Social | Talent creativity
Talent Creativity Enhancement

The Group strives to enhance corporate value by added value creation that is aligned with its business strategy. At the same time, the Group positions as the core of its talent strategy the creation of an environment in which diverse talent can thrive through the ripple effects of individual success and confidence, and actively promotes a talent strategy that is aligned with its business strategy.

• Bridgestone‑like talent who embrace and embody the Bridgestone Essence Framework and the Bridgestone DNA — “Focus on quality,” “Respect for being on‑site (Genbutsu‑Genba),” “Being attentive and supportive of customer problems,” and a “Challenging spirit” — as our foundation.

• Global management leaders who are fully equipped with the resilience to face and overcome tough situations, a strong on‑site (Genba) mindset, and the business acumen to build and implement business strategies.

• Digital talent who evolve value creation by combining digital power with the strong real, such as operational excellence at on‑site, cultivated thus far by the Group.

• Solution engineers who provide solutions to problems encountered by society and our customers and create new value by combining the Group’s Dan‑Totsu products.

We have been advancing various initiatives to enhance productivity and creativity of each and every employee as the driving force for transformation with improving management, working and business quality as our top priority in seeking to accelerate our transformation through “focus more on value creation” as part of our “respect for being on-site (Genbutsu-Genba)” worldwide under the Mid Term Business Plan (2024-2026).
As a benchmark reflecting such initiatives, we introduced “Talent creativity” as a global management KPI starting in 2024. We aim to reinforce talent investment to increase added value and create a virtuous cycle of value creation based on improving productivity and creativity. We set “Talent creativity KPI” as one standard as a global company and work on issues by region / by country while tracking global progress through its KPI (adjusted operating profit (value added) divided by talent investment (sum of labor cost, training and development expense, and welfare and benefit expense)). The global result for this KPI in 2025 stands at 107^* (a year-on-year increase of five).

* Index trend with the index value set to 100 for the benchmark year of 2019.

Talent creativity KPI

* Throughout this page, “Bridgestone” or “the Company” refers to Bridgestone Corporation, while “the Bridgestone Group” or “the Group” refers to all Group companies.

Our fundamental philosophy is that Bridgestone grows through the growth of its people, and that individuals, in turn, grow alongside the continued development of Bridgestone. We believe that the company’s sustainable growth is best realized when each and every employee is able to lead a rich and fulfilling life. Accordingly, we place great importance on fostering a work environment in which talent can truly thrive—one that encourages individuals to make the most of a variety of opportunities to challenge themselves and learn, while remaining committed to delivering results and creating value. To support these aspirations, we continuously strive to enhance management and working & business quality, and promote greater productivity and creativity among all employees. At the same time, we advance a talent strategy that is firmly aligned with and supportive of our overall business strategy.

Bridgestone-like transformation of Human Resources and Organization

The Group has set “Create good business quality” as our top priority of the Mid Term Business Plan (2024-2026) as a foundation for value creation. The Group seeks to reinforce management, working and business quality worldwide in striving toward innovation and continuous improvement in alignment with Bridgestone’s unique Deming Plan. The Deming Plan was formulated in the 1960s toward receiving the Deming Application Prize and was given to companies that demonstrate distinguished and comprehensive quality management. This Deming Plan reflects the Bridgestone DNA. The Group seeks to improve management, working & business quality by carrying out various initiatives, “Deming Plan re-energizing initiative (management, working and business quality improvement)” and “training in place of founding (Kurume visit)” for encouraging employees to embrace the Bridgestone DNA and promoting behavioral transformation. Also, the “Bridgestone NEXT 100” program has been established to develop the next generation of global management leaders in serving as a crucial aspect of passing the Bridgestone's DNA to the next generation as well.

The Group strives to create sustainable value while improving profitability and productivity in order to address a turbulent change in business environment. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to enhance productivity and creativity (Talent creativity) of each and every employee. Accordingly, we conduct Bridgestone-like talent development and establish workplace environments in seeking to strengthen the Bridgestone DNA while ensuring that growth of the Group and that of each and every employee go hand in hand. Specifically, we value the concept in the “foundation” of respect for being on-site (Genbutsu-Genba) across Bridgestone’s broad business portfolio in ensuring that talent takes initiative with respect to their own careers. As such, we are accelerating various initiatives by putting a focus on developing talent that proactively takes on value creation challenges (support for taking on challenges and achieving growth), and on establishing workplace environments that promote both engagement and better workplaces (developing opportunities for diverse talent to shine).

Furthermore, the Group has positioned the Tire Business which “produce and sell” Dan‑Totsu products as a core business, and expanded value creation by enhancing the solutions business, which is to amplify value during the customer “use” phase of our Dan‑Totsu products, as a growth business. To implement that, we believe it is important to be attentive and supportive of problems encountered by society and our customers and provide solutions in that regard by combining the strong “real” (physical) capabilities, such as the Group’s Dan-Totsu products and operational excellence on-site with digital power. We will strive to develop digital and solutions talent that embodies Bridgestone’s unique approach in order to accelerate such “real x digital” capabilities, thereby facilitating new value creation.

Through such initiatives, we aim to build a foundation toward growth with quality.

