Human Resources Strategy

The Aozora Group strives to retain human resources who can respond to changes in the business environment and take on challenges through teamwork as well as who have the necessary skills for our focus areas such as Aozora’s Strategic Investments Business and DX. Our recruitment strategy is based on both high-potential new grad hires and specialized mid-career hires.
Regarding new grad hires, we have set the industry’s highest starting salary to attract outstanding human resources, continue to hire about 50 people every year and have a long-term focus on recruiting mid-career hires who can immediately contribute to each division.
Under the HR reform of FY2020, we abolished “Ippan-shoku (non-professional career category)” and eliminated barriers to work and career paths, and concentrated career courses under the three types of Global Professional, Regional Professional and IT Professional with the objective of strengthening IT competitiveness. In conjunction with reviewing the personnel evaluation program and optimal assignment of human resources, we develop and appoint all people hired as future candidates for key positions or as highly skilled professionals.
As a basic development policy after recruitment, new grads are placed into a three-year foundational education period during which they go through a combination of position-specific training, specialist training programs mentioned below and on-the-job training in the workplace to support them in becoming independent. New grad hires learn business fundamentals and experience multiple operations at three different divisions, in principle, during their first eight years, which enables them to develop a wider perspective and obtain more opportunities in their career path as prospective upper-management candidates. Mid-level employees and managers in their 30s and 40s are placed in positions that enable them to strengthen their management capabilities and expertise in the mid- to long-term and we aim to develop them into value creation drivers who can create new value-added.
Aozora strives to appoint employees to more senior positions through assessment of their abilities and performance, while considering diversity. Employees with diverse backgrounds have the opportunity to play active roles at Aozora, regardless of their status as a mid-career hire or new grads. Attracting superior talent from outside that supports value creation is also one of the major strengths of Aozora’s HR strategy.
We began assessing the skill portfolio across Aozora in FY2022 toward hiring and deployment to realize our human resources strategy. By ascertaining the degree of human resource sufficiency in the areas we want to strengthen, we could consider whether positions could be filled by training internal human resources or if they should be recruited from outside. The analysis is useful for considering human resources development initiatives, recruiting, and personnel redeployment in line with business strategies.

For the Aozora Group to achieve sustainable growth by realizing its business strategy, it is particularly important to have human resources development in the area of Aozora’s Strategic Investments Business, which is the focus of the new Mid-term Plan. In the second half of FY2022, in collaboration with a business school we started an intensive development program for human resources in equity investments with a primary focus on engagement. Nearly 60 participants attended a total of 15 lectures and group work sessions given by outside instructors who are active on the front lines of business, with the aim of acquiring the knowledge necessary for equity investments with a primary focus on engagement. We will use this program and its implementation in each business group to develop core talent for Aozora’s Strategic Investments Business.

Aozora Bank started the Digital Talents Development Program for all Bank employees from FY2021.
For all employees to take the initiative to engage in DX, we have expanded the training menu for all employees and provided higher-level courses, in which many employees have already participated.
In FY2023, systematic digital talent development will enter its third year, and the development plan is to shift from the acquisition of basic knowledge and skills to implementation in business workplaces.

To develop and maximize each employee’s capabilities requires human resources development for multiple workplaces in line with personal career plans and optimal human resource allocation with an eye to the future in addition to skill development through such means as providing various types of training programs.
Another advantage of Aozora’s manageable size is that officers and employees generally know one another very well. The HR Division and Group Heads closely monitor employees’ preferences, capabilities, and aptitude before deciding on transfers by utilizing Career Plan Sheets, which are submitted by each employee annually. This process has resulted in strong support for career development and flexible transfers.
We have voluntary systems to support diverse career plans, such as training programs including the overseas trainee program and internal short-term trainee program in other departments in Japan, Job-posting Program (internal recruitment), Job Support Program (in-house side jobs) and Regional Professional Career Training. Employees can effectively combine training and business experience to achieve their career plans. Under the Job Support Program, employees who work at branch offices are also assigned to work in operations at the Head Office and proactively support busy departments, thereby becoming more multi-skilled. This program is designed to create new opportunities for career development by leveraging Aozora’s strengths, such as its comfortable working environment and infrastructure. In response to diversifying views on careers among employees, since FY2023 we have assigned a career consultant to the HR Division and established a system that can always respond to workers’ career consultations. Through initiatives such as these, we strive to support employees’ career formation and to achieve optimal human resource allocation.
We will continue to create an environment for employees to develop their abilities and build their careers, with the aim of being a company of choice for highly talented employees.

