Human Resource Development

Based on the NGK Group Digital Vision, NGK works to promote digital transformation across all employees, including management, and to develop highly skilled data scientists. We define data-literate human resources as employees who handle tasks ranging from identifying business challenges, to generating insights through data utilization and analysis, to driving improvements and advancements in operations. We continuously review the content and focus areas of our development programs to keep pace with advances in digital technologies.

To develop human resources capable of excelling on the global stage, NGK conducts Practical Overseas Training, through which employees gain approximately six months of hands-on experience at Group companies outside Japan. The program primarily targets young employees identified as candidates for overseas assignments, with the aim of enhancing their communication and practical skills in cross-cultural environments.
NGK also provides a range of global training programs for employees engaged in international operations, including communication and management training grounded in cross-cultural understanding, language training, and area studies for various countries. These programs support employees in developing the skills required for international business.

To develop globally capable human resources at an early stage, NGK conducts global training programs for new hires. Through English language training, we promote the acquisition of foundational skills for international business, including cross-cultural understanding and communication. We also offer level-based English training for those who wish to participate, focusing on improving both English proficiency and practical business skills such as presentation techniques.

While preserving the foundations of manufacturing built on safety, environment, quality, delivery, and cost, NGK works to develop human resources capable of creating new value. We conduct NGK's unique technologies education to deepen understanding of our products and technologies, as well as management and improvement techniques education to build the mindset and skills needed for worksite improvement.
In NGK's unique technologies education, employees systematically learn NGK's ceramic technologies through programs aligned with the manufacturing process, developing the broad perspective needed to approach their work effectively. At production sites, we provide employees in supervisor roles with opportunities to acquire the skills needed for worksite culture improvement and productivity enhancement, developing leaders who can excel on the production floor.
In management and improvement techniques education, we deliver foundational training covering QC, statistics, reliability, cost, and maintenance, fostering the mindset and skills for employees to proactively pursue improvements.

To realize the business structure conversion set out in our Vision, NGK Group works to expand opportunities for employees to acquire the skills needed in new growth fields such as Carbon Neutrality and digital society. As the required skills become increasingly advanced and diverse, we have introduced e-learning featuring more than 10,000 content items to provide employees with timely access to the learning they need. We also provide learning licenses to employees who wish to pursue autonomous learning. This initiative began in FY2021, and to date, more than 1,500 employees cumulatively have engaged in re-skilling.
In FY2024, we introduced a learning management system (LMS) and have been consolidating diverse educational content, including mandatory training, open-enrollment training, learning materials, and e-learning, into the LMS to build a group-wide learning infrastructure. This will further promote autonomous learning and strengthen the development of human resources capable of excelling in growth fields.

To support employees' autonomous learning and motivation, NGK has introduced a system to support the acquisition of qualifications and degrees. We actively support employees in obtaining not only qualifications relevant to their current work but also those that contribute to future career development and challenges in new fields.
The program covers more than 500 qualifications spanning a wide range of fields, including attorneys, certified public accountants (CPAs), patent attorneys, architects, environment, safety and health, quality management, technology, languages, and IT, as well as doctoral degrees and MBAs relevant to employees' work. Recipients receive reimbursement of actual expenses such as examination fees and transportation costs. For qualifications of high difficulty or utility, we provide a one-time payment of up to ¥100,000. For advanced qualifications and degrees, we subsidize up to half of tuition fees, capped at ¥2,000,000.