The Group’s foundation for corporate management is the notion of “Safety First, Always,” as set forth in its Safety Mission Statement. Given that this is an expectation of our customers and other stakeholders, we are promoting activities for improving the working environment to ensure that each and every employee is able to work in a safe workplace with peace of mind based on the Safety Mission Statement. This is essential in ensuring industrial safety and hygiene with respect to the Group’s employees and contractors through the application of stringent safety standards.

Supporting self-directed career development

The Group supports all employees in their efforts to develop their self-directed careers. Across the Group’s operations, employees are encouraged to have career and development plans that they work towards in collaboration with their supervisors and leadership teams, and the Group supports all employees to complete meaningful and rewarding work. Specifically, we have introduced periodic career development interviews and multidimensional evaluations including 360-degree evaluations etc. in order to encourage and promote a culture of appropriate and open feedback.

In addition, the Group implements Management by Objectives and similar systems in order to enhance organizational performance through supporting employee development and growth. In the Company, we set performance goals once a year for managers and twice a year for staff, and promote a process to achieve these goals through regular meetings and dialogues with their supervisors during the term.

The table below reflects the percentage of employees regularly receiving performance reviews and career development interviews (assessments).

Percentage of employees receiving regular performance reviews

* The Company promotes an appropriate process toward addressing targets, which are set annually for managers and biannually for staff, while conducting periodic mid-term interviews.

Percentage of employees receiving regular career development interviews (assessments)

Providing learning opportunities for a wide range of employees

The Group will continuously invest in talent development for employees to increase their capabilities, grow their careers and encourage them to stay with Bridgestone long term on a Group-wide basis, while taking into account circumstances in respective regions and countries. We believe such initiatives will lead to promoting employees’ continuous learning and a workplace culture for growth toward creating a learning organization. In addition, some activities to promote employees’ learning initiatives are implemented region by region.

In 2025, the Group invested a total of 3,169,464 hours on employee training across the organization. This is equivalent to an average of 29.7 hours (4.0 workdays^*) per employee per year.

* Converted to 7.5 hours per day as working hours.

Supporting employees motivated to take on challenge and achieve growth

The Group has been making progress in developing “opportunities for talent to shine and take on various challenges,” as part of its approach to enhancing a “challenging spirit”. This is especially true in the exploratory business where, in addition to forming alliances with external partners, the Group has established a corporate venture, Softrobotics Ventures. Softrobotics Ventures brings together talent with an entrepreneurial spirit to create new businesses from scratch to take on the challenge of early commercialization with respect to the notion of embracing new challenges utilizing Bridgestone’s expertise in the R&D of rubber materials to develop soft robot hands with just the right grip, thereby supporting the lives of individuals through the power of rubber.

The Group encompasses a wide range of business domains, including tires, solutions, and diversified products, spanning the entire value chain from upstream (raw materials) to downstream (sales and services). Meanwhile, the Group believes that embodying the notion of a "challenging spirit" through active engagement is essential to providing further value to its stakeholders, irrespective of the business domain and value chain. The Group launched its “Genba (on-site) 100-Day Challenge Program” from Japan in 2023 and subsequently expanded to BSAPIC (Asia-Pacific, India and China) in 2024. This program involves investigating, verifying, improving, and addressing on-site challenges and hypotheses established by participants on site either within or outside their country. We will further extend the reach of the program globally in the future and take initiatives to encourage even more employees to take on challenges and create further challenge-taking culture.

Leadership training

As the Group builds a more advanced “glocal” management structure, developing the next generation of management leaders is a business imperative. Management leaders should be equipped with both business expertise and cross-cultural leadership capabilities with the aim of supporting future sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value.

As the Group pushes forward with leadership development by region and country, we have also been developing the "Bridgestone NEXT100", a program to develop the next-generation of management leaders. This program nominates approximately 100 individuals globally each year (30 from Japan, 30 from the Americas, 20 from Europe, 20 from Asia, divided into three levels of Next, Advancing, and Developing Executive) to take part in this program and the individuals participate in a town hall meeting with global / regional management leaders, and various management / executive meetings. Five individuals have been appointed to the position of Vice President and Senior Officer or higher so far.

Activities for promoting culture change and enhancing engagement as a foundation

The Group conducts globally unified engagement surveys^{*1 *2} from 2023(the next global survey will be held in 2026) upon having positioned improvement in employee engagement as one of our key issues in globally promoting culture changes in line with the “Bridgestone E8 Commitment”. This is done while implementing a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle by conducting more frequent pulse surveys and other initiatives in each region. We have deepened and made progress on initiatives in part by sharing good practices from each region upon having identified global common strengths and improvement items, while respecting regional differences in cultures and characteristics.

Global common strength and further improvement items based on the result of engagement survey

1. 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. The questionnaire consists of approximately 90 questions, covering a wide range of topics, including questions related to promoting employees’ motivation such as “challenging and interesting work”, “opportunities to demonstrate one's abilities” and measuring the degree of improvement in the workplace, such as “significant barriers to work well”.
2. Global response rate in the survey of 2023 : 89%

Strengthening talent that accelerates adoption of strong real x digital capabilities

The Group promotes development and acquisition of digital talent globally in order to broaden Bridgestone-like digital talent with a focus on respect for being on-site (Genbutsu-Genba), which is essential for creating social value and customer value, while also seeking to best integrate talent among Webfleet and Azuga, which operate digital fleet solutions business, and the Group. We seek to amplify value during “use” of tires from “produce and sell” with Dan-Totsu products as a core fundamental to the Group’s strategy. To such ends, we will further strengthen globally our on-site field engineering activities to deeply understand customers’ pain points, which is our Group’s strength. With respect to talent underpinning such initiatives, we promote systematic development and acquisition of solution skills tailored to characteristics of the market and needs of each region in looking toward developing engineers equipped with a deep understanding of both product value and customer needs.

