Social | Human Rights, Labor Practices
Enhancing job satisfaction, pride and engagement

The Bridgestone Group is working towards promoting a talent strategy aligned with its business strategy. As the axis of our talent strategy, the Group aims to develop various opportunities for diverse talents to shine through spreading experience and gaining confidence of individuals as well as increase corporate value by creating added value aligned with the business strategy. To transform to a resilient “excellent” Bridgestone that transforms change into opportunity, unperturbed by continuous change and remaining robust and flexible like rubber, as set forth in the “2030 Long Term Strategic Aspiration - Bridgestone 3.0 Journey -,” it is essential to enhance the talent creativity of each and every talent, the driving force behind this transformation. Reinforcing talent investment leads to increasing added value, and the Group needs to create this virtuous cycle of value creation.

Moreover, the Bridgestone DNA that the Group has developed since its founding—that is, "Focus on quality," "Respect for being on-site," "Being attentive and supportive of customer problems," and "Challenging spirit"—will continue to drive future growth. Based on the belief that the success of diverse talents leads to the creation of value as expressed in the “Bridgestone E8 Commitment,” the Group has created a workplace environment, talent development programs and HR system where each and every employee will shine through spreading experience and gaining confidence of individual. In addition, the Group is working to disseminate its talent strategy through town hall meetings, which provide opportunities for dialogue between top management and employees in each region.

Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region

Bridgestone Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (BSEMIA) considers the work of building a strong culture and empowering people as a continuous journey. Also, BSEMIA has addressed for employee career development and engagement enhancement from various aspects.

• Self-directed career development and personal growth

  BSEMIA has implemented the tools to support its employees in their development (example: 360° feedback, mentorship, targeted training paths with e-courses).

China, Asia-Pacific region

Bridgestone China, Asia Pacific (BSCAP) has made employee health and well-being a top priority with the philosophy “Safety First, Show Care and Stay Connected,” since COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, and this philosophy has been fully embraced by regional group companies in all 10 countries where BSCAP operates and remains relevant today to drive performance yet strongly support employee well-being by improving work-life balance.

• Employee Resilience pulse survey

  BSCAP assessed the organizational ability not only to survive a crisis, but also to emerge stronger and better prepared to face new challenges in the future. The resilience survey covered five areas: communication, technology, customers, connection, and well-being.

• A cross-country task force

  BSCAP created a cross-country task force in 2021 to develop regional guidelines on hybrid work and employee health and well-being to provide flexibility to BSCAP’s employees and promote work-life balance. Following the establishment of the regional framework in 2022, hybrid work was implemented in 2022 in all the BSCAP group companies across the 10 countries with localization to adapt to the dynamic situations in different countries and sites. Complementary guidelines on Meeting Management and After Working Hours Communications were also rolled out in the group companies to further reinforce support for employee work-life balance and well-being.

The Group is promoting a global culture change through empathy and creation of the values in line with the “Bridgestone E8 Commitment,” and is monitoring employee engagement through employee engagement surveys to identify issues common to the Group and issues unique to each region and to improve. Further, to spread awareness of this global change across its sites, the Group has begun initiatives to share good practices from each region.

* Questions on Employee Engagement (commitment/motivation) and Employee Enablement (the right persons in the right positions/working environments to support employees) are answered using a six-point scale (Strongly Agree/ Agree/ Neutral/ Disagree/ Strongly Disagree/ Don't know or don't apply) to ascertain conditions across the company, in each department, and each workplace.

Japan

In 2020, Bridgestone switched from the use of Employee Satisfaction Survey, which measures the level of satisfaction with working environments, to Employee Engagement Survey, which measures employees’ motivation to self-directedly work and sense of connection with the Company. By analyzing the results, recognizing that there are engagement issues compared to other regions, identifying issues, and making improvements—and implementing this process in line with the characteristics of each organization and workplace—the Company is independently moving forward with activities to improve engagement and create better workplaces. Further, the Company is also increasing opportunities for management team and employees to interact through town hall meetings to motivate employees to contribute to the company and grow, and also to reflect employees’ opinions back into company operations.

