Social Initiatives: Human Resources

HR Strategy

With regard to its approach to human resources, the Sharp Group clearly states in its business philosophy that, “It is the intention of our corporation to grow hand-in-hand with our employees, encouraging and aiding them to reach their full potential and improve their standard of living.” In order to put this philosophy into practice, the Medium-Term Management Plan (FY2025–2027) establishes that Sharp will expand investment in “people” as a growth platform that will support continuous business expansion.

Medium-Term Management Plan (excerpt): Expanding Investment in “People”

Specifically, Sharp will focus on “cultivating and acquiring human resources to facilitate the growth,” including an AI- and digitally savvy workforce and global talent, and will also expand training for all employees to enhance organizational capability. Furthermore, Sharp will strive to improve employee engagement by working to “build an environment that enables diverse talent to thrive,” including work styles, work environments, and employee benefits.

Through these initiatives, Sharp will strongly support employee skill development and promote challenges to maximize the potential of each individual, thereby helping to establish a sustainable profit structure and making Sharp a company that contributes to society.

Cultivating and Acquiring Human Resources to Facilitate the Growth

The Sharp Group believes that, in order for it to pursue its business in a way that achieves sustained growth, it is necessary to secure talented human resources in technology and management-related fields. In line with this, Sharp hires new graduates as a means of acquiring new talent. It also hires people with work experience in order to secure core talent capable of pursuing new business.

　As part of its efforts to improve overall corporate strength, Sharp prepares and provides various human resource development programs to its employees. Through these programs aimed at enhancing the quality and breadth of employee skills, we are advancing various talent-development initiatives, including the cultivation of young employees and the development of next-generation leaders.

Building an Environment That Enables Diverse Talent to Thrive

The Sharp Group aims to “build an environment that enables diverse talent to thrive” and, towards that end, works to foster a culture that challenges its employees and encourages their individuality. Sharp will build an environment that capitalizes on the diversity and skills of its employees and will be an organization where everyone can perform to their full potential. It also emphasizes creating safe and healthy workplaces by focusing on more robust employee health promotion and enhancing employee benefits.

By creating such an environment, Sharp will improve employee engagement and, thus, help ensure corporate growth and competitive advantage.

Human Resource Development

Variety of Human Resource Development Programs

Sharp’s range of development programs is one way the company is boosting its comprehensive strength.

We have many kinds of development programs aimed at improving the quality and scope of employees’ capabilities. These train young employees, cultivate the next generation of leaders, and strengthen individual skills.

Human Resource Development Programs (in Japan)

Job-Level-Specific Human Resource Development

In job-level-specific training, young employees acquire the knowledge, skills, and mindset essential to each stage of their careers. Towards that end, young people receive training starting from when they are first selected to join Sharp, training upon joining the company, and training in their first few years at the company. Moving forward, Sharp will continue to expand its job-level-specific training programs, focusing particularly on middle management and young talent. By implementing training at each level, Sharp aims to encourage career independence and to support employees’ independent growth, thereby strengthening both management and young talent.

Strengthening Development of the Next Generation of Senior Managers (Sharp Leadership Program)

With an eye to continuous growth, Sharp is implementing training for selected employees that will strengthen the development of the next generation of senior management personnel. The aim is to create a process for systematically developing the next generation of senior managers who will lead Sharp into a future phase of dramatic growth, based on a clearly defined profile of the ideal candidate.

In terms of training measures, Sharp is actively working to create effective and ongoing learning opportunities, such as implementing a blended learning approach that combines e-learning and group training, or cultivating Sharp alumni, to impart the mindset and skills necessary for leadership.

Building an AI- and Digitally Savvy Workforce

In order to strengthen its business competitiveness, the Sharp Group has positioned the development and acquisition of an AI- and digitally savvy workforce as an urgent priority and is focused on expanding this talent pool.

Specifically, Sharp will be introducing a reskilling program for engineers, identifying technical fields that need strengthening, and providing lectures and e-learning to the targeted engineers. In addition, to raise employees’ AI skill and knowledge level, Sharp will start by teaching them the basics of generative AI and then promote gradual improvement through e-learning and other means. Furthermore, Sharp is pursuing competitive and flexible employee compensation packages to attract highly specialized personnel.

• Total number of qualified digital technology-related personnel at Sharp Corporation and its domestic affiliates.