As the goal of expanding to a level of 2,000 people on a global basis by 2026, the Group already has a digital talent workforce of approximately 2,200 people globally as of 2025. Based on the concept of “faster, easier, and more accurate with larger data”, the Group will evolve value creation by combining its strong real, such as on-site capabilities that the Group has cultivated, with digital power. The Group continues to develop and acquire digital talent in various regions.

Supporting self-directed career development

In Japan, the Company provides and supports various programs and appropriate opportunities for employees to “think and design deeply” their careers, to “interact and dialogue with others” and to “act and practice” in order to promote employees’ self-directed career development.

• Opportunities to think and design deeply
  Bridgestone deploys measures to encourage and support each and every employee to foster self-awareness and take initiatives with respect to their own career. Specifically, at the training for regular new graduates, in the organizations where they are assigned, employees learn and acquire a mindset for creating results that would serve as the foundation for career development. As a follow-up in their 3rd year after they joined the company, they are trained to consider how to build their future career through reviewing their work and growth since joining. And finally, they set goals to expand the scope of what they can/should do in the current assignment and for the future from mid to long term perspective during the program. The Company is expanding the opportunities for employees to think and design their own careers proactively through a Self-directed Career Development Support Program.

• Opportunities to interact and dialogue with others
  Once a year, employees have a C&D interview with their supervisors to clarify their thoughts on their career, work style, and growth. This interview provides an opportunity for employees to deepen their understanding of themselves and to concretize their career direction, the realization of value creation within the Company, and the actions they need to take for learning and challenges.

• Opportunities to act and practice
  The Company provides the opportunity for employees to apply for a transfer or to take on a different challenge to encourage talent who are motivated to try a new job type or role. This encourages and supports employees who are motivated to take on challenges and achieve growth, as well as making a continuous talent development investment such as “Genba (on-site) 100-Day Challenge Program”, “Management Challenge Program^*” and “Digital 100-Day Training^*” etc.

  • Open Posting System
    This system involves the Company clearly indicating the role, requirements and expectations level for position with staffing needs. Motivated employees can apply for these positions and are considered for assignment on an ongoing basis.

  • Job-Matching System
    This system allows employees to register their unique skills and experiences acquired both internally and externally, as well as their interest in future challenges. Employees are then considered for positions that align with and make effective use of this information on an ongoing basis.

* Details are described below.

Providing learning opportunities for a wide range of employees

The Company has established and operated the “Talent Development College” training framework, which aims to reinforce the skills (job performance and management capabilities) required of all employees, regardless of department or function, and support employees who are motivated to take on challenges and achieve growth. The training framework effectively combines learning with practice to support individuals to grow and maximize their capabilities, in turn revitalizing the organization and contributing to achievement of the Company’s business strategies and goals. Moreover, the Company assesses participant feedback and needs, and conducts annual program reviews and expansion while rigorously implementing the PDCA cycle.

In addition to company-wide training programs, sections in charge of professional training in 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 major training programs are as follows:

• New employee training

  • Training for regular new graduate employee
    For new graduate employees, the Company offers around seven months of training that starts from the time they join the Company and lasts until assignment to a particular department. It is composed of basic group training sessions, hands-on learning at a factory, practical sales training, a two-month digital training course, learning of motorsports activities and training on the place of founding (Kurume visit).

  • Training for mid-career recruits
    For mid-career recruits, the Company offers orientation on the first day and two-week basic group training sessions including training on the place of founding (Kurume visit) and e-learning programs within three months.

• Supporting employees with a desire to learn
  There are learning opportunities for managers^* and staff in multiple styles. When enrolling, the course to be taken is determined based on the individual's motivation and abilities, taking into account communication with their supervisor. After completing the course, the learning is reinforced by applying it to their work. The following are the various styles of learning opportunities the Company provides:

  • Group training
    The Company offers face-to-face and online training sessions that facilitate career development and acquisition of business skills through discussions, dialogues, and role-playing with others.

  • Self-development support
    The Company provides a variety of courses, including e-learning, to enable employees to work on skill development according to their own needs and timing, such as acquiring professional knowledge, obtaining certifications, and enhancing language skill."

• e-learning programs
  The Company conducts a monthly curriculum to learn repeatedly about the Bridgestone Essence (corporate philosophy), "Bridgestone E8 Commitment," and sustainability. In addition, the Company utilizes a wide range of e-learning opportunities to ensure all employees have the opportunity to learn about topics they should be aware of.

* Managers of the Company are line managers, specialists and coordinators etc.

Supporting employees motivated to take on challenge and achieve growth

Bridgestone encourages the transformation of employee mindsets and behavior in part through introduction of the “Genba (on-site) 100-Day Challenge Program” and “Management Challenge Program”.

