LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere.
Progress in FYE2024 (as of March 31, 2024)
We understand that our employees are the driving force behind value creation, thus, we define talent development as one of LIXIL’s material issues and address it from a long-term perspective. Through our development processes, we identify human resources globally and focus on training next-generation leaders and employees with the right capabilities to meet our future business needs.
To create a working environment in which all employees can work with full flexibility and high engagement, we support career development from two angles: strategic company-driven career development, and self-motivated career development managed by individual employees.
As one of the key pillars of LIXIL’s D&I Strategy, we are committed to achieving gender equity and have set ourselves the target of raising the percentage of female directors and executive officers to 50% and the percentage of female managers to 30%, both by FYE2030. We are also actively working on the training of high potential female employees to become successors for key roles.
At LIXIL, senior managers from corporate functions and our business divisions and executive officers conduct People & Organizational Development (POD) reviews to identify and develop critical talent at the enterprise level and discuss succession pipeline, high potential talent and female talent.
In FYE2024, we identified 712 successor candidates and 57 women as high potential talent (30.5% of a total of 187 candidates) through 28 sessions. Such systematic and proactive action has enabled us to create talent pools for key positions, increase the number of successor candidates and boost the promotion of women across the organization.
Furthermore, we are expanding the scope of the list in some business divisions in Japan to search for strong human resources in order to promote the active appointment of young talent.
This enables us to ensure business continuity even in times of emergency and to build a future-fit system for strategically selecting high potential talent and successors. We develop training plans for each of the listed talents that are designed to build their individual strengths and address development areas, and then provide challenging business assignments, job transfer opportunities and leadership training to promote professional growth. Furthermore, we introduced the Female Talent Outreach Program in FYE2024 that involved holding roundtable discussions with top management.
LIXIL has created a training system that supports all employees from new graduate hires to top management to learn, grow, and foster a vibrant learning culture.
We offer a range of leadership training programs.
We offer a nine-month program for high potential leaders based on the Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business consortium of non-competing global companies in the US to foster insightful and decisive leaders equipped to forge the future of our business. The program consists of a three-week-long live module, key inter-module learning and a team-based Action Learning Project*. The participants are lectured by a globally diverse, world-class faculty and encouraged to develop the skills and mindset necessary to guide organizations through the complexities of a new era marked by global and digital transformations.
* An immersion learning method that helps individuals, teams and organizations learn through action and reflection by addressing real-world problems as a team and planning and implementing solutions.
In FYE2024, 485 leaders from around the world participated in an online lecture presented by Professor Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck Business School designed to help transform business through AI. The participants learned how to effectively use real-time data and AI in business based on Professor Govindarajan’s latest publication “Fusion Strategy,” and gained new insight and knowledge to support them in driving LIXIL’s mission for transformative growth. Participants were also provided with a copy of the book and AI coaching tools that they can apply to actual business challenges. Moving forward, we plan to communicate and share the learnings at off-site gatherings for leaders and departmental workshops.
We are implementing the following programs to develop the next generation of professionals on a global scale.
LIXIL has implemented the NEXT Program to help build an organization that encourages diverse talent of all ages to challenge important positions. The program is designed to identify and develop promising talent with the ability to become future leaders based on meritocracy. To accelerate talent development, selected individuals are asked to tackle challenging and practical assignments in line with development plans tailored for each by the development manager. We also hold roundtable discussions with the CEO and executive officers. This shows that top management is committed to the program and encourages greater dedication among program participants.
NEXT: Tier1 | NEXT: Tier2 | |
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Target | Employees nominated by individual departments as candidates for future executive positions | Employees nominated by individual departments as candidates for future managers |
Development goal | Promote to senior managers within roughly three years | Promote to managers within roughly three years |
Number of participants* | 53 | 222 |
Program structure |
Experience-based learning: 70% Learning from others: 20% Training: 10% |
* Does not include graduates.
In FYE2024, LIXIL launched a new selective leadership program in the Asian region called the Asia Leadership Program. This program is designed to grow professionals over the medium to long term. It is an ongoing development program that incorporates action-based learning, mentoring and roundtable discussions with senior management.
We are implementing the GROW: Great Managers at LIXIL program to develop managers who can support the foundation of long-term sustainable growth. The aim of this program is to develop managers in each country based on a cohesive set of standards. The GROW program was first introduced in Japan in October 2023. It currently targets approximately 4,000 managers and is scheduled to expand to other regions from FYE2025. This is not a one-off training opportunity, but rather a medium- to long-term initiative designed to help participants acquire the seven necessary skills for effectively developing team members and to encourage changes in behavior. The skill frameworks, toolkits and other learning materials and practical resources can be accessed through a dedicated portal site to support participants’ self-studies.
We provide programs for managers who play an important role in building an inclusive organization that helps them deepen their understanding of D&I and better implement D&I in practice.
Learn more about D&I promotion program for managers >
LIXIL is committed to helping employees develop their skills through various programs including onboarding sessions for new and mid-career hires, engagement programs, and English language training. Our DEJIRAKU digital training program in particular provides all employees with the digital skills and knowledge useful for improving productivity and implementing operational reforms. The digital knowledge and techniques are provided through a training menu developed by the digital division based on business needs.
LIXIL has introduced various initiatives to encourage employees with no IT expertise to use digital technology to help promote digital transformation and increase the organization’s capabilities. As part of these efforts, we encourage employees to use no-code development tools to quickly develop and operate their own business apps. We provide educational materials and case studies on no-code development tools and hold consultation sessions within the company. At the same time, we are building an incremental qualification system so that anyone who wants to learn about no-code development can learn anytime. Since launching the no-code development tool internally in October 2021, employees have been reviewing their own work and using their own ideas to improve business processes, all of which contributes to the proactive digital transformation of LIXIL itself.
Number of apps developed | 2,778 |
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Number of developers | 7,854 (42.6% of total users) |
Number of qualification holders | Silver: 107, Bronze: 623 |
LIXIL has an in-house team of engineers that develops generative AI tools and provides various tools for improving productivity. We check skills and offer training through DEJIRAKU to enable those employees who do not think they are good with digital tools to comfortably use AI. We also release short videos and other materials to make the learning more accessible. As of FYE2024, through this program, 1,383 employees have acquired AI-related knowledge and skills, and approximately 4,500 employees now apply that knowledge to their work.
Litmos has been introduced as a group-wide learning platform. The system is designed to be used proactively by both users and content creators, utilizing its intuitive and easy-to-use operation. As part of our effort to build an environment that encourages voluntary self-learning, we have also opened the LIXIL Learning Hub intranet site that serves as a central database for users to access internal and external learning materials and programs according to their individual skills and needs.
Our LinkedIn Learning is a self-directed learning tool for managers and other interested employees from inside and outside Japan to brush up their skills and build their careers. The program offers more than 17,000 pieces of rich content, including expert-led courses, videos, and webinars in seven languages. By combining the program with in-house learning opportunities, we offer high-quality educational contents in an efficient and timely manner.
In addition to the learning platforms above, we also focus on the acquisition of specialist skills required by each department, encouraging employees to improve their own skills through our function-specific portal sites and Litmos learning platform. Employees can acquire and apply the latest practical expertise in their work, which also improves the competitiveness of our organization as a whole.
Item | Training Summary | Participants |
---|---|---|
NEXT Tier1 | A selection-based talent development program designed for candidates for future executive | 53 |
NEXT Tier2 | A selection-based talent development program designed for candidates for future managers | 222 |
New employee training | Basic training for employees newly entering the company | 362 |
Corporate position specific training | Training to develop skills and capabilities required at each position level | 835 |
Management training | Training for management positions | 3,938* |
Division training | Training in each division to develop skills and capabilities respectively required for product development, production, sales, and other lines of work | 40,790 |
Scope: Directly hired employees at LIXIL Corporation (including part-time employees).
* From FYE2024, the scope has changed from a training for new managers to the participants in GROW, a medium- to long-term development program for all managers.
Please see below for information on annual training hours and cost per employee.
We are developing a company-wide Career Journey project designed to motivate every employee and encourage them to become self-directed in their job. The human resources department and individual business divisions take the lead in instigating various career-development measures.
As part of this project, employees in each region use a common global format to create individual development plans (IDP) in line with their performance evaluation cycle, and have regular one-on-one meetings with their immediate supervisors to review the IDP content. In Japan, employees challenge themselves in their careers based on their own vision through our Career Declaration System, in which employees discuss their desired career path with their superiors once a year, and our Job Posting recruiting system*.
Employees are also encouraged to further develop their own capabilities and gain a diverse range of experiences. We are currently trialing systems that permit employees to pursue supplementary employment outside of the company or to devote 20% of their work time to side jobs within the company.
* Scope: Regular employees of LIXIL Corporation and its production-related subsidiaries in Japan.
LIXIL designs and implements a performance appraisal system for all employees*1 to ensure their achievements and growth are fairly rewarded.
We use an evaluation system based on two elements: a performance evaluation that reflects the degree of achievement against semiannual targets set at the beginning of the evaluation period and a behavioral evaluation based on the LIXIL Behaviors. Employees are given regular opportunities throughout the year to have conversations and continuous feedback about their careers with their immediate supervisors to help them achieve their individual performance goals and develop individual skills.
Performance Evaluations
Evaluators: the employee, their immediate supervisor, and/or a senior manager(s) who is not a direct supervisor
Frequency of evaluations: Once every six months*2
Behavioral Evaluations
Evaluators: the employee, their immediate supervisor, and/or a senior manager(s) who is not a direct supervisor
Frequency of evaluations: Once a year
Evaluation process:
1) The employee conducts self-assessment of their own performance vis-à-vis the targets set at the beginning of the evaluation period
2) The initial evaluation is determined following an evaluation review with the employee’s immediate supervisor
3) Final individual performance evaluations are determined following discussions at evaluation meetings attended by senior managers from multiple functions
Evaluators do not simply appraise employee performance against targets, but also strive to help nurture employee development by reviewing activities and voicing future expectations in one-on-one meetings.
*1 Includes part-time employees.
*2 For managers, performance evaluations are conducted once a year to assess the degree of achievement of annual performance targets. Performance reviews of senior managers also reflect the achievement of organizational goals to a certain extent.