In 2022, to more frequently implement PDCA cycles for its activities, the Company implemented a quarterly pulse survey to gauge the efficacy of activities and organizational conditions.

Americas region

BSAM is committed to cultivating a culture that promotes well-being to serve the diverse needs of its teams, helping them thrive. BSAM has learned to listen carefully, communicate often, form strategic partnerships, and continuously evolve to provide resources, strong benefit programs, and education that support employees’ emotional, physical, and financial well-being.

In 2022, BSAM continued to build upon its Well-being Space by adding new benefit programs in support of the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of its employees. Each month, BSAM spotlights a different well-being topic that supports a healthy lifestyle. From proactive health engagement, managing stress, crisis and legal support, to planning for retirement or saving for a child’s college tuition, BSAM has an array of tools, resources, and partnerships to support their needs. In 2022, BSAM launched a Well-being Task Force with a focus on receiving feedback from well-being champions throughout BSAM to further enhance well-being programs in the future.

Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region

BSEMIA conducts the monthly pulse survey to ask questions and quantitatively measure key drivers of its culture. The pulse survey has four strategic points — well-being, engagement, culture and collaboration — which drives targeted actions for improving lower scoring items. BSEMIA has made the conscious choice not to use other KPIs, opting instead to gather raw, honest data through its pulse survey. In the two years since adopting this approach, BSEMIA has seen a positive impact on well-being, engagement and culture in different employee groups. As one of concrete activities, based on the survey result, BSEMIA has been working on employee well-being for the last two years through B-Olympic and led to a structured action plan focused on four topics: psychological well-being, social well-being, physical well-being and workplace environment.

Furthermore, BSEMIA is planning to implement KornFerry engagement survey in 2023 in alignment with other regions.

Also, in manufacturing field, a structural cultural change management program has been implemented over the last years, which is named “B-ME” (Bridgestone Manufacturing Excellence) which has resulted in well-trained and empowered employees, autonomous teams and significantly better operational results.

China, Asia-Pacific region

BSCAP has steadily seen positive progression over the last five years in Employee Engagement Survey (EES). The 2022 EES results place BSCAP among the top 5% of organizations with respect to culture. It affirms that the transformation journey has been effective resulting in increased levels of clarity and focus. The key highlights of the latest 2022 survey are:

• Strong progress in Capability Development, Customer Focus, Core Values, and Team Orientation and in overall Employee Engagement, Organizational Trust, Innovation, and Sustainability.

• Given the unprecedented level of change today (economic/ political/ industry/ongoing pandemic), indicates a high level of confidence in BSCAP’s ability to proactively respond to the challenges in the business environment and to implement strategies and actions for the future.

• Shows strong confidence in the workforce’s ability to coordinate across teams, problem solve, and collaborate to execute the vision and deliver strong performance.

• Continue focus on drivers of Employee Engagement (lowering employees’ stress levels and supporting work-life balance).

The Group is promoting a talent strategy aligned with its business strategy. The Group believes that, to enhance the talent creativity of each and every employee, providing continuously opportunities and programs for learning (training and education), and new challenges is essential, and that this will ultimately help transform to a resilient “excellent” Bridgestone. While continuing to increase opportunities for employees to learn and take on new challenges, the Group will reinforce its investment in talent development in line with the varying conditions in each country and region.

In 2022, the Group invested a total of 1,775,683 hours on employee training across the organization. This is equivalent to an average of 15.3 hours (2.0 workdays^*1) per employee per year.

Types of training

• E-learning on the Code of Conduct implemented by Legal Department

• General company-wide trainings implemented by HR Department

• Technical training specific to individual roles and functions

• Leadership Development program for top leaders

• High Potential Leadership Development program for early to mid career high potential

One of the Group’s talent policies is to optimize the talent across the Group. On an ongoing basis, the Group conducts education programs to help develop key talent with the ability to guide and support the global organization. The Group has invested significantly in programs to develop next-generation leaders to ensure that it has the talent available to strategically guide the business in the future.

Leadership Development program for top leaders : Examples

• Leadership development through overseas business school programs

• Improve leadership capability, builds bench strength for succession

• Cultivate and stay connected with external business trends of automation, transportation and digitalization

• Cultivate global perspective of cross-cultural leadership

• Enhance ability for emergency theme, such as digital transformation, leading in crisis, leading in uncertain times

High Potential Leadership Development program for early to mid career high potential : Examples

• Improve leadership capability, builds bench strength for succession

• Sharpen and broaden their management skills cross-functionally: business strategy & innovation, strategic marketing, cultural intelligence and leading & managing change

• Guide assistance for employee's carrier development

• Opportunity for an Engagement & Retention Workshop for Managers

• Learning about management aimed at fostering future management talent

Japan

Bridgestone is enhancing the training framework to develop opportunities for its diverse talent to shine. One specific measure is the launch and operation of the “Talent Development College.” The aim of the “College” is to reinforce the skills (job performance and management capabilities) required of all employees, regardless of department or function, and to support employees who have a desire to learn. Each training program within the “College” effectively combines learning with practice to help individuals grow and maximize their capabilities, in turn revitalizing the organization and contributing to the achievement of the company’s business strategies and goals.

In addition to company-wide training programs, sections in charge of professional training at each department equip employees with the required skills, be it relating to research and development, production technology, safety and disaster prevention, quality, environment, sales, financial affairs, intellectual property, or public relations. The Company also launched programs to support opportunities to take on challenges in 2023.

Main training programs and opportunities for taking on challenges

Americas region

BSAM believes that investing in its employees is key to increasing their capabilities, growing their career, and staying with Bridgestone long term. In support of this goal, BSAM has made effort to provide various learning & challenging opportunities.

• 

  Activation of LinkedIn Learning

  BSAM rolled out LinkedIn Learning to promote development and career advancement across its operations and ensure employees build the skills needed to support the business.

  Through deliberate communication and allowing greater access to learning, BSAM had over 65,000 learning videos completed by employees in 2022. This extensive adoption of LinkedIn Learning demonstrated that BSAM employees wanted more development to build their capabilities in support of personal and business goals.

• Career development with more cross-region talent mobility

  In 2023, BSAM will focus on helping leaders and employees have more robust and effective career discussions as well as more cross-region talent movement. BSAM continues plans to expand its focus on succession planning, internal talent movement (talent brokerage), short-term assignments for development, and continuing to provide employees with access to a broad range of learning programs that suit both their personal aspirations and interests, and the critical capability needs of the business.

Percentage of employees attending career development interviews (assessments)

Number of masters (as of December 2022)

Regular performance reviews

The Bridgestone Group Awards represent the highest level of recognition within the organization. All Group entities and employees are eligible for the awards. The global management team reviews projects which have committed to realize the Group’s vision and Mid-Long Term Business Strategy, and select the most outstanding global initiatives among them to honor their achievements and efforts. Sharing the outstanding initiatives through the Bridgestone Group Awards not only cultivates employee pride, but also plays an important role in raising awareness and fostering a sense of unity among all employees. In this way, the Bridgestone Group Awards amplifies the expansion of each employee’s various initiatives to realize eight Bridgestone-like values stated in the “Bridgestone E8 Commitment,” which will expand sustainably like a ripple effect.

To boost its employees’ desire to develop new ideas, and to encourage new inventions that contribute to the advancement of its technological strategies, Bridgestone has set up the Patent Compensation System. Based on this system, employees are appropriately rewarded with the equivalent profit when the company obtains the rights to receive a patent, etc., from the employee.

The Group respects and encourages flexible work styles by offering benefits such as hybrid work schedules, childcare facilities in some locations, paid parental leave, and family care and/or volunteer leave above the legally required minimum in many locations including Japan, Americas, Europe, Russia, Middle East, India and Africa.

In Japan, the Company’s employees can make use of company housing, dormitories, rest homes, congratulations and condolences schemes, schemes for mutual support during natural disasters, childcare and nursing care support schemes, asset formation support schemes, loan schemes, and various group insurance schemes. Moreover, employees can also join the employee shareholding association to invest in both the company’s and their own long-term futures. The Group is also working to systematically improve workplace welfare facilities, including sports facilities, cafeterias, shops, and break rooms, and some can be utilized after retirement.