Through our efforts to ingrain the corporate philosophy, employees throughout the Group have come to understand and resonate with the idea of every employee aiming to be a solution creator (for details about efforts to ingrain the corporate philosophy, see page 37). The next step is therefore to advance from understanding and resonance to concrete action that yields results. One finding of the employee engagement survey has been that some employees do not understand how the corporate philosophy relates to their day-to-day work. In light of this, to help employees take action based on the corporate philosophy, we created a list of five attitudes required of a solution creator. In developing the list, we interviewed the presidents of the seven core SCREEN Group companies and held interviews and workshops with selected employees, thus involving employees in the process to ensure that the list would reflect the values of the actual Group.
Human resources
In the Management Grand Design, SCREEN has designated “encouraging personal growth of each employee” as one of its material issues. To address this issue, we have established human resource (HR) strategy. To support management from a medium- to long-term perspective amid a drastically changing, highly uncertain operating environment, under the Value Up 2023 medium-term management plan, we worked to share the core values of the SCREEN Group through efforts to increase awareness of the corporate philosophy. Under the new medium-term management plan, Value Up Further 2026, we are formulating and implementing HR strategy more closely linked with corporate and business strategy, positioning the development of solution creators as a key measure of HR development.
The importance of solution creators in our HR strategy
To maintain and assert our market presence, including that in the semiconductor market, which is expected to see long-term growth, we must urgently reinforce our global competitiveness by securing and developing highly skilled professionals. The SCREEN Group today operates a range of businesses that embody its Founder’s Motto of “Shi Ko Ten Kai,” the concept of “broadening everyone’s thoughts and horizons for innovation,” and constantly endeavors to create new businesses. The common goal for the future running through all such Group activities is to continue to provide solutions that create strong relationships of trust with clients by meeting constantly evolving social and client needs. To this end, we believe that the indispensable mandate of HR strategy is to develop all employees into solution creators capable of contributing to society through business by autonomously considering what to do, proactively anticipating customer needs, and taking action.
HR strategy and policy for producing solution creators
The term “solution creator” as used in the Management Grand Design applies to both the Group’s enterprises and individuals. To produce solution creators, we have laid out an HR strategy of both creating a vibrant corporate culture and encouraging personal growth. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, the final year of the Value Up 2023 medium-term management plan, we identified issues at the organizational and individual levels through dialogue with employees and the employee engagement survey (for details, see page 38). Under the new medium-term management plan, Value Up Further 2026, we will advance tightly coordinated and effective HR strategy to address these issues.
Through a cycle of recruitment, development, and retention linked with corporate strategy, we will increase the talent portfolio fulfillment rate. We will check the effectiveness of our HR measures using the employee engagement survey. Through HR strategy, we will thus support sustainable corporate growth by creating a vibrant corporate culture and encouraging individual growth.
Value Up Further 2026: Steps for promoting our HR strategy
Value Up Further 2026: HR key performance metrics and actions
Talent portfolio management
Amid forecasts of a decrease in Japan’s working-age population and personnel shortages in the semiconductor industry in particular, the creation of innovation by diverse human resources will be essential to SCREEN’s medium- to long-term growth and value enhancement. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, we mapped out our talent portfolio to better understand the gaps, both qualitative and quantitative, between the human resources we will need to implement our corporate strategy and where we stand now. Linking efforts in this area with corporate and business strategy, we will enhance our talent portfolio through a cycle of acquisition, development, and retention.
Acquisition
Finding talent
Acquiring human resources is extremely important, as they form the foundation for all group company growth strategies. Amid mounting competition to hire engineers and other talent, we aim to enhance our talent portfolio and acquire solution creators. In doing so, we are working to address three issues: 1. better matching individuals to roles in hiring; 2. expanding specialist hiring, and 3. finding talent that aligns with our corporate philosophy.
Efforts to date have included expanding internship programs for engineering students and providing more factory tours to help potential applicants understand our businesses, how they address social issues, and what each job type entails. Notably, in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, to acquire highly skilled professionals, we focused efforts on hiring students as they complete PhD programs, reinforcing contact with such individuals using targeted media and recruitment seminars. We also practice job-specific hiring and offer meetings with current employees, facility tours, and discussion meetings to enable candidates to choose areas of work where they will be able to apply their research experience or specific fields of study, be it in undergraduate, masters, or PhD programs. Going forward, we will more strategically work to acquire human resources that enhance the talent portfolio and that have the makings of solution creators.
