Human Resource Development

DENSO is working to provide a range of opportunities for skills development and to develop fair and impartial evaluation systems so that all Group employees worldwide, each of whom possesses a unique character, can share common values and take active roles while deriving a sense of growth and achievement in their work.

Aiming to become a “group of professionals with the ability to turn ideas into reality,” DENSO formulated “PROGRESS, a vision and action plan for our people and our organization,” in 2021 in order to fulfill its Great Cause. Under PROGRESS, we are giving new meaning to the purpose of working and facilitating self-reliance and independence in the careers of employees while removing barriers by enhancing the transparency and validity of our personnel system. By doing so, we will enable all employees to become professionals who challenge themselves and work with determination and passion in their efforts to succeed in a workplace where diverse professionals co-create impactful value for people and society.

Since establishing a sales office in the United States in 1966, DENSO has continued to expand its business overseas for more than 55 years. At the moment, we carry out our business activities at 35 overseas locations, together with our approximately 170,000 employees. Amid the accelerating global development of our business, it is essential to foster and appoint leaders that are active across many countries and regions. The DENSO Group is developing globally standardized human resource systems one after another, including global models for demonstrating ability (competency); the DENSO Spirit, which represents a set of common values among employees; and training policies for global executives. In these ways, we are promoting the active role of a diverse group of human resources.

We are also working to improve various career realization support measures, such as career design training, recurrent education, and in-house job offerings, to facilitate self-reliance and independence in the careers of employees, a goal adopted under PROGRESS, which we formulated in 2021.

Based on the DENSO Spirit (established in 2004), which expresses values and beliefs to be shared throughout the entire DENSO Group, “DENSO’s Work Procedures,” which summarize the basic approach, tools, and process for conducting daily work, and “On the Job Development,” which summarizes the approach and process for training employees at DENSO, have been deployed worldwide as a global educational curriculum.

Moreover, we adopted the target of having local personnel comprise 50% of leadership roles at our major overseas consolidated management companies by 2030. To further expand our businesses, we will place emphasis on systematically cultivating local leaders who can oversee the future of DENSO and drive new business creation. In our talent management activities, which we conduct through collaboration between the head office and our overseas bases, we are working to promptly discover outstanding personnel and provide them with support for growth through such initiatives as the Global Leadership Development Program (total of roughly 200 participants to date), which seeks to cultivate global leaders for the next generation.

With roughly 2,300 executives—including executives from overseas Group companies—as our target, we have introduced a shared global human resource system (from January 2016).

We introduced the “Global Individual Grade,” a shared global system that focuses on demonstrated individual ability in global management positions. Basing evaluations on a consistent criteria allows employees worldwide to plot careers from anywhere within the Group. Through this system, we hope to further develop DENSO’s businesses worldwide by appointing employees with diverse values and abilities.

At DENSO CORPORATION, we carry out evaluations that take into account the individual growth of each employee and the process they use to achieve that growth. These evaluations are conducted by having employees establish individual goals for themselves each year and meet with their supervisors regularly to discuss their individual progress toward reaching these goals. In terms of medium- to long-term goals, we arrange career design meetings for our employees, at which they share their future vision with their supervisors and compare that vision with the development plans the supervisors have for each employee. Based on these visions and plans, we provide employees with the necessary work experience and conduct workplace rotation. In these and other ways, we provide meticulous support for developing the individual careers of each employee. Furthermore, in addition to such regular meetings, we encourage supervisors and employees to communicate on a daily basis through one-on-one talks as a Companywide measure.
Additionally, in order to foster sound career awareness, we provide career training for employees of all ages to encourage self-reflection. At the same time, we have created an environment that encourages employees to learn on their own, including the provision of on-demand content.
We also have other systems for career development in place, such as position-based training at each career milestone, an expansive internal recruitment system for acquiring the necessary personnel, a career counseling office where employees can consult with us about their career paths and skill development, and recurrent education to provide support for personnel who are keen to challenge themselves in the soft domain, which is a growth field.
A total of 364,908 hours were dedicated to employee training in fiscal 2023.

At DENSO CORPORATION, new employees receive introductory training directly after joining the Company in order to create a group of professionals with the ability to make their ambitions a reality. Along with covering DENSO’s history, the DENSO Spirit and other aspects of DENSO’s unique nature, cutting-edge technologies such as AI and software, and logical thinking methods and other fundamental business knowledge, this training incorporates team activities that see new employees complete work on a research theme they set themselves using agile development methodology. After completing this training, new employees participate in multiple training courses in which they repeatedly practice what they have learned through a trial-and-error process, thereby solidifying their knowledge and strengthening the relationships they have with other employees.
Furthermore, we strive to deepen new employees’ understanding of Monozukuri (manufacturing) by providing hands-on training pertaining to the work for which they will be responsible and training at product production sites. In these ways, new employees spend their first three years refining the fundamental capabilities that will allow them to play an active role in the Company going forward, while deepening self-reflection by regularly taking 360-degree feedback surveys and various other types of surveys and periodically verifying their own growth. After acquiring the fundamental capabilities, we create opportunities for them to take on challenges at overseas Group companies or at other companies in other industries, providing support to further accelerate the growth of young employees who will be DENSO’s next generation of leaders by enabling them to gain experience of other cultures and assimilate cutting-edge technology and know-how.
In addition to new employees, we conduct training for supervisors who provide on-the-job training to new employees. In this way, we create environments in which the entire workplace is involved in watching over and nurturing young employees.

Becoming a group of professionals with the ability to turn ideas into reality, DENSO will globally promote various measures under PROGRESS with the aim of creating a future in which it continuously makes new things happen for the sake of people and society as a whole throughout the world.