To ensure the sustainability of our human capital and enhance corporate value, we believe that it is important to foster a comfortable working environment by ascertaining employees’ thoughts and opinions. It is also necessary to enhance job satisfaction by respecting employees’ diverse values, lifestyles and career plans.
We have developed programs that enable flexible work styles, and many employees use the Flextime Program and Work-from-Home/Mobile Work Program, and hybrid work styles that combine work-from-home and coming to work, which have become established as new work styles after the pandemic.
Our efforts from before the COVID-19 pandemic to establish environments that responded to various working styles from the aspect of both programs and infrastructure eventually bore fruit, and in the annual Employee Satisfaction Survey, 80% of respondents in FY2022 said that the Aozora Group offers a comfortable workplace environment, which was about the same percentage of respondents as the previous survey.
Conversely, a continuation of fewer than 60% of respondents selected positive answers regarding job satisfaction, and only 37% felt taking on challenges was recognized, indicating that improving employee job satisfaction and creating an organization where taking on challenges is valued are important issues.
This finding prompted us to install Wevox, a system tool from Atrae, Inc. that can visualize employee engagement such as employee job satisfaction by team throughout Aozora from February 2023. Once a month, employees complete a simple survey, enabling managers to quantitatively ascertain the state of their team in real time and we have established a system for workplace-driven PDCA cycles that enable management to utilize employees’ opinions.
Toward our long-term goal of sustainable enhancement of corporate value, we will continue to raise employee job satisfaction through measures to increase extrinsic motivation, such as investment in human capital, as well as intrinsic motivation, such as various measures to improve engagement, and to transform our corporate culture into an organization where all employees can thrive, while identifying what should be protected and what should be changed.

For employees to be able to fully demonstrate their abilities as human capital within our organization, we believe it is extremely important that every individual should be in a state of well-being, that is, not just physically and mentally healthy, but also socially stable and fulfilled. The Aozora Group has established environments where employees can work in a comfortable working environment for many years and is working to enhance employee well-being.

Health and Productivity Management Initiatives

The Aozora Group has established a single health insurance organization and formulated a data health promotion plan and works together with the health insurance association to maintain and promote the mental and physical health of our employees to establish work environments where employees can have long careers in a comfortable working environment. In addition to programs that provide financial support for full-scale health checkups and cancer screenings for employees and their families, we also provide detailed follow-up services by an occupational health physician and specialized medical staff based on the results of regular health checkups and stress checkups in the workplace, and are working to prevent mental health and lifestyle-related illness. To improve employees’ health literacy, since FY2023 an occupational health physician has been an instructor at new employee training, newly starting health management training where employees learn the importance of maintaining their physical and mental health. Initiatives such as these have led to us being chosen every year as a Health and Productivity Management Organization.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were one of the earliest companies to establish a workplace vaccination system for COVID-19 to protect the health of employees and their families, and together with setting up environments such as work-from-home environments, were able to continue to provide the services needed as financial infrastructure.
With regards to management of employees’ working hours, we have reduced the number of people working more than the statutory monthly overtime limit of 45 hours by about 30% compared to the previous year as a result of efforts to manage attendance properly, including detailed guidance in each workplace.

Treatment at the Head Office Health Management Office (internal medicine/dentist)

Initiatives for Employees’ Health Issues

The Aozora Group is strengthening initiatives for health and productivity management issues confronting men and women of various ages. In FY2022, an outside instructor gave a seminar titled, “Women’s health issues you should know about: Do you have workplace colleagues or subordinates with these concerns?” under a theme of women’s health issues such as menopause. The seminar was commended by many employees who took part, covering topics such as approaches that can be immediately implemented from a medical perspective for people with issues, including communication methods when dealing with colleagues and subordinates with health issues, and naturally also for people of various ages who have health issues. We try to create a workplace environment where it is easy for employees to thrive by promoting mutual understanding that men’s and women’s bodies and mind change with age and can sometimes lead to poor health and that, as a result, this can have an impact on work performance.

Working to Realize Employees’ Financial Wellness

In addition to employee health, we have established a program to realize financial wellness for our employees as we believe it is important to be able to work in a state of financial stability and not have anxieties about their future lifestyle.
First, from the perspective of investment in human capital, we have rewarded employees for their contributions by increasing pay-scale for the past two years and prepared attractive compensation packages with the aim of making a workplace that people choose to support the stability of employees’ lifestyles. We have established a corporate pension plan to prepare for life in retirement. In addition, as part of our benefit package, we provide generous financial support for younger employees, including an allowance supporting repayment of scholarships and rent subsidies. For senior employees, we have introduced a new program to provide financial support to take on the challenge of a second career outside of the Group. We have also permitted secondary employment for the purposes of employee skill development and experience expansion, which leads to enhanced financial wellness through diversification and expansion of income sources. By expanding these programs, Aozora Bank is showing its consideration for the financial stability of employees and their families.