Diversity
■ Ensuring diversity
The SCREEN Group’s CSR Charter specifies the policy of “developing and making active use of diverse human resources.” Amid advancing globalization and growing uncertainty, we must build organizations that can flexibly respond to changing environments. Bringing together people with different backgrounds provides new ideas and perspectives. Based on the belief that diversity is a source of innovation, we are creating environments that accommodate diversity and proactively hiring human resources who offer diverse perspectives, such as women, foreign nationals, and mid-career professionals.
■ Expanding career paths for women, foreign nationals, and mid-career hires
The SCREEN Group is working to empower women professionally. By the fiscal year ending March 31, 2031, we aim to raise the portion of management positions held by women to 6% or more and the percentage of women among all employees to 15% or more. To this end, we are proactively hiring women, with the target of 20% or more women among new graduate hires. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, we took steps to address the issue of the small percentage of women in science-related positions as part of activities for hiring new graduates. Specifically, we offered discussion sessions and one-on-one meetings with women working at SCREEN in engineering roles, including those who are raising children or in management positions, targeting female students in technical fields. In addition, we publish “SCREEN CAREER & LIFE BOOK for women,” a pamphlet geared toward women about SCREEN, as part of efforts to provide women with a concrete idea of how they might build a career at the Group. Individual group companies in Japan set annual targets, and we implement measures tailored to conditions at each company. Through such efforts, the Group works to strengthen hiring.
In addition, group companies in Japan currently employ a total of 52 foreign nationals. At our overseas subsidiaries, over half of full-time executive posts are held by locally hired foreign nationals. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, we held recruitment seminars and hiring events for international students studying in Japan. We are also actively hiring mid-career professionals, with such hires accounting for 63.7% of the permanent employees hired in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. We aim for at least 50% of all employees to consist of women, foreign nationals, and mid-career professionals by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2031.
■ Promoting the employment of people with disabilities
Since the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, our special subsidiary SCREEN Business Expert Co., Ltd. has promoted the employment of people with disabilities. In addition to the longstanding hiring of such employees at the Hikone Site through Hikone Parte, we have established Kyoto Parte, an in-house organization for the employment of people with disabilities in our Head Office. As of June 2024, the number of SCREEN Group employees with disabilities is 85, or 2.71% of employees at the seven major companies in Japan (for details, see the Sustainability Data Book). In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, as part of efforts to foster a culture accommodating of diverse human resources, we accommodated people with diverse types of disabilities and held seminars for people with disabilities with experts from Kyoto University and external companies. Going forward, we will work to expand sites offering work for people with disabilities and reinforce hiring to further advance efforts to provide employment for diverse human resources.
Development
Aspiring to make every employee a solution creator, we aim to build frameworks that support and track the growth of human resources at all levels and instill a group management perspective to develop the next generation of business leaders.
Five attitudes required of a solution creator
Integrating the five attitudes into HR systems
To support the growth of individuals, we are reviewing and expanding training programs based on the list of attitudes required of a solution creator. In addition to creating new training programs in areas necessary for solution creators, such as critical thinking and quantitative business analysis, we are expanding training to build skills as part of efforts to empower all employees to autonomously develop their own abilities. Going forward, we will integrate the list into our HR systems and expand initiatives to enable all employees to better embody the five attitudes.
Becoming solution creators will require not only the growth of individuals, but also the development of a vibrant corporate culture. Based on this understanding, we have established the organizational solution creator levels. We are working to build a foundation for each employee to take action, for example, by having management communicate their expectations and experiences related to moving up in these levels. Going forward, we plan to implement workshops to help employees understand how these levels translate into concrete action for their specific organizations. We plan to measure growth related to the organizational solution creator levels through the employee engagement survey.
Value Up Further 2026: HR key performance metrics and actions 
Cultivating next-generation business leaders
As a solution creator, each individual employee must apply a managerial perspective to respond to change and take appropriate action. At the same time, developing strong leaders who embody the corporate philosophy and proactively drive the organization toward its future vision is an important task in building a sustainable business foundation. In order to cultivate the next generation of capable business leaders, the SCREEN Group has run the business leader training course for managers annually for 18 years and the junior business leader training Course for non-managers for seven years. Participants selected from group companies take part in content-rich training programs throughout the year. These programs include talks by directors and executive officers, lectures on specialized topics by external instructors, and cross-industry interactive training with employees from other companies. In addition to providing practical business knowledge, participants develop a more managerial outlook and the ability to think and act independently as future business leaders. Employees who complete the program go on to be leaders that drive the Group forward.
