Talent portfolio

Policy and Strategy

The Kyowa Kirin Group established the Kyowa Kirin Group Talent Management Policy, and positioned the concept that human resources as the source of innovation. We believe that the manifestation of collective abilities and challenges of each employee as value will help us contribute to society, which is why the Company focuses on maximizing the abilities of individual human resources and on providing opportunities for them to take on challenges. We also indicated this approach as materiality relating to strengthening our talent and infrastructure, along with the organizational climate/human resources, to realize life-changing value. Our human resources function aims to promote management strategies on a global level, and to create life-changing value that brings a smile to every patients’ face beyond, by fostering an environment, organizational climate, and corporate culture that allow for a healthy and diverse range of talent to flourish. In order to increase the degree to which we achieve this goal, we established Global Talent Management Basics for 2021-2025 as the Human Resources Vision, and have been engaging in various initiatives to this end.

Kyowa Kirin Group Talent Management Policy

Established on August 30, 2017

In an effort to fulfill its management philosophy, the Kyowa Kirin Group (hereinafter, “the Group”) acts in line with its Core Values and Code of Conduct and with high ethical standards toward its goal of becoming a corporate group trusted by society.

The business environment surrounding the Group is undergoing increasingly dramatic changes as health and medical care needs and technology diversify and issues of healthcare economics emerge on a global scale. In such an evolving environment, we must accelerate our own business model transformation, such as by creating new value and globalizing our businesses. To this end, it is imperative for us to retain and develop employees capable of exerting leadership and autonomously taking on the challenge of reform. We must maximize the capabilities of individuals with diverse backgrounds and offer them opportunities to co-create new value.

In light of such circumstances, we have established the following policy to clearly define the relationship between the Group’s employees and the companies they work for, delineate our uniform Group-wide approach to employees’ competence development, and strengthen the development of individuals and organizations that will tirelessly tackle reform and create new value.

  1. 1.
    Considering its employees as the source of innovation, the Group strives to unleash the full potential of each and every employee to develop individuals and organizations that will tirelessly tackle reform and create new value.
  2. 2.
    The Group harnesses the unique individuality of employees with diverse backgrounds and encourages them to co-create new value.
    • The Group strives to create an open and invigorated corporate culture.
    • The Group provides opportunities for challenge and growth.
  3. 3.
    The Group’s employees shall act autonomously and take on the challenge of reform that contributes to the Group’s growth.
    • The Group’s employees shall think, interact and take actions with self-initiative.
    • The Group’s employees shall seek to achieve self-growth and contribute to their organizations.
  4. 4.
    The Group engages in labor management in compliance with laws and regulations, guidelines and industrial rules pertaining to labor relations in the countries where it operates its business.
  5. 5.
    To achieve the above 1 through 4, the Group establishes and operates appropriate organizational schemes and operational processes at each Group company.
Global Talent Management Basics for 2021–2025/Align talent management processes with Kyowa Kirin Group’s Mission, Vision,Values and business strategies./Attract diverse, world-class talent and create an environment that enables them to have long and successful careers and unleash their full potential to foster innovation and contribute to Kyowa Kirin Group’s success in bringing smiles to people who face disease./As a Japan-based Global Specialty Pharmaceutical Company, emphasize people development and create talent pipelines for critical global positions./Provide equal opportunities for growth to all people and recognize their successes while creating an inclusive environment that allows people to demonstrate their diverse strengths./Use cutting-edge technology to support and strengthen talent management on a global level./Encourage line managers and employees to take ownership in talent management.

Governance

Development and Promotion of Global Talent Management

In order to sustainably develop the One Kyowa Kirin structure, as part of a global process we are promoting systems to discover, train, and assign next-generation leader candidates who will take responsibility for the future of each region and function*1.
Under the current Medium Term Business Plan started in 2021, we have worked to develop a globally common HR foundation, described below, in order to strategically promote global talent management.

  • Identify global key positions and their talent requirements
  • Implementation of global grading
  • Formulation of leadership principles
  • Introduction of a global human resource system (HRIS)

This foundation is essential for seamlessly implementing talent management, including hiring, training, assessing, reassigning, and promoting employees. Along with sharing human resources data globally in real time, promoting data-driven talent management, and successfully assigning the right person to the right position, we are advancing various initiatives to reinforce the talent pipeline in a way that ensures we can continuously generate global leaders.
As a few examples of efforts to reinforce the talent pipeline that we have begun, we formulate global succession plans, visualize next-generation leader candidates and formulate individual development plans for them, and offer a short-term overseas dispatch program (Global Exchange Program). We are also building a global HR business partner structure to enable these leaders to function in alignment with the human resources strategy for each function and regional organization.

Development and Promotion of Global Talent Management
Kyowa Kirin's Leadership Principles
Leadership Principles

Indicators and Targets

Global Engagement and Motivation Survey (GEMS), Employee Attitude Survey

Kyowa Kirin conducts an employee attitude survey (Global Engagement and Motivation Survey) each year as an important indicator for drawing out the maximum potential of each employee, and uses the results to consider measures that identify organizational improvement issues and revitalize the organization. As important elements for employees to maximize their abilities, in these surveys we pay particular attention to two elements: employee engagement, which is an indicator of willingness to contribute to the company, loyalty, and voluntary efforts; and employee enablement, which is an indicator of the opportunities for them to make full use of their own skills and abilities as well as of a comfortable working environment. In addition, we added diversity and inclusion as an indicator in 2020 in aspirations of an organization that can apply diversity to our advantage.
The results of the 2022 survey showed a one-point improvement in employee engagement, a three-point improvement in employee enablement, and a three-point improvement in diversity and inclusion*1.
In response to the survey results, we drafted improvement proposals for each organization and reflected these proposals in their action plans. Similarly, we will steadily implement PDCA cycles to resolve these issues.

