Human Resources Development

This page covers our policy for human resources development, vision for SHIONOGI’s human resources, education and training, career development, and remuneration and evaluation system.

In order to realize the SHIONOGI Group Vision, we are continuously striving to develop human resources who embody the SHIONOGI Way “Be the best that you can be to take on new challenges by constantly improving and expanding your capabilities,” that employees should strive towards, and to enhance the environment in which they can maximize their abilities.

SHIONOGI has set forth in STS2030 Revision to Transform from a drug discovery-based pharmaceutical company to a HaaS company and grow through business Transformation. It is none other than each employee of the SHIONOGI Group who will realize this growth through Transformation.

 SHIONOGI’s human capital management is defined as advancing the acquisition and internal integration of new capabilities by multiplying human resource capability (individual strength), DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion), and engagement to execute the growth scenario.

 We have defined the vision for human resources (SHIONOGI Way) as “Be the best that you can be to take on new challenges by constantly improving and expanding your capabilities,” and are accelerating the execution of the growth scenario through planning and implementing various human resources measures, including the human resources (HR) program.

SHIONOGI has a job grade-based personnel system. In order to treat employees according to their duties and results, regardless of attributes such as age or gender, we have set up an evaluation system based on two axes: a comprehensive evaluation based on the grade definition required by SHIONOGI, and a contribution evaluation that evaluates each individual's contribution relatively.

One of the points to strengthen in the STS2030 Revision is strengthening human resources, but in order to increase the probability of achieving the SHIONOGI Group Vision and strongly promote the transformation into a HaaS company, it is necessary to build a strong human resources portfolio that matches the management strategy. To achieve this, we have revised the personnel system to one designed based on the concepts of "challenge" and "satisfaction" for employees, and have introduced a system that highly evaluates people who boldly take risks and actively take on challenges toward high goals.

The compensation system is designed to set appropriate salary levels for each job based on the labor market, so that compensation is commensurate with the work. Bonuses are linked to performance, and when each person's challenge leads to the growth of the company, we are returned to employees.

At SHIONOGI, as a result of our efforts to visualize skill levels, many employees have begun to voluntarily engage in further self-improvement towards acquiring skill requirements. On the other hand, SHIONOGI believes that the Company has a responsibility to provide opportunities for employee growth, and is creating an environment where employees can practice growth-oriented initiatives.
We have introduced an internal recruitment system to support employees’ independent-minded career development. This system aims to support employees who raise their hands and take on challenges, and to further enhance organizational strength. Also, to promote career development, we provide opportunities such as interviews with managers using the Career Design Sheet, a tool for considering and describing one’s career, career interviews with career advisors where employees can receive support from experts and gain learning opportunities, and career training opportunities tailored to each life stage and career stage. Furthermore, we provide opportunities for managers, who are in the position to guide and support employees most closely, to update their skills and knowledge for supporting the careers of their subordinate employees.  As a system to support employees who are trying to grow and transform themselves, we have introduced a self-investment support program that provides educational expense support of up to 250,000 yen per person per year for what employees want to learn, and we are continuously expanding this program.
In the midst of intense environmental changes, we will provide opportunities for employees to raise their hands and take on challenges, and further enhance organizational strength to develop independent-minded human resources who are motivated to work responsibly towards SHIONOGI’s global success and connect individual growth with organizational growth.

We are implementing various development measures based on the principle of independent-minded practice towards embodying the SHIONOGI Way, which is our vision for human resources. As examples of specific development measures, in addition to mandatory training for all employees (compliance, DE&I, etc.), we provide training opportunities focusing on manager training, career support, and specific skill enhancement. At the same time, as mentioned earlier, we have formulated definitions for each skill level and are visualizing skill levels. As part of this initiative, in fiscal 2023, we conducted an English speaking ability assessment for all employees. As a result of this initiative, the proportion of language learning in self-investment support in fiscal 2023 increased significantly in both amount and number of cases compared to fiscal 2022, suggesting that awareness-raising towards required skills and skill improvements has progressed.

The success of STS2030 hinges on bolstering our managers, as SHIONOGI’s managers are required to support employees’ growth, promote transformation of the workplace, and maximize the outputs of the entire organization. With this in mind, in fiscal 2020, we launched PJ-KANAME, a new program for manager development aimed at all domestic managers that stresses managers’ personal growth, sophisticated decision-making skills, and a commitment to grow both employees and the organization.

In Project KANAME, "Penetration and practice of medium-term management plan STS2030", "Decision-making / decision-making", "Labor / goal management / personnel evaluation", "DX", "Business creation", "Overseas support", "Logical writing" A wide variety of programs such as "power" and "basic management knowledge" are provided, from management strategy and human resource management to DX and new business creation. Is designed to help them improve their level by continuing to learn every day using combination of online, group training, and self-study.

The President’s Management Seminar, which is led by the President in person, is a forum set up in 2012 to cultivate senior management candidates. Each year around ten candidates are selected to participate in a total of seven to nine seminars held roughly every month over the course of the year.  Through this program, SHIONOGI cultivates its next generation of leaders by developing diverse human resources with a tenacious approach who can consider issues from a company-wide perspective.

Experience at Group companies’ Senior management candidates take on roles as presidents, non-executive directors, and auditors of Group companies, where they gain management experience. The president of the SHIONOGI Group himself confirms the content of discussions at Group companies. At the twice-yearly general meeting of shareholders and at business briefing events, the president of the SHIONOGI Group and officers of Group companies are engaged in comprehensive discussion, providing them with a forum to deepen their understanding of the stakeholder perspective and hone their business instincts.

SHIONOGI carries out a system of corporate officer rotation across divisions. This rotation allows corporate officers to experience management of a number of divisions so that they can practice management not as the representative of one division but from a company-wide perspective.

We believe that appropriately conducting evaluations and compensation in a balanced manner for employees who boldly take on high goals necessary to achieve STS2030 Revision, based on understanding their current position and challenges for promotion, leads not only to employees’ own growth and market value enhancement but also to their sense of achievement. At SHIONOGI, we introduced a new HR program in October 2023 that more clearly emphasizes the concepts of employee challenge and sense of achievement. When introducing the system, we first appropriately graded employees according to their current roles, allowing employees to know their position, understand the roles and expectations the Company has for them, and be evaluated based on job grade definitions and behavioral examples. We also implemented a system where grade changes are possible based on single-year evaluations, and new employees can be promoted as early as their fifth year.

Regarding compensation, we have established a system with market-competitive compensation levels, where employees are rewarded with compensation commensurate with their contributions to the Company, regardless of age, if they are evaluated as having made significant contributions. In addition to securing a raise rate through appropriate evaluations, we have implemented raises including increases in basic salary for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024, taking into account the impact of recent price increases. In fiscal 2023, considering that both sales revenue and operating profit reached record highs, the average annual income also reached its highest level ever.

SHIONOGI's approach to human resource development and career development is also published on the SHIONOGI Group's recruitment information "SHIONOGI Recruiting Site."