• Genba (on-site) 100-Day Challenge Program
  This program allows participants to apply voluntarily to take initiative in investigating, verifying, improving and addressing on-site the self-identified issues and hypotheses either in Japan and/or overseas involving various operations (Genba). 32 employees have taken part in this program so far and the places of challenge have been expanded gradually, starting with the Genba at a natural rubber plantation, Webfleet Solutions in Europe, retail and logistics in 2023 and expanding to Diversified Products and Internal Manufacturing (Steel Cord).

• Management Challenge Program
  This program provides junior employees who are motivated to take on challenges with the opportunity to gain management experience early in their careers by serving in a pre-management position. A total of 13 people have taken in the program so far.

Leadership training

As for support for strengthening the foundation of management behavior, the following programs are being implemented for all line managers responsible for organizational management.

• 360-degree Evaluation
  A program aimed at strengthening management behavior by reflecting on their own leadership characteristics through multi-faceted evaluations, in order to lead the team's achievements and growth.

• Coaching Program
  A program that focuses on effective dialogue and motivation for the growth of each team member, learning "coaching" skills and applying them to support the actions and growth of the members.

Activities for promoting culture change and enhancing engagement as a foundation

We promote various initiatives for empowering diverse talent in seeking to address historical disparities in such domains as engagement and DE&I as compared to the Group’s overseas locations.

• Engagement enhancement activities
  In 2020, Bridgestone switched from using the Employee Satisfaction Survey, which measures the level of satisfaction with working environments, to an Employee Engagement Survey, which measures employees’ motivation to self-directed work and creating a sense of connection with the Company. In 2022, to more frequently implement PDCA cycles for its activities, the Company implemented a periodic pulse survey (quarterly, every four month or biannually etc) to gauge the efficacy of activities and organizational conditions. By analyzing these results, 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 PDCA activities to improve engagement and create better workplaces.

  The Company conducts the initiatives to improve employee engagement for value creation as follows:

  • Workplace environment Improvement activities at manufacturing sites (Genba)
    Bridgestone’s plants have implemented and promoted continuous improvement (kaizen) through small group activities and CFT (cross functional team) activities, based on the voices and kaizen proposals raised at Genba, toward promoting Suru-raku (streamlined and less burden) production. One of our initiatives to establish workplace environments for facilitating evolution of manufacturing and culture change promotion at Genba is that small group teams engage in solving challenges and improving Genba workplace by themselves with discretionary budget. The Company has reinforced employee development and opportunities for success through improvement at Genba.

  • Continuous town hall meetings
    The Company continues to provide opportunities for the 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.

• Initiatives to develop a foundation for promoting DE&I
  From the perspective of promoting diversity in perspectives and better decision-making as an organization as well as expecting and facilitating all employees to support an inclusive workplace environment mutually, the Company engages in empowering women and promoting the development and assignment of female leaders. In addition, we are promoting various initiatives as a foundation for promoting DE&I, such as DE&I management workshops for all line managers (general managers and managers) and the FemTech program to address women-specific health issues using technology. For further information, please refer to the website - “Respecting diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I)”.

Strengthening talent that accelerates adoption of strong real x digital capabilities

The Company has introduced a “Digital 100-Day Training” covering a wide range of levels by having employees select a program that matches individual digital skill level since 2023. The program consists of introductory training, where participants learn basic digital literacy compiled by the Digital Literacy Council through classroom lectures, and practical training to deepen their knowledge through exercises focused on digital technologies related to their own job responsibilities. Over 1,800 people participated in this program from 2023 through 2025, according to their skill levels and their needs, and worked on enhancing their digital skills. Additionally, for intermediate and advanced levels, the Company initiated the "Bridgestone x Tohoku University Co-creation Lab" project in 2021, where employees are dispatched to Tohoku University. Through planning and developing AI and algorithms, the Company aims to cultivate "AI/Algorithm Experts" who play a core role in the solutions business and research and development, as well as "Solution Field Engineers" who can identify problems in business operations and propose solutions utilizing digital technologies."

Supporting self-directed career development

BSAPIC recognizes the importance of nurturing a high-performing culture where every individual's potential is realized, contributing to the group’s collective success. Central to this ethos is the robust Performance Development System (PDS), which serves as the cornerstone in driving excellence, growth, and alignment of individual aspirations with organizational goals.

During the PDS journey, managers and employees communicate and align individual goals with the organizational objectives allowing flexibility to update their goals through the year. Through continuous dialogue and feedback loops, BSAPIC prioritizes constructive coaching, empowering employees to enhance their performance and develop them to their full potential.

• Career Development and Discussion(CD&D)
  

  

  BSAPIC 's annual CD&D process is a vital tool in the talent management strategy, fostering dialogue between employees and managers to align career aspirations with company goals. It empowers employees to create actionable Career Development Goals in consultation with their managers, driving personal career and organizational growth. The process is a continuous journey driven by the employee with the manager’s support focusing on skills-based career conversations. BSAPIC has achieved full CD&D scope coverage at 100% of all indirect employees in 2025. Since its inception in 2020, participation has surged from 500 to over 4,100 employees in 2025.