  • *1:
    [Number of people surveyed/Response rate]
    Number of people surveyed: 6,067. No. of respondents: 5,783. Response rate: 95%
Question categories
Employee engagement / Strategy and direction / Leadership / Quality and customer orientation / Respect for the individual / Growth opportunities / Compensation and benefits / Employee enablement / Performance management / Degree of authority and autonomy / Resources / Education and training / Cooperative framework / Business processes and organizational structure / Management philosophy and values / Code of conducts and compliance / Expectations work styles / Diversity and inclusion / Company quality culture
Benchmark data
Global corporate average; global average of high-performing companies, corporate average of pharmaceuticals companies, Japan corporate average, regional and country averages.
Employee Engagement(2020:67%,2021:68%,2022:69%),Employee Enablement(2020:63%,2021:65%,2022:68%),Diversity&Inclusion(2020:73%,2021:76%,2022:79%)
Global Engagement and Motivation Syrvey (GEMS)

Specific Initiatives

Human Resources Development and Career Development

The Kyowa Kirin Group aspires to human resources development that fosters talent who demonstrate leadership and drive innovation within the One Kyowa Kirin structure. As part of human resources development, we have established human resources development programs finely tailored to different ranks and objectives in going beyond simply providing opportunities for growth through work.

In the Japan region, progress was made with preparations to revise the job-based grading and remuneration system to conform to global grades, and a system introduced in April 2023. In addition to achieving talent management with the right person in the right position under the One Kyowa Kirin structure, we showed employees the importance of taking ownership of their careers. By creating job descriptions for all managerial positions and disclosing them to all employees, the Company will support each individual in finding the career they want to pursue within the Kyowa Kirin Group and in forging the desired career. We will plan and implement a variety of related initiatives while believing in such an equal relationship committed to mutual growth.

[Related Initiatives]

  • My Career series covering the three-year period from prospective job offer to the second year of employment (My Career Prologue session, Starting session, Leaping session)
  • Career workshop and career development support training for superiors
  • Self-development support program
  • Internal recruitment, internal side jobs
  • Short-term overseas dispatch program (Global Exchange Program)
  • Next-generation manager development training
  • Kirin Group selected training

We believe it is important for all employees to consistently take ownership of and envision their own careers. For this reason, we believe it is critical for employees to possess an awareness of taking on the challenge of being independent and innovative in their careers right from the start. Likewise, we have begun providing employees with opportunities to think about their careers from the prospective job offer stage, and continue to provide them with opportunities to learn and make discoveries after entering the company in an ongoing manner. In regard to next-generation manager development, we select young leaders who will take responsibility for the future, and provide training through OJT and OFF-JT programs over the long-term. OFF-JT programs provide knowledge and skills that enable individuals to plan and execute business strategies on a global level through output-oriented training over the course of roughly six months. Recognizing that the individuals trained in this program serve as valuable manager candidates, we actively assign them to positions following the completion of training, and conduct ongoing training through business experience and other forms of OJT. By linking these activities with our next-generation manager development program on a global basis, we plan to systematically develop global leaders that can spearhead One Kyowa Kirin as a whole.

At each business site, a variety of learning programs have been developed for the purpose of employee skill and career development.

  • EMEA: We are committed to fostering a learning culture. In addition to implementing Learning @Work Week and emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning through a variety of events, we provided opportunities for employees to deepen their knowledge about in-house learning opportunities and resources.
  • North America: We have improved usability by actively incorporating on-demand content and mobile apps to flexibly provide learning content directly linked to employees’ careers and jobs whenever necessary.
  • APAC: We are starting discussions with all business leaders on career development frameworks and program development.

You can see this table by scrolling horizontally.

FY 2022 training conducted by the Human Resources Department
Programs People Trained Total Training
Time (hours)
Compulsory training by rank Training by rank (General staff) 999 15,828
Training by rank (Managerial staff) 400 3,051
Next-generation personnel development Next-generation personnel development training 20 1,180
Training for female employees Kirin Group training 7 343
Career training 16 584
Staff hired through mid-career recruitment Training for staff hired through mid-career recruitment 312 1,702
Career training by age Career and life planning training (General staff) 50 96
Career and life planning training (Managerial staff) 81 184
Career training (others) 217 620
Self-development Self-development support 565 -
Total 2,667 23,591

Kyowa Kirin’s annual training hours per participant and training hours per employee for FY2022 are as follows, excluding time used for self-development.

  • Annual training hours per participant:8.8 hours
  • Training hours per employee:5.9 hours

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 Human Resources Training Structure
Global Engagement and Motivation Syrvey (GEMS)

Evaluation System

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.

Dialogue with Employees

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.

Performance-linked remuneration system

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.

Financial grant program for degree acquisition

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.

New Work Style Hybrid Working Model

The COVID-19 pandemic forced various inconveniences upon us, imposing restrictions on working at the office or visiting customers. At the same time, we have made many adjustments as we adapted to the dramatically changing environment, creating and adopting new ways of working to fulfill our responsibility as a life sciences company. To continue to create life-changing value and bring smiles to patients around the world, we have proposed a hybrid working model as a desirable work style for the Kyowa Kirin Group. We will continue to pursue the optimal way of working that allows each function, region and organization to create maximum value, with each and every employee taking the initiative.

[Three Key Principles of Kyowa Kirin’s Hybrid Working Model]

  • Nothing that costs our well-being is worth it
  • Flexibility within a framework
  • Employees are the architects of the new Model