Human Resources Development

• Human Resources Initiatives
• Education and Training Programs
• Support for Growth and Success
• Development of Management Personnel
• Fostering of Human Resources to Support Manufacturing
• Engineer Cultivation and Success Support

Human Resources Initiatives

The Yamaha Group believes that diversity in human resources is a major contributor to the creation of new value. In accordance with this belief, we aspire to provide opportunities for skill and career development to all human resources fairly and without discrimination. Under the concept of supporting highly motivated employees who wish to fulfill their roles and aim to make constant progress, the Group supports all employees in exercising their talents to the fullest and developing professionally while working toward self-fulfillment.

Education and Training Programs

The Yamaha Group has established guidelines for Groupwide education and training programs to facilitate the systematic cultivation of human resources. Based on these guidelines, we seek to create an education and training system that is equally focused on skill improvement and career development as the basis for the development of globally successful human resources. At the same time, training programs are tailored to specific objectives and groups of employees.

We continue to conduct highly effective education and training programs, even amid the restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, through the use of e-learning programs utilizing videos as well as discussion-centered programs that take advantage of the characteristics of online meeting tools.

In fiscal 2023, the average number of training hours per employee at Yamaha Corporation was 43.

Major Training and Education Programs (Japan)

• Training by hierarchical levels: Improvement of individual skills based on career stages (includes training for new employees, managers, division heads, etc.)
• Selective training: Cultivation of base leaders and managers
• Yamaha Global Management Plan: Global selective training for local overseas hires and other potential leaders
• Career training: Cultivation of autonomous career development-oriented mindset and individuals who can support career autonomy
• Skill/passion management program: Acquisition of situational leadership skills
• Yamaha Advanced Skill School and Yamaha Technology Training School: Development of production site supervisors and core workers
• Function-specific training: Lectures for improving language and technical skills
• Support training regarding childcare leave: Training for individuals scheduled to return from childcare leave and their supervisors to support a smooth return to work and career development
• Study abroad/language learning programs and open TOEIC tests held on Company premises
• Yamaha Business School: Distance learning for supporting self-driven learning efforts of employees
• Second Life Preparatory Seminar: Provision of information regarding lifestyles and workstyles for people over 60

Support for Growth and Success

The Yamaha Group seeks to support the growth of employees and ensure the evaluations of their successes reflect their ambition and expertise.

Once a year, employees meet with their supervisors to confirm their aptitude toward their current position, skills, and career goals. In fiscal 2022, these activities included providing support materials detailing how to carry out meetings as well as information for sparking career development motivation to both employees and their supervisors to facilitate more fruitful meetings. The range of training options offered by the Group was expanded in fiscal 2023 through the implementation of autonomous career development workshops and career development support training. These programs are designed to help foster individuals who are ambitious about autonomous career development and capable of exercising autonomy in making self-driven contributions to their organizations. Plans for launching career counselor training programs for line managers in fiscal 2024 are being formulated with the goal of providing more effective career counseling.

At Yamaha Corporation, training programs for junior employees include meetings with human resources representatives held during employees’ second, fourth, and sixth years for the purpose of confirming their degree of growth in comparison with targets and their career plans and sharing opinions. The Yamaha Group provides comprehensive support to all employees to cultivate their fundamental business skills, to heighten motivation, and to alleviate work-related concerns.

Furthermore, in order to ensure that these meetings are conducive to fair evaluations and effective support for employee growth, the Yamaha Group carries out evaluator training for the managers who conduct meetings as well as mentor training for the employees who will be responsible for providing on-the-job training.

We have also developed frameworks for facilitating communication between the Company and people taking childcare leave, which has the potential to upset one’s career plans. In addition, training is held for both leave takers and their supervisors to offer such individuals support in relation to both awareness and skills and to thereby aid them in achieving a smooth return to work.

Development of Management Personnel

The Yamaha Group’s basic policy is to provide all employees equal access to opportunities to develop their skills and careers. This policy shapes our efforts to develop the management personnel who form the backbone of business activities. In addition, core positions are managed in an integrated, global manner to facilitate the cultivation of human resources for core positions, including future managers.

General training programs for management personnel include extensive training based on hierarchical levels conducted on a global and Groupwide basis in accordance with human resources development guidelines. At Yamaha Corporation, training is organized by hierarchical levels to provide personnel with the ability to develop their skills as appropriate given their career stage. In fiscal 2023, the Company moved forward with the second phase of hierarchical level-based training for the heads of core and other divisions in order to bolster its training programs for individuals who are central to management. Efforts in fiscal 2024 are scheduled to include the advancement of the third phase of the Yamaha Global Management Plan (see "Major Training and Education Programs (Japan)" for more details) as well as programs targeting individuals in core positions at domestic and overseas Group companies.

Fostering of Human Resources to Support Manufacturing

The Yamaha Group is committed to fostering human resources that can contribute to the advancement of manufacturing.

With the goal of improving upon its "Made in Yamaha" quality, the Group is clarifying the roles and functions of each of its production sites while also fostering human resources that can support the manufacturing activities at these sites. Plants in Japan are positioned as bases for manufacturing high-value-added products. At these sites, we focus on cultivating human resources that can support the development of competitive manufacturing technologies, on developing core production site workers (Yamaha Advanced Skill School and Yamaha Technology Training School), and on transmitting the core skills required to manufacture musical instruments to new employees (From-to Program). Meanwhile, technicians and supervisors from Japan are dispatched to plants in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India to help cultivate personnel at these sites based on the core manufacturing technologies developed in Japan. In addition, shared, rank-based manufacturing training programs are implemented to foster core human resources at these plants. Moreover, shared curricula designed to heighten both work skills and interpersonal skills are developed on an area-specific basis for China and Southeast Asia. Based on these curricula, an aggregate total of 100 local employees have acted as lecturers, providing training to the 200 core manufacturing employees in these areas on-site, using actual articles, and under actual work conditions. Through such ongoing training programs, we are reinforcing the foundations of the Yamaha Group’s high-quality production bases.

Engineer Cultivation and Success Support

The Corporate Philosophy of the Yamaha Group is, "With our unique expertise and sensibilities, gained from our devotion to sound and music, we are committed to creating excitement and cultural inspiration together with people around the world." Based on this philosophy, we are exploring new technologies and cultivating and supporting the success of engineers with the goal of creating new value. The Yamaha Group has traditionally cultivated engineers for advancing product development through courses on digital signal processing and analog circuits, core technologies to the Group. In 2023, we introduced a total of seven new courses for product development engineers with the aim of bolstering the technical synergies between our product development and manufacturing divisions. These courses cover topics such as wood coating, plating, equipment control, and other production technologies.

Major Engineer Cultivation and Success Support Initiatives

• Technology seminars and technical academic programs
• Cross-organization technology forums and other opportunities for information sharing and exchanges among engineers
• Invention reward program