Embodying the BSAPIC Talent Development Approach, managers collaborate with employees to design tailored development plans that leverage the 70-20-10 framework: 70% Experience, 20% Exposure, and 10% Education. As part of Experiential Learning, employees are provided with opportunities such as stretch assignments and cross-functional projects, enabling them to expand their skillsets and broaden their perspectives. Additionally, under the Coaching/Mentoring initiatives, including networking opportunities and executive coaching, we foster a culture of continuous learning and mentorship for executives to mentor other Managers and professionals

At BSAPIC, the commitment to talent development is unwavering. Through PDS, CD&D and the Talent Development Approach, BSAPIC strives to cultivate a culture of excellence, where each individual is empowered to thrive, driving sustainable growth and success for the organization as a whole.

Providing learning opportunities for a wide range of employees

BSAPIC introduced a Training & Development KPI in 2021 as part of the suite of Management Capabilities pillar in building a strong leadership pipeline. Indirect (Salaried) employees are strongly encouraged to attain a minimum of 40 training hours per annum to promote the culture of continuous learning and professional development. BSAPIC reported over 650,000 total annual training hours in 2025, which was equivalent to a 5% year-on-year increase, equivalent to over 35 hours per employee. In 2025, we observed China with more than 183,000 training hours, Thailand more than 175,000 training hours and India more than 110,000 training hours.

• Learn it Forward e-Learning campaign: promote Hard Skills Digitalization Literacy
  A natural evolution of the region PDCA of 2-minute BE INSPIRED learning focuses on purely soft skills to rebrand the e-Learning campaign in 2025 to level up our workforce capability (through upskill and reskill) by enabling digitalization literacy via skill acquisition that empower leaders, managers and teammates to innovate and create values. The e-Learning campaign across all markets and countries in BSAPIC operates focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Data Visualization and critical soft skills. Anchoring on “Elevate yourself, becoming our strength. Powering with Skills-based Bridgestone with data”, 16 e-courses roadmaps curated and launched for management band teammates. It includes skill benchmark performed in Jan 2025 to allow each employee to take self-assessment, view their own score immediately versus global benchmark (5 tier of proficiency). Over a 10-month period, s/he follows and completes the curated courses and re-takes the same skill benchmark in Nov 2025. We observed the average region skill benchmark in Jan 2025 score at 61 Tier 3 Developing level, shifted to 70 Tier 4 Proficient level in Nov 2025.

• SuccessFactors E-Learning System
  Since the launch of the SuccessFactors (SF) e-Learning system across the group companies for indirect (salaried) employees in 2023, all group companies’ teammates can :

  1. Access a library of more than 10,000 e-Learning courses in 2025 on soft skills, hard skills functional and hard skills digitalization courses available in multiple languages (audio and closed caption) to allow individuals to proactively pursue their own skill enhancement and personal development in alignment with their career aspirations. The subscribed e-contents courses are being refreshed as part of latest courses and there was addition of more than 2,000 courses in 2025 versus 2024.
  2. Access and complete their e-Learning courses of owned Bridgestone deployed e-content. It encompasses various functional domains of manufacturing, safety, quality, HR, Legal & Compliance etc. In a systematic approach, it allows the effective deployment and monitoring of its completion rate to be reported to the group.

In 2025, the BSAPIC e-Learning adoption rate was at 74%, an increase of 12%, despite with the re-integration of India back into BSAPIC.

Dedicated Functional Competencies model

We continue to stay dynamic with global functional skills to equip our teammates in the effort continuing upskilling their proficiency in the functional domain aligned with their aspirations. In 2025, the Retail competency model was developed to complement existing Sales competency model developed since 2021.

Supporting employees motivated to take on challenge and achieve growth

BSAPIC believes in the power of experiential learning that it will benefit talent the most in their development. BSAPIC started in 2024 with the Genba 100-day program focusing on the “Challenging Spirit” which encourages early career employees to continuously seek new challenges and opportunities for growth, with the key sponsorships from executives and countries’ managing director. Based on corporate philosophy, Genbutsu-Genba (decision making based on verified, on-site observation), the talent Genba assignment project aims to stretch their learning ability whilst contributing to the host country’s location and/ or entity. The BSAPIC Genba 100-day program covers inter-company within same country and inter-country (with Japan headquarter) as an alternative to accelerate talent development without an overseas expat assignment. The Genba challenger’s assignment project aims to provide 70% stretch experience and 20% exposure, and critically at the end of its Genba, the talent will bring back the-Learning to share with their group companies’ stakeholders to accelerate their business and functional growth with quality. In 2025, the 5 employees selected carefully across all functional domain specializations, where we finalized with Manufacturing, Technology R&D, Sales and Sales Planning talents. Each Genba challenger, is paired with host country Managing Director assigned leader to guide their experiential discoveries, with progress report provided to stakeholders’ (both home and host countries) on their self-reflection of learnings in both hard skill and soft skills. We aspire to continue this program in 2026.

Another signature program, Retail Tire Technician Career Pathways was implemented to develop direct (wages) employees into skills-based career options based on their career aspirations to advance into store operations and management roles. Bridgestone actively provides learning intervention on upskilling and reskilling for teammates, enriching their career from “linear” to “skills-based” pathways.

Leadership training

BSAPIC provides a holistic talent development model to develop its talent as future ready leaders and to equip the teammates with the soft skills and hard skills required in performing their roles effectively.

• Regional New Manager Induction Program
  Designed to onboard newly hired and promoted key managers across the region, for talent to gain insights into Bridgestone customer and business strategy through deep understanding of organizational culture and key initiatives for success.

