Work Environment

Our hiring of employees is based on Our Corporate Spirit of integrity, fairness, and harmony, a belief that has been nurtured since our founding 180 years ago. We are committed to hiring people who can actively practice the 3Cs: “Change (Change ourselves as society changes); Challenge (Challenge new fields with conviction and ambitious spirit); and Create (Create fresh global value through diversity).” In recent years, we have strengthened our human resource portfolio, for example by hiring more mid-career recruits, with the aim of capturing talent with the diverse experiences and skills that we need to expand the business areas of the group. “Diversity and inclusion” is a material issue for the group, and one of our initiatives under this theme is for Japan Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd. to raise its percentage of female managers to 10% or more by fiscal 2030. To achieve this target, in OVOL Mediumterm Business Plan 2026, we have set a goal of increasing the ratio of female employees in career-track positions to 30% or more. (We achieved this target in fiscal 2024.) Going forward, we will proactively leverage diverse recruitment channels, including headhunting and rehiring former employees, in order to further enhance our human resource recruitment.

The group is active in five business segments: Japan Wholesaling, Non-Japan Wholesaling, Paper Manufacturing & Processing, Raw Materials & Environment, and Real Estate Leasing. As we seek to expand our business areas going forward, the development of human resources with diverse experiences and skills has become an urgent task. To do this, OVOL Medium-term Business Plan 2026 has set out the goals of raising the skill level of employees and enhancing training to develop human resources with expertise. For example, we actively use business schools as a part of our selectable training courses, with the aim of developing manager-level human resources. We have also introduced an international training program to develop global talent with an international perspective that is capable of practical communication with counterparts from around the world. Another initiative is to proactively second our employees to group companies, business partners, and external organizations that are important to our business strategies, thereby enabling them to acquire a wide range of knowledge and strengthen their specialist skills through practical experience based on the group’s business strategies. Going forward, we will strengthen our human resource development by further enhancing our lineup of open-application training courses that are useful for advancing the group’s business strategies, while also making proactive use of the Udemy Business online training service that we adopted the previous fiscal year.
Furthermore, human resource data about the experiences and skills that employees acquire through these initiatives is centrally managed and visualized in a talent management system. We use this data to compile a dynamic portfolio, and for strategic human resource placement that takes each employee’s uniqueness into account.

In business, goal management is essential for performance management. When combined with a personnel evaluation system, it promotes organizational motivation and individual skill development, and is an important factor in determining personnel management. The personnel evaluation system at Japan Pulp & Paper is comprised of Grade Standard Evaluation and Challenge Evaluation components. The system is used as a tool for employee development to maximize performance. In both setting goals and conducting evaluations, we emphasize clear communication between evaluators and those being evaluated to ensure fair evaluation of achievements and actions and increase transparency through feedback. Through this, we aim to enhance employees’ receptiveness and motivation.

The company recognizes that improving engagement through the promotion of human capital management is a critical issue for achieving our long-term vision. Since fiscal 2023, we have been conducting employee engagement surveys twice a year. By using feedback from survey results to identify and address organizational challenges, we aim to further increase the job satisfaction of employees, foster an organizational culture in which employees can play a more active role and take on the challenge of developing new ideas that create added value, and improve productivity.

In the engagement surveys conducted in December 2024 and June 2025, we achieved a BBB score, meeting our target in the Medium-term Business Plan two years ahead of schedule. Challenges identified through engagement surveys include the lack of communication with employees about the group’s growth strategy and the development of human resources through personnel rotation. As a part of our initiatives to promote communication about the group’s growth strategy, we held seminars for general managers, branch managers, and division managers in order to strengthen the “coordination function” between management and employees on the ground. We also held “dialogue meetings” between the president and division managers, and meetings between branch employees and management as forums for senior management to share and communicate with the rest of the company.
During these forums, the president directly explained to employees the thinking behind OVOL Vision 2030 and the strategies in OVOL Medium-term Business Plan 2026, further promoting and deepening each employee’s understanding of our long-term vision. Going forward, we will strive to further improve engagement by restructuring our development program through personnel rotation, which is another challenge we are tackling.

We view human resources as our most important form of management capital and support each executive and employee in taking the initiative to improve their health and increase their vitality.

Based on the Occupational Health and Safety Policy, the Japan Pulp & Paper Group is aiming to eradicate workplace accidents, hazards, and occupational illnesses. To do this, the Personnel Department and the Environment & Safety Promotion Office are taking the lead in implementing initiatives at each group company through the OVOL Environment & Safety Meetings, and they report the progress of these initiatives to the Executive Sustainability Committee. These activities are also monitored by the Board of Directors. To strengthen health and safety management, we have built a three-tier supervisory system similar to the one in the environmental management system: an autonomous management system run by each company, documentary and onsite checks conducted by the Environment & Safety Promotion Office, and onsite checks conducted by external experts. In the two-tier and three-tier on-site inspections conducted in fiscal 2024, we identified some instances of statutory appointees not being appointed or reported, and corrective actions were taken. We share information about any occupational accidents or other incidents that occur within the group to strengthen recurrence countermeasures as we strive for continuous improvement. In addition, general meetings of the OVOL Environment & Safety Meetings that cover all group companies in Japan are held regularly. We held three of these meetings in fiscal 2024, where we exchanged opinions on measures to combat the summer heat, an issue that is getting worse every year.
Furthermore, in fiscal 2024 there were no fatal accidents within the group, and we see this in part as evidence of the effectiveness of our safety management system.
We have set our “work environment” as a material issue for the group, and will continue to improve occupational health and safety as our highest priority by implementing measures to prevent workplace accidents and providing comfortable workplaces.