Human Resources Development

Our Group believes that the growth of each and every employee is a driving force behind the sustainable growth of our businesses.
We have clarified the type of people we seek who understand our Group’s Basic Policy and Mission, and actively offer education so that employees can take action toward their own personal and professional growth.

The education and training we provide for human resource development and the underlying framework is dubbed “SB School,” and creates opportunities to learn and experience the skills required to achieve sustainable growth for our Group’s businesses. It plans the educational program required by all grades of employees in all departments for business activities, and implements it in a systematic and scheduled manner to nurture talented personnel for businesses, with the aim of helping our Group achieve sustainable growth of business operations while maximizing corporate value.

As the development of each and every employee is considered the source of sustainable business growth, all registered employees are eligible to enroll in “SB School” courses, and can attend the school from the moment they join the company until when they retire.

We offer 30 quality-training programs at our SB School to increase our employees’ awareness of quality, to prevent quality problems, and to improve quality techniques. November every year is designated as “quality month,” and quality education via e-learning is provided for all employees.

We provide education for second-year employees in the engineering track through the Sumitomo Bakelite educational system by offering lectures and practical training in areas such as the company’s quality policy and approach to quality assurance, regulations, quality management systems, problem-solving methods (FTA, FMEA, Why-Why Analysis, and Further Investigation), and statistical methods from the early stages of the careers of employees assigned to the research and production engineering departments. Administrative employees were also included in the eligible group for receiving education in areas such as quality in general, regulations, and management systems.

In the current era of VUCA, which is highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, we have enhanced the curriculum of the Quality Management Representative Training Course with the aim of developing human resources capable of making appropriate judgments in each emergent situation that cannot be handled by experience alone. We put effort into securing personnel who will be immediately effective as quality control managers.

We also began to embark on company-wide initiatives to train data scientists capable of operating in an era where process information is supplied as big data with the use of IoT.

Our laboratories and plants handle a wide range of chemical substances. We conduct periodic group education programs for employees, including new employees, with the objective of protecting the environment in the vicinity of our business sites and ensuring that employees work in safety. These programs are designed to enhance employees’ understanding of the properties of chemical substances and the content of relevant laws and regulations, thus enabling them to handle chemical substances appropriately.

In addition to group education programs, environmental education by e-learning is conducted every year for all employees in June, a month dedicated to enhancement of environmental protection.

These days, more and more companies with global operations are disseminating information centered on sustainability. After learning about and outlining the relationships between sustainability and SDGs, CSR, Responsible Care/ESG, etc., students learn about and deepen their understanding of the various environmental and safety-related activities that we are involved in.

We are implementing measures to achieve the top share in niche markets in the field of functional chemicals expanding the scale of business, with the aim of becoming a company that makes dreams for the future a reality by expanding the potential of plastic and creating value for our clients.

We believe that identifying the current situation pertaining to individuals and organizations, as well as developing measures to resolve any issues, is essential for making these measures more effective. To achieve this, we conducted our first engagement survey in July 2019, and applied those results to foster a challenge-oriented culture, review the personnel system, improve work styles, and implement various action plans proposed by each business department.

We conducted the second engagement survey in March 2023, and will identify changes from the first survey and new issues, and continue implementing effective measures in line with the survey results.