs to help employees develop their skills and careers at each region globally. In EMEA Region, we are committed to fostering a culture of learning. Through organizing “Learning @Work Week” and a variety of events we emphasize the importance of lifelong learning and provide employees with opportunities to understand more about the company's learning opportunities and resources. In North America, we actively introduced on-demand contents and mobile apps to improve usability, so that we can provide learning contents directly related to careers and work more flexibly as needed.

The annual training hours per participant and per employee in fiscal year 2023 are as shown below.(Only for general education organized by the Human Resources Department. Excludes specialized expert talent training provided by each Division / Function. All excludes hours related to self-development.)

Furthermore, we also have initiatives in place to encourage R&D personnel to participate in education and training programs at universities and other educational institutions with the aim of enhancing their scientific capacity and providing them with opportunities to play active roles outside the company.

Kyowa Kirin has adopted an evaluation system that is designed to develop and grow its employees. By helping employees demonstrate this development and growth, the system also serves to improve the Company’s business performance. In implementing its evaluation system, Kyowa Kirin focuses on performance. The system defines job grades, provides job descriptions, and sets out leadership principles in a bid to clearly identify the roles and behavioral levels expected of each employee. Moreover, the system is implemented as an integrated system from the perspective of mid- to long-term human resource development (career development) to measure the degree to which employees demonstrate their abilities in the process of achieving performance targets and to provide opportunities for the development of their abilities.
In the evaluation process, individual meetings are held twice a year between supervisors and members to ensure that the series of processes, from goal setting through the implementation of evaluations to the provision of feedback are properly carried out. In a meeting at the beginning of the term, the supervisor and members of the team have a discussion about goal-setting and career prospects while reconciling their understanding of each other’s perceptions. In a meeting at the end of the term, steps are taken to review performance and processes against goals and to conduct an evaluation with the supervisor. In addition to the aforementioned, Kyowa Kirin proactively utilizes ad-hoc 1-on-1 communication to freely discuss various topics set by the supervisor and team members. These topics include daily work consultations, career development, progress toward goals, and course corrections. Furthermore, as part of efforts to improve the acceptability and fairness of evaluations, we conduct evaluator training.

Kyowa Kirin has agreed with the labor union to adopt the union-shop system, and repeatedly engages in constructive discussions in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect with the aim of maintaining a comfortable work environment where individuals are respected for who they are and developing a corporate culture conducive to such environment. Labor-management discussions are also held at each domestic Group company in an effort to establish and maintain a sound relationship between the two sides.

Kyowa Kirin uses a performance-linked remuneration system in which the level of bonus for the entire Company is determined based on its financial performance. In addition, the amount of bonus for each employee is decided by incorporating the degree of contribution they have made to the organization they work for. By having corporate performance and the degree of contribution reflected to some extent in each employee’s remuneration, we aim to motivate them to enhance corporate performance.

As an R&D-focused life science company, Kyowa Kirin helps R&D employees earn degrees that benefit their career paths by providing grants to cover all expenses incurred to earn such degrees.

Kyowa Kirin advocates a "hybrid working model" in which each employee considers the optimal work style for each function, Region, and organization on their own initiative. This model is designed to enable all employees to maximize their capabilities to create life-changing value.