To execute management strategies that lead to stable growth involves not only investment in human capital but also the need to bring diverse viewpoints into management and promote business from a diversity of perspectives and free of preconceptions. Against a backdrop of the progression of diversification of values, the Aozora Group strives to further encourage employees to respect diversity and strengthen the sense of unity within the Group in such ways as the unconscious bias program. By respecting the values, lifestyles and career plans of all employees and by supporting flexible work styles, we aim to establish an environment where human resources who have varieties of backgrounds can thrive and consequently enhance diversity, equity and inclusion.

Ensuring Diversity of Core Talent in Appointments and Other Areas

Since FY2021, Aozora has been moving forward on initiatives to ensure diversity in the appointment of core talent and other areas, enhancing its human resource development and environmental policies and setting targets for the ratio of women, non-Japanese and mid-career hires in management positions. The ratio of mid-career hires in management is approximately 50%, leading toward ensuring diversity in management decision-making positions.

2. Goals and Progress

1. Managers are designated as general managers and managers.
2. Deputy managers are one position below managers.
3. Non-Japanese managers: including those working in domestic/overseas subsidiaries excluding GMO Aozora Net Bank
4. The percentage of eligible male employees taking childcare leave is calculated by (a) the number of male employees who took childcare leave during FY2022, divided by (b) the number of male employees with children born during FY2022. Note that the aforementioned (a) includes employees on childcare leave with children who were born in FY2021 or earlier but who have newly taken childcare leave in FY2022, thus it is possible that the ratio could exceed 100%.

Creating Opportunities for Female Employees

When it comes to recruiting female employees, we strive to find human resources of high potential or human resources with high expertise who are active outside of Aozora. In terms of development, we are providing career training and short-term traineeships within Aozora to employees who have transferred from “Ippan-shoku” to professional in order to encourage them to take on the challenge of expanding their areas of experience from the perspective of mindset and business skills. As part of our efforts to develop female candidates for management, we are also giving consideration to matters of equity, such as starting a program to dispatch selected people for outside career building training.
From the aspect of human resource deployment, some female employees who were engaged in back office work as sales assistants have started to work as front sales staff while assisted by supervisors and peers or proactively participating in job support programs in other divisions to promote their own multitasking. We give a careful evaluation of every individual employee’s efforts in taking on challenges and assign them to other divisions as a way to broaden their expertise.
In addition, as a result of various measures taken over the years to avoid the risk of female employees retiring due to matters such as childcare or nursing care, the average years of service of female employees has remained above 16 years, a level higher than that of male employees since 2014. We have established programs that enable childcare leave for a maximum of two years, a shortened working hour program available until the child reaches the third grade of elementary school and a system that allows employees to take leave of up to three years for reasons such as a spouse’s transfer or infertility treatment.
In terms of a wage gap between men and women, women only earn 66.6% of what men earn, leaving room for improvement. As a result of the career course integration in FY2020, we have been able to achieve equal pay between men and woman on the same career course, rank and salary table, but there are still few female managers, and relatively few female employees who are active in focus areas such as Aozora’s Strategic Investments Business and international business, and many female employees with long years of service in support groups such as back office operations, which is believed to be a reason for the wage gap between men and women. It will take time for the effects of the career course integration to manifest, but we expect the gap in annual salary between men and women will narrow as more women move into management regardless of their former job types.
We will continue to provide opportunities and environments where female employees can play an active role, and become a company where all employees feel comfortable and have job satisfaction, which we believe will help us to secure and retain outstanding human resources even as the working population is expected to decrease.

Introduction of the Fathers’ Post Natal Childcare Leave Program to Promote Men Taking Childcare Leave

Establishment of Aozora Ally

The Aozora Group launched Aozora Ally in September 2022 to be close to employees of diverse backgrounds, including those with disabilities or part of the LGBTQ community, toward the entrenchment of diversity, equity and inclusion. With the number of supporters of Aozora Ally increasing, we have received various opinions and proposals and are continuing activities for steady improvement. Through the actions centered on support members, we want to create work environments where all people can be comfortable and lively.