• High-Potential General Management Program (GMP)
  Designed to strengthen their General Management skillsets with strong P&L acumen; equip leaders with the balance of “Knowing & Doing” - 60% Soft Skills and 40% Hard Skills. This program challenges employees’ boundaries and develops a cross-border outlook on their strategic thinking and decision making in an intense capstone business simulation in running a global corporation in a profitable manner across the entire value chain. The program has been extended to Bridgestone Japan leader candidates since 2023 for collaborative leadership development among Bridgestone EAST (Japan & Asia).

• High-Potential Management Development Program (MDP)
  Designed to build confidence and foundations for mid-level managers and professionals through greater self, team effectiveness and leadership styles to connect and communicate strategically. The program focuses on 60% Soft Skills and 40% Hard Skills with a capstone simulation to harness their confidence and foundations for quality business management and personal development. The program extended to Bridgestone Japan candidates in 2024 and 2025 for collaborative leadership development among Bridgestone EAST (Japan & Asia). In the 2025 cohort, the learning enhancement of strategy & management module: “Managing Growth with Agility” using virtual reality was incorporated to strengthen Bridgestone EAST talents ability to deal with crisis.

• Regional Leadership Conference
  Designed for top 100 leaders across the region. A platform for leaders to align vision and strategy, build executive presence, strengthen strategic acumen, and enhance agility to lead with success based on the external forces and internal gaps analysis.

• Top Executive Training
  Designed to ensure existing Vice Presidents and country Managing Directors are being trained for continuous learning. Core is developing diverse leaders as they lead the organization and are accountable for the organization’s success. Strategy is nothing without “effective leaders to execute” and there is “no engaged workforce without engaged leaders”. To raise leaders’ engagement, we need to raise up leaders. In 2025, a one-day virtual reality training was conducted “Growth with Quality: Level up Ability to Deal with Crisis”. In global uncertainty and challenging geopolitical dynamic, the program puts leaders in a high-pressure mirror crisis execution under limited information and shifting priorities, testing leaders to enhance their ability to work across all levels of stakeholders (both internal and external) and “glocal” to manage and direct resource, align strategy and balance autonomy with oversight in real time. Leaders were tested on agile behaviors with rapid sense-making, prioritization, clear role and communication clarity, swift decision making and kill-switch low value tasks (to protect outcomes under pressure). The executive training consolidates their data points linked to behavior demonstrated in the framework of Trust, Accountability, Teamwork and Conscientious.

• 360-degree review tools
  This is a tool used to measure leadership effectiveness and how participants are truly perceived by others targeting on the behaviours that need improvement and thereby improving their ability to successfully lead the organization and pave the way. The model, a combination of behavioral and business competencies – holistically measures leadership competencies required for strategic excellence, management competencies for operational excellence, business competencies on cognitive capability and behavioral competencies on emotional intelligence.

Activities for promoting culture change and enhancing engagement as a foundation

BSAPIC has been actively leading group companies’ cultural transformation and reformation and as a region engaged in measuring and enhancing employee engagement and its organizational culture through Employee Engagement Surveys (EES). BSAPIC observed progression over the last several years in its Employee Engagement Survey since 2018.

The latest results indicate that BSAPIC teammates are highly engaged and enabled, show a high level of pride and commitment towards the organization and enjoy an enabling environment that makes good use of their skills and abilities. These surveys serve as invaluable tools for understanding employee perspectives and driving continuous improvement initiatives across the organization in enhancing employees’ personal experience working in Bridgestone, and serving society with superior quality. The survey results required all countries’ leaders to develop their action plans to reflect on the strengths and development areas to amplify the quality of an engaged and enabled workforce. Group companies embraced Genbutsu-Genba and conducted focus group discussions cross functionally in aggregating and finalizing their group companies’ top priorities of action plans.

BSAPIC adopts an agile EES PDCA approach emphasizing the “Check” to devise and share the best practice of action plans across the region with all countries’ managing directors. This approach aims to elevate and accelerate their scores by learning from other group companies’ action plans.

All group companies and legal entities have their dedicated engagement activities planned and executed for both direct and indirect employees. With the diverse geographic of legal entities across the region, specific culture enhancement and enhancing engagement are market driven, with the example one legal entity strengthened reciprocal company and employees’ communication flows with digital application. It allows companies to cascade information quickly to a mass audience during crisis (e.g. natural disaster), engagement pulse check of their sentiment analysis and allow employee to submit feedback to company.

Strengthening talent that accelerates adoption of strong real x digital capabilities

BSAPIC empowers employees at all levels to embrace digital technologies, technological literacy, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data to enhance their data-based performance and drive organizational success in their respective work areas and contributions. BSAPIC aims to equip employees with hard skills digitalization toward becoming a skills-based Bridgestone with data. In 2025, BSAPIC invested more than 13,000 training hours (versus 7,300 hours in 2023) in digital skills, such as Generative Artificial Intelligence, Data Visualization Mastery, Data Visionary Mindset, Data Essentials and Analytics, Microsoft Office Applications, and Power BI / productivity tools. This direction will continue in 2025 and beyond to level up our workforce capability (through upskill and reskill) by enabling digitalization literacy via skill acquisition that empower leaders and teammates to innovate and create values.