Fostering Global Human Resources

The Sharp Group believes that securing human resources who can function successfully in a global environment is essential to strengthening its overseas business. To this end, the Group effectively utilizes training, rotation, and OJT (overseas assignments, overseas business trips, etc.) for suitable personnel in order to develop them into professionals who can contribute to Sharp’s overseas expansion. The Group also actively hires people with extensive experience in overseas business.

To improve employees’ foreign language abilities towards expanding Sharp’s global business, we provide foreign language study of two types: the basics, open to all employees; and intensive, for selected employees. In the basics, we meet individuals’ particular study needs with learning that can be done anytime and anywhere, in addition to counseling on language learning.

Fostering a New-Business-Creation Mindset

As part of efforts to build a culture conducive to earnestly creating new business and innovating, we carry out new business proposal activities. At our new business proposal meetings we foster idea creation and encourage proposals. Proposals are then gathered from the all of Sharp and the best ones compete at a company-wide competition. Teams that make it to the company-wide competition are given training in how to best present their proposals to the judges.

Personnel, Education, and Training System for Fostering Strong Individuals (Learning for Self-Development)

In line with its thinking focused on the development of strong individuals, the Sharp Group is working to create an environment where employees can learn the basic business knowledge and expertise that they need as professionals. By enabling individuals to pursue learning independently, anytime, anywhere, Sharp is facilitating the development of professionals who are well-versed in business. Sharp has created an e-learning environment that allows employees to easily study these topics anytime, anywhere, using their home computers or smartphones, and it actively supports employees in improving their skills through self-development. Through the ongoing provision of these various education and training initiatives, Sharp is fostering a corporate culture of employee-driven mutual learning and instruction in which it cultivates personnel capable of delivering the sorts of innovation that strengthen the company.

Creating a Learning-Friendly Environment

Company-Wide Study Sessions (Technology, Management)

Sharp holds two varieties of study session with the aim of sharing knowledge across the company.

Technology-related study sessions are intended to share information on key technology areas, providing explanations of technological trends and company-wide initiatives. Management-related study sessions include explanations of business skills intended to impart a range of different managerial skills. All sessions are held during working hours and recordings are available for viewing, creating an environment conducive to easy learning.

Specialized Technical Training and Management Skills Improvement Training

Through specialized technical training, Sharp pursues a variety of initiatives aimed at helping employees improve and deepen their expertise (technical competency). The courses we offer include a basic skills-building seminar (e-learning), in which primarily younger engineers learn the basics of technology, and technical workshops, which incorporate a practical program that is directly linked to job skills in specific technical fields. There are also engineer exchange meetings. Sharp’s education and training initiatives are aimed at strengthening technical expertise company-wide, going beyond the limited framework of specific business and products to share technical know-how across internal functions and to develop younger employees by passing existing skills and techniques on to them. In management skills improvement training, there are self-study courses for all employees to learn and acquire the basic knowledge and skills of business.

Fiscal 2024 Learning for Self-Development Participation
(Full-time employees at Sharp Corporation and consolidated subsidiaries in Japan)

Personnel System Conducive to Talent Development and Motivation Boosting

Grade System

We have introduced a grade system that determines position rank and compensation according to job content, role size, and level of responsibility. The system is designed to enable speedy promotion based on roles and performance, and it is used to select and promote outstanding human resources.

Employee Evaluations

We use a bonus/pay raise system that is tied to company performance and employee evaluation in order to reward those employees who have produced good results.

To ensure fair evaluations, all employees have an interview with their managers at the beginning, middle, and end of each evaluation term, at which time both sides confirm how well the employee is doing in terms of progress towards targets, contribution to the company, and job results. Evaluation results are given to employees every half year along with explanations of the evaluations with the aim of contributing to employees' growth.

In-House Recruitment System

Our in-house recruitment system allows current employees to apply for jobs such as the launch of a new business. Besides effectively leveraging existing human resources, the system also helps our employees advance their careers.

Personnel Declaration System

All employees submit a career development plan along with a self-assessment of their job aptitude. Sharp then stores this information—along with records of interviews with supervisors—in a personnel database. This provides an overview of how employees are progressing with respect to their career goals, and it allows Sharp to effectively develop human resources.

Step-Up Campaign (Qualification Acquisition Encouragement Plan)

To support employee self-development, Sharp offers monetary rewards to employees who have acquired qualifications, with the amount depending on the difficulty of acquiring the qualification. This plan covers about 200 qualifications, including some for field-specific techniques and skills, some directly related to daily duties, and some for language skills.