In addition, we also offer the SCREEN Business Leadership Academy, launched in 2022, for employees in management positions who aspire to high-level corporate management. In this program, current and former SCREEN executives share their real-life experiences as business leaders, including how they made certain successful or unsuccessful management decisions. This is intended to pass down practical management skills and know-how as well as what is involved in decision making. The program’s originator, Chairman Kakiuchi, and now other executives, as well, serve as instructors. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, 113 employees from across the Group took part in the program. We plan to hold multiple sessions in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.
Going forward, we will use the talent portfolio to identify next-generation business leaders across the Group and more strategically advance their development.
Developing specialized professionals
In April 2024, we expanded career paths for specialist human resources that contribute within specific areas. We drafted specialist job descriptions that spell out the skills we will need to execute the strategies in each business and made them available to all employees. In the current fiscal year, we have newly appointed 27 employees to such roles, three times the number in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022. Through these efforts, we are creating the conditions to support value creation by filling out the talent portfolio in terms of quantity and securing diversity.
The Engineer Development Committee conducts the SCREEN Group’s educational programs in R&D and technology fields. The committee has been working to more clearly map out plans for technical knowledge enhancement and professional development across employees’ first three years with the Group. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, we launched the next-generation engineer development course, a project manager development training program. Furthermore, for engineers in their fourth year with the Group, we provide training focused on cultivating the necessary mindset to understand client needs. And, in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, we held training on making value proposals that meet client needs for fifth-year engineers. Going forward, the final phase of the training plan will be for participants to learn ideas and concepts while improving practical skills needed to implement plans through actual scenario planning. Through such training, we will develop leaders who understand the entire manufacturing process and generate talent capable of creating solutions to social issues.
In addition, to further the career development of engineers, we have in place an ongoing inter-business rotation system for mid-level engineers. The program allows participants to extend their engineering skills through experience at different organizations while helping them build networks of communication that extend beyond their own organizations.
Interview
Engineer rotation program participants (as of April of each year)
| 2021 (1st year) | 2022 (2nd year) | 2023 (3rd year) | 2024 (4th year) | |
| Participants | 9 | 8 | 8 | 9 |
Investment in education and training
| FY2022/03 | FY2023/03 | FY2024/03 | |
| Investment in education and training | ¥160 million | ¥250 million | ¥400 million2 |
| Investment in education and training per person1 | ¥75,000 | ¥115,000 | ¥149,000 |
| Investment in education and training per person2 | - | - | ¥105,000 |
| 1. Total expenses for course and other fees and internal education and training costs at SCREEN Holdings, business operating companies, and functional support companies 2. Total expenses for the consolidated Group in Japan, including those in 1., above |
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Education System
Management-by-objectives and 360-degree evaluation
Under our management-by-objectives system, employees meet one-on-one with their managers twice a year: once when setting their objectives, and once to check on their progress. These meetings serve to align individuals’ goals with organizational goals and, in combination with other dialogue with managers throughout the year, help boost motivation and provide employees with opportunities for reflection. In this way, we use the system to develop a vibrant corporate culture and encourage individual growth. Employees are evaluated based on their roles and achievements, as well as the actions they took, in a fair and transparent process. The results of employee evaluations, combined with company and organization performance scores, is reflected in individual remuneration, ensuring that each employee is rewarded fairly for their contribution. In addition, we regularly hold training for managers to deepen their understanding of underlying management-by-objectives and evaluation systems. Employees also have opportunities to evaluate their managers as part of 360-degree evaluations. Through such two-way assessments, we aim for balanced evaluations.
Retention
The Group’s employees span several generations and have diverse values. To continue enhancing corporate value amid rapidly changing business and social conditions, we will need all of these employees to come together and proactively work in the same direction. Toward that goal, we will work to ingrain our corporate philosophy and implement our HR strategy. In this way, we will create environments in which employees can succeed regardless of their age by fostering a sense of unity while offering them opportunities to put the corporate philosophy into practice.
Promoting solution creation by fostering unity
In April 2023, we redefined our corporate philosophy and revised the Management Grand Design, which lays out our 10-year vision and basic policy for enhancing corporate value. To foster awareness of these, we livestreamed a discussion by top management about the corporate philosophy to seven major operating sites. In addition, since then, we have held a total of 37 town hall meetings with 2,638 participants. These opportunities for dialogue between employees and management are intended to help motivate employees and unite the Group behind a shared vision.
As a result of these efforts, understanding of and resonance with the corporate philosophy among employees reached 90%. Going forward, we will continue to hold town hall meetings with group companies in Japan and overseas to build a sense of unity across the SCREEN Group. In addition, we plan to hold inter-organizational events to reinforce communication across job types.
Enabling diverse talent to succeed
To accommodate the diverse individuality of employees, the SCREEN Group is committed to cultivating a work environment that empowers all employees to succeed regardless of gender, and that is adaptable to employees’ various life stages, such as pregnancy (either their own or their spouse’s), childbirth, childcare, caring for ill or elderly family members, or undergoing treatment for illness. In addition to a work-at-home system, we offer a variety of leave systems, including “refresh” leave, consisting of five consecutive paid days off, and childrearing support leave, which employees can take to participate in their children’s school events. The employee engagement survey indicates that these systems are very popular with employees. Besides efforts to make work more employee-friendly, we have begun considerations aimed at extending the mandatory retirement age in order to provide more opportunities for diverse talent.
To further enhance the professional fulfillment of all employees, we will continue to provide career design training for junior employees and expand support for autonomous career development through open recruitment for internal positions and allowing employees to set their own career goals.
Employee stock ownership program: Cultivating a management mindset
The Company has established an employee stock ownership program to encourage the employees to purchase the Company’s stocks. Targeting all employees in Japan, we provide a 15% incentive on their contribution and other types of support for purchasing stocks. Through this program, we seek to cultivate a management mindset among employees and help their long-term asset building. As of March 31, 2024 over 85％ of the employees in Japan has joined the program.
Labor-management relations
The Company is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and recognizes workers’ rights to association and collective bargaining. As of March 31, 2024, 61.1% of employees at the seven major companies belong to the labor union. In addition to the regular monthly labor-management talks, ad-hoc labor-management meetings are held on specific topics, continuing productive dialogue.
Highlight
Measuring the vibrancy of corporate culture and individual growthTo implement our HR strategy—that is, to realize our 10-year vision of addressing social issues as a solution creator—closely interconnecting our efforts to both create a vibrant corporate culture and encourage individual growth will be essential. Furthermore, we believe that it will be important for employees with diverse values to align their efforts in a common direction and find fulfillment in their work. To identify issues at the individual and organizational levels and enhance employees’ professional fulfillment, since the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, SCREEN has implemented an employee engagement survey. In order to address the issues thus identified, the survey results are then also used to check the effectiveness of measures taken in the employee recruitment, development, and retention processes.
Employee engagement survey
The employee engagement survey assesses sustainable employee engagement* from three major perspectives. These are further divided into 15 categories of questions to provide a 360-degree examination of the issues that the Group must face to achieve sustainable growth.
* Sustainable engagement: An indicator of whether a productive work environment, good physical and mental health, and other necessary conditions are in place to maintain high levels of motivation to contribute to achieving goals and a strong sense of belonging to the organization
| Engaged | Foster support for the company’s targets and goals and desire to contribute to their achievement based on a sense of pride and belonging in the company |
| Enabled | Eliminate impediments to business execution, improve problem-solving abilities, and secure the tools and resources to enhance operational efficiency |
| Energized | Maintain a sense of accomplishment and vitality at work and cultivate deeper team and workplace relationships |
Note: Prepared by SCREEN based on materials provided by WTW (Willis Towers Watson)
FY2024/03 results and initiatives
In the survey for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, SCREEN scored high in categories that measure a company’s integrity and employee-friendliness, such as compliance and well-being. However, scores were relatively low in the categories of work implementation systems, communication and coordination, customer orientation, targets and strategies, and career paths. We will conduct analyses of these categories and implement HR strategy-based measures while strengthening cooperation to advance initiatives at the level of individual companies and organizations.
In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, the issues identified by the engagement survey were discussed by the top management of SCREEN Holdings, including President Hiroe, as well as the presidents of the business operating companies in order to establish a shared awareness of these challenges as management issues. To enable all employees, regardless of age, to make the most of their diverse and varied individuality and abilities, we believe it is important that both corporate leadership and front-line managers engage in management with a constant awareness of the corporate philosophy and CSV. To this end, we hold workshops for managers to help them identify issues in their respective organizations.
We also provide support for managers to help them maximize the growth of their team members and their organizational performance. This includes training aimed at enabling them to link the corporate philosophy and CSV with their own organization’s targets and practice management that allows for nimble decision-making and decisive action at the organizational level.
Initiatives going forward
We have designated the engagement survey positive response rate as a KPI for our HR strategy under Value Up Further 2026, targeting 70% or higher. To address management issues, in addition to the measures of each company and organization, we will implement measures based on HR strategy that are linked with the survey results, then confirm their effectiveness using subsequent survey results, thus implementing a PDCA cycle to improve our engagement survey scores. So far, the survey has covered the Group’s seven key companies. Going forward, we plan to implement it globally in order to better identify issues faced by the entire SCREEN Group and reinforce our global competitiveness.
Engagement survey positive response rate
Note: Since the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, the SCREEN Group has measured engagement using an employee engagement survey provided by WTW.
■ Enhancing leave systems
As an example of our various leave systems, we offer paid refresh leave, which can be taken for five consecutive days every ten years after an employee’s fifth year at the Company, with the purpose of encouraging self-development and refreshing their bodies and minds. We also offer paid family support leave that can be taken for up to five days every year to care for family members or other life events or for medical treatment for the employee. With these and other types of leave, we have set up a wide range of leave systems to meet everyone’s needs. As a result, the rate of taking paid leave in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 was 85%. We aim to further promote work-life balance in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 and will work to encourage the use of various leave systems. One of the highlights in creating work environments that enable male employees to more easily balance work with childcare is the establishment of a spouse childcare leave system (three days of paid leave), which is generally compulsory. More than 80% of eligible employees took this leave or conventional childcare leave, or both, in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024.
■ Enhancing work-at-home systems
A work-at-home system allows employees to flexibly set the hours to be worked from home according to their situation. By using this system, employees under extra time constraints for reasons such as pregnancy (either their own or their spouse’s), birth, childcare, caring for ill or elderly family members, or undergoing medical treatment can work more easily.
In addition, this system does not limit the place of work to the employee’s own home. By allowing employees to work even from the homes of their relatives, we are supporting sustainable work styles that do not rely only on leave systems.
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Main Work-Life Balance Systems (As of April 2024) |
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| PitStop 5 paid leave | Employees who take less than 60% of their paid leave during a given year must take at least five consecutive days off in the following year. | ||
| Paid refresh leave | Paid leave for five consecutive days that can be taken every ten years after the fifth year at the Company. | ||
| Paid family support leave | Paid leave of up to five days every year to provide care to family members or for medical treatment for the employee. | ||
| Volunteer leave | Special leave of up to three days every year for volunteer activities that contribute to society. | ||
| Childrearing support leave | Special leave of up to two days every year that can be taken to, for example, participate in children’s school activities and medical exams up to the third year of middle school. | ||
| Spouse childcare leave | Leave for employees to help a spouse care for an infant after giving birth (paid leave; as a rule, mandatory). | ||
| Spouse accompaniment leave | Leave for employees who want to accompany their spouse to an overseas posting (unpaid leave, limited time period). | ||
| Flex time (no core time) |
Flexible working hours (with no mandatory core time) for employees who are pregnant, caring for elderly or sick family members or infants, or undergoing medical treatment. | ||
| Minimum break between work days | System that promotes work style flexibility and greater work efficiency and productivity by allowing all employees to do some of their work at home. | ||
| Work-at home system | Special leave of up to three days every year for volunteer activities that contribute to society. | ||
| Work-life balance assistance partial work-at-home system | System allowing employees to do some of their work at home if they are pregnant, caring for elderly or sick family members or children, or undergoing medical treatment. | ||
| Reduced work hours | System allowing employees to shorten work hours if they are caring for elderly or sick family members or children (up to 6th grade in elementary school) or undergoing medical treatment. | ||
| Limited geographical region system | System limiting the work region for employees who cannot be transferred far away due to elderly / sick care or child care duties. | ||
| Subsidy for childcare leave, etc. | Subsidy to partially compensate for wages lost due to taking leave or working shorter hours to care for children. | ||
| Subsidy for early return to work | Subsidy to pay for daycare and other expenses for employees making an early return to work after taking childcare leave. | ||
| Skills training for employees on childcare leave | Online learning program so employees can study while they are on childcare leave. | ||
| Subsidy for nursing care leave, etc. | Subsidy to partially compensate for wages lost due to taking leave or working shorter hours to care for elderly or sick family members. | ||
| Subsidy for nursing care equipment | Subsidy to partially pay for the purchase or rental of nursing care equipment. | ||
| Nursing care consultation | Dedicated staff provides consultation on company systems, government support, and private nursing care services. | ||
| Nursing care seminars | Seminars provide the basics on nursing care so that employees do not have to quit their jobs to care for elderly or sick family members. | ||