Maximizing the Potential of Diverse Talent and Organizations
(Policy/Responsible Executive and Framework)
Panasonic Group is committed to realizing well-being and job satisfaction by creating a work environment where every Panasonic employee*1 can work in a safe, secure, and healthy state with their individuality respected and eliminating the risk of infringement on their rights and opportunities through unfair treatment, discrimination, or prejudice. Nurturing and motivating the precious people society entrusts to us is the foundation of our management. We aim to be a company where every employee, regardless of their gender, age, nationality, or other attributes, can Unlock their potential by themselves, by taking bold and positive challenges beyond others’ expectations and maximizing their skills and abilities.
*1 Within this section, the following list of stakeholders are collectively referred to as “Employees”: (1) all employees having employment relationships with any Panasonic Group company including those working based on the contract with the Group, as well as external contractors and seconded employees working under the control and supervision of any Panasonic Group company; and (2) all board directors, executive officers, executive counselors, fellows, corporate auditors, supervisory board, and corporate advisors or equivalent person appointed by any Panasonic Group company. It also includes employees of key companies subject to some Group HR and other systems.
Policy
Panasonic Group Founder Konosuke Matsushita pursued management that placed significance on nurturing and developing people so that they can thrive based on his philosophy of “develop people before making products.” We inherit this philosophy and practice human capital management, rooted in the unwavering core of our Basic Business Philosophy, to maximize the human resources that society entrusts to us as a form of capital.
The Group’s management is not conducted solely by top executives. We value “employee entrepreneurship,” where each and every employee takes responsibility for their work and approaches tasks with a sense of ownership. Furthermore, we emphasize “participative management through collective wisdom,” leveraging the wisdom, diversity, and abilities of all employees in management. Our Basic Business Philosophy outlines how “autonomous responsible management” is attained through both axes of “employee entrepreneurship” and “participative management through collective wisdom.”
Moreover, we promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Groupwide as we believe diverse viewpoints and values will lead to better decision-making and business growth.
In April 2023, we established the Panasonic Leadership Principles (PLP) as a code of conduct to implement our Basic Business Philosophy. Under these guidelines, every employee, regardless of their rank, aims for a higher level of leadership.
Responsible Executive and Framework
The executive officer responsible for creating and promoting the HR strategy of Panasonic Holdings Corporation (“PHD”) and the entire Group is the Group Chief Human Resources Officer (“Group CHRO”). The PHD Strategic Human Resources Department is responsible for planning and formulating strategies across the Group. At the same time, the HR departments at the operating companies and their affiliated divisions have the same responsibilities at the organizational level and manage day-to-day operations.
Under the holding company structure, effective April 2022, each operating company must establish an optimal business structure tailored to its industry, customers, and competitors, in strict compliance with the concept of autonomous responsible management. Each operating company is responsible for planning and executing human resource strategies, including acquiring and developing human resources, building compensation and evaluation systems, and promoting organizational development. Meanwhile, PHD is responsible for supporting the operating companies from the perspective of corporate governance and stakeholder engagement. Panasonic Operational Excellence (“PEX”) also assists the operating companies by providing solutions to enhance competitiveness.
The Group CHRO oversees corporate governance through our compliance with safety/labor regulations, respect for human rights, dissemination of the Basic Business Philosophy, and Groupwide HR strategies. To this end, the Group CHRO holds one-on-one meetings with the CHROs of each operating company and reviews their HR strategies, which are then submitted to their respective boards of directors. Moreover, the Group CHRO actively discusses new initiatives in Groupwide HR strategies through reports to the PHD Board of Directors.
Current Challenges
The Group conducts an Employee Opinion Survey annually for approximately 150,000 employees globally. The survey places particular emphasis on employee engagement (the willingness to contribute voluntarily) and employee enablement (placing the right person in the right position and creating comfortable working environments). The favorable response rate to these questions has been steadily increasing due to initiatives such as work style reforms.
Despite these results being among the highest for Japanese companies, we believe that there is room for improvement to reach the level of top global companies. Upon analyzing the trends in these favorable response rates, we found that two of the nine questions comprising employee engagement and employee enablement have consistently shown low favorable response rates.
These questions involve improving “motivation from the company or supervisors” and “significant barriers at work.” These low favorable response rates indicate there is significant room for improvement in creating an environment where individuals can maximize their potential and feel comfortable taking on new challenges.
Further analysis reveals that Japan faces particular issues that need to be addressed with regard to female employees, young talent, and mid-career hires. For instance, relatively few female employees responded in the Employee Opinion Survey that they felt they could achieve their career goals within the Group, compared to male employees. We believe that further advancing the placement of women in management and organizational decision-making positions will broaden their career opportunities and lead to high-quality decision-making by diverse leaders.
We must also provide opportunities for young talent and mid-career hires to play an active role while maintaining a high level of engagement from the time they join the company. That involves assigning them to decision-making positions soon after their arrival.
At the same time, high productivity is crucial for making informed decisions and implementing effective initiatives. Human capital management is about enabling the people entrusted to us by society to fully utilize their abilities, building highly productive business processes, and fundamentally reviewing fixed cost structures to pursue “best work processes” (one of the PLPs mentioned earlier).
Our Vision
Further accelerating the Group’s transformation and growth necessitates that we face the aforementioned challenges head-on, encourage all employees to take on new challenges with enthusiasm, and create an environment where our people and organizations can grow together.
Thus, we have reaffirmed our commitment to be a company where every employee can Unlock their potential by themselves, by taking bold and positive challenges beyond others’ expectations and maximizing their skills and abilities, as we aim to realize an ideal society with affluence both in matter and mind.
The Founder, Konosuke Matsushita, once talked of an environment where employees would “be so immersed in work that they would feel an unceasing sense of joy and fulfillment in their work.” This flow state is the greatest gift that the Founder believed he could offer to employees, allowing them to take on challenges and maximize their skills and abilities. Our focus on Unlocking potential draws its inspiration from this aspect of Konosuke Matsushita’s philosophy.
The business will be more successful the more employees execute its strategies in a state of flow. Therefore, we have established our Unlock Indicator to represent the proportion of employees in a flow state, with the global target at 60%.
Critical Indicators
The Group monitors materialities related to human capital using the following indicators.
Materiality and Indicators Regarding “Maximizing the Potential of Diverse Talent and Organizations”
Materiality | Our vision | Indicators |
| Current situation | Targets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Organization culture transformation | Employees taking bold and positive challenges and maximizing their skills and abilities | “UNLOCK” indicator | Favorable response rate for both questions in the Employee Opinion Survey, "Motivation from the company or supervisors" and "No significant barriers at work" (Target: Group employees globally) | FY2025: 43% | FY2028: 60% |
Develop & appoint diverse, transformational leaders | Diverse transformational leaders making high-quality decisions | Diversity ratio of the management team | Diversity of PHD Executive Officers (Total ratios of female, non-Japanese citizens and mid-career hires) | April 2025: 54% | More than half |
Ratio of female managers | Female ratio in management positions (in Japan) | April 2025: 7.9% | April 2028: 12% | ||
Safe, secure and healthy work environment | Operating with a safe, secure, and healthy environment as a prerequisite | The number of serious accidents | Number of fatal accidents or accidents resulting in longlasting physical disabilities | 7 | Zero |
The number of major accidents | Number of accidents affecting at least three people | 0 | Zero |
As mentioned earlier, we have established our critical Unlock indicators based on the two issues identified through the Employee Opinion Survey, aiming to transform our organization culture so that employees take bold and positive challenges and maximize their skills and abilities.
Developing and appointing diverse, transformational leaders who will shape the future involves setting diversity ratios (tracking women, non-Japanese citizens, and mid-career hires) within all Group company management teams as key indicators to achieve high-quality decision-making across management. Women are highly underrepresented in the Group’s management in Japan, despite demonstrating no difference in ability based on their gender. We have identified the ratio of women in management as a critical indicator, given our recognition of this underrepresentation as a key challenge in advancing DEI, which aims to leverage differences as strengths to create new value.
We have set targets to reduce the number of serious and major accidents, ensuring that we operate in a safe, secure, and healthy environment as a prerequisite.
Additionally, we monitor EBITDA*2 divided by personnel expenses within the Group in order to have "the best work processes" by enhancing value-added labor productivity.
*2 EBITDA: The total of operating profit, depreciation (tangible/right-of-use assets), and amortization (intangible assets)