Supporting self-directed career development

At BSAM, we believe everyone is a leader – whether you are a leader of your work, projects, a team, or an organization, we can all make a positive impact. To that end, in 2024, we introduced a new LEAD framework for the West region (BSAM and BSEMEA) and regional talent portals. LEAD defines what really matters as a Bridgestone leader and guides our behaviors to deliver on our goals. The LEAD Framework empowers our teammates to shape a compelling vision, drive innovation, and make informed decisions. It also helps us to foster a positive work environment, attract and develop talent, and build high-performing teams. Additionally, the regional talent portals are resource centers to support teammates with their professional development. To further strengthen the LEAD framework, a quarterly workshop series was developed in 2025 for all WEST people leaders. These sessions were designed to introduce the framework while providing practical tools to enhance leadership capabilities and support employee growth.

BSAM believes its employees are the key to its success as an enterprise. To support them in delivering outstanding results, BSAM provides employees with access to a number of development opportunities and ongoing performance feedback throughout the year. To meet the needs of its evolving business, BSAM’s performance management framework called AMP (Accelerating My Performance), is designed to provide transparency and trust around the assessment of employees and the most important business priorities. Additionally, it ensures employees receive the ongoing feedback and support they need to achieve their professional goals.

Through AMP, BSAM has created an environment where employees and managers continuously communicate and share feedback to ensure employees are delivering great results and progressing on reaching their career goals. While goals should be reviewed and modified as often as needed, managers and employees typically have quarterly AMP Check-Ins to review individual performance and development goals and to discuss any changing priorities.

• Career development with more cross-region talent mobility
  BSAM continues to focus on helping leaders and employees have more robust and effective career discussions as well as more cross-region talent movement. BSAM also continues 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. The Global Short-Term Assignment Policy which was developed in 2023, coupled with our newly created West organization that includes the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, will further facilitate more cross-region talent movement.

Providing learning opportunities for a wide range of employees

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 provided various learning and challenging opportunities.

• 

  Adoption 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 digital learning courses 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. In 2023, BSAM launched a “LinkedIn to Win” learning campaign to encourage employees to complete one of the monthly recommended courses on LinkedIn Learning. These courses are available to employees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with easy accessibility from a mobile device. This has resulted in over 4,600 active users viewing over 300,000 learning videos and completing over 43,000 LinkedIn Learning courses and over 12,000 hours of learning in 2025.

Supporting employees motivated to take on challenge and achieve growth

BSAM is providing skills-based development to ensure teammates have the capabilities needed to deliver business results. BSAM has identified development to fill critical workforce gaps and support the needs of the business. BSAM has also identified key roles for talent exchange that allows employees to explore different parts of the business between regions and work together to solve business challenges broadening their experience and enhancing their career development.

Leadership training

BSAM is focused on developing the skills, capabilities and confidence for employees to succeed. BSAM has several high potential programs for top talent that allows them to have experiences and exposure directly related to the business. In 2025, over 400 employees participated in five accelerated and core leadership development programs. These programs included SEAL, Navigation, Ignition, Communicate with Impact, and Women Unlimited, Inc.

• SEAL (Strategic Excellence and Agile Leadership): Senior level curriculum for 10+ years of leadership^*

• Navigation: Mid-career curriculum for 5-10 years of leadership^*

• Ignition: Early career curriculum for up to 5 years of leadership^*

• Communicate with Impact: Core curriculum for individual contributors 1-2 years after joining the Company

• Women Unlimited: Curriculum for leadership from emerging female talent to senior level executives

* These three programs are integrated across Bridgestone WEST.

Activities for promoting culture change and enhancing engagement as a foundation

BSAM has been supporting and enhancing employee engagement efforts for many years through various initiatives. In 2024, a Bridgestone WEST Pulse Engagement Survey was launched to provide a regular and timely pulse check on how employees feel about their roles, company communications, workplace relationships, and overall work environment. The survey continued into 2025, with the cadence shifting from monthly to quarterly. A randomly selected group of employees across the region was invited to participate. Results were shared via a dashboard that leaders used to inform business-specific action plans aimed at strengthening employee engagement and enablement. By actively listening to employee feedback, leaders are better equipped to focus on what matters most and prioritize actions that will have the greatest impact.

Strengthening talent that accelerates adoption of strong real x digital capabilities

The vision of BSAM’s Data and Analytics team is to lead a data-driven culture built on connected solutions, unlocking social, customer and business value. In 2023, the team launched the combination of classroom training and an online course. They hosted an Exploring Data Literacy Workshop followed by an online Data Literacy 101 course which continued into 2024, further accelerating digital knowledge and capabilities. BSAM will continue to expand these types of digital learning opportunities to employees in 2026 and beyond.
Additionally, in 2025, the IT team delivered multiple training sessions and quick tips designed to strengthen digital capability and knowledge across a broad range of technical topics including but not limited to artificial intelligence, Power BI, Threads and SharePoint efficiency.

Supporting self-directed career development

At BSEMEA, we continue to strengthen a culture where all employees, regardless of role, are encouraged to lead their work, shape their careers, and contribute to our transformation. We believe everyone is a leader – whether you are a leader of your work, projects, a team, or an organization, we can all make a positive impact. To that end, in 2024, we introduced a new LEAD framework for the WEST region and re-aligned our regional talent portal with BSAM. LEAD defines what really matters as a Bridgestone leader and guides our behaviors to deliver on our goals. The LEAD Framework empowers our employees to shape a compelling vision, drive innovation, and make informed decisions. It also helps us to foster a positive work environment, attract and develop talent, and build high-performing teams. Additionally, the regional talent portals are resource centers to support employees with their professional development. BSEMEA knows the key to success is through its employees and therefore understands the need to invest in and support the development of their teams.

Our approach remains rooted in our 70-20-10 development philosophy, encouraging learning through experience, exposure, and structured training.
With a focus on growing capabilities, enhancing career opportunities and increasing retention, BSEMEA has implemented various learning and development opportunities aligned to our 70-20-10 development model (70% learning through experience, 20% learning through exposure, and 10% learning through formal training).

LEAD – Embedding Our Leadership Behaviors
After introducing the LEAD framework across BSEMEA and BSAM in 2024, our priority in 2025 was embedding these behaviors across all levels.
We integrated LEAD into our performance and development conversations and leveraging AMP (Accelerating My Performance), career pathways, leadership programs, and regional talent processes.
To further strengthen the LEAD framework, a quarterly workshop series was developed in 2025 for all WEST people leaders. These sessions were designed to introduce the framework while providing practical tools to enhance leadership capabilities and support employee growth.
LEAD continues to guide what matters most in a Bridgestone: clarity of vision, innovation, better decision-making, and strong collaboration.

Accelerating ongoing performance & development through AMP
Our performance management framework called AMP (Accelerating My Performance), is designed to provide transparency and trust around the assessment of employees and the most important business priorities. Additionally, it ensures employees receive the ongoing feedback and support they need to achieve their professional goals. Following the 2024 launch of AMP for all people managers, 2025 focused on:

• Reinforcing quality development conversations

• Embedding regular feedback loops

• Supporting employees in taking more ownership of their development plans

AMP is now becoming a core part of our talent culture, supporting an agile, forward-looking approach to performance, growth, and retention.
Through AMP, BSEMEA has created an environment where employees and managers continuously communicate and share feedback to ensure employees are delivering great results and progressing on reaching their career goals. While goals should be reviewed and modified as often as needed, managers and employees typically have quarterly AMP Check-Ins to review individual performance and development goals and to discuss any changing priorities.

Providing learning opportunities for a wide range of employees

BSEMEA aims to be a learning organization. This means providing the opportunity for all employees to learn across the business and scaling learning solutions that meet the needs of our teams by continuing to offer inclusive-Learning for all employees through a combination of local initiatives and CoE-driven region-wide solutions.

LinkedIn Learning
BSEMEA has used LinkedIn Learning for more than five years as an external content library. In 2025 marked the first full year of operating under our combined BSAM–BSEMEA LinkedIn Learning portal. This integration offered to all teammates:

• One harmonized experience across regions

• Access to over 24,000 courses

• Mobile-friendly, just-in-time-Learning

• AI Role Plays and AI Coaching access to all employees

As a result, the WEST organization achieved over 12,000 learning hours, an average of 2.5 hours per viewer, along with 220,000 completed videos and 2,000 AI powered conversations, a strong indicator of meaningful engagement.

GoFluent
BSEMEA launched GoFluent in February 2023, with an offering of free online language courses to all employees (including operators and contractors) to allow them the opportunity to develop and practice their language skills in 19 different languages. Employees spent more than 4,100 hours on language-Learning in 2025.

Supporting employees motivated to take on challenge and achieve growth

BSEMEA is committed to developing talent for the future and fostering teammates engagement by ensuring they are enabled with the skills, resources, and appropriate development. BSEMEA provides teammates with a wide variety of experiences and challenging opportunities where they can gain new skills, collaborate with different individuals and teams, own their personal journey, and build a career that is meaningful for them and for Bridgestone. BSEMEA believes that the richest learning is experiential.

Leadership training

BSEMEA also participated in the WEST Accelerated Development (AD) programs, offering our talent broader cross regional growth opportunities and exposure:

• SEAL (Strategic Excellence and Agile Leadership): Senior level curriculum for 10+ years of leadership

• Navigation: Mid-career curriculum for 5-10 years of leadership

• Ignition: Early career curriculum for up to 5 years of leadership

Looking ahead, we are aligning across the WEST on the newly designed leadership learning paths, which will form a shared and scalable leadership development framework across all regions, ensuring a consistent, modern, and future fit approach to developing the leaders who will drive Bridgestone’s transformation.

Updated Leadership Development Catalogue (2025 Launch)
We introduced a refreshed leadership development catalogue that included:

• New modular programs aligned to LEAD

• Core skills pathways for emerging, new, and experienced leaders

• Leadership playlists in LinkedIn Learning

This catalogue gives leaders more choice, flexibility, and relevance for their development journeys.

Lastly, in 2025 the internal Women’s leadership program called Women in Motion was completed with the aim of improving Bridgestone‘s business results by leveraging gender diverse approaches to solve business issues.

Activities for promoting culture change and enhancing engagement as a foundation

BSEMEA has been supporting and enhancing employee engagement efforts for many years through various initiatives. In 2025, BSEMEA further enhanced its employee engagement ecosystem with many local activations including CSR initiatives to give back to our societies where we live and work. The updated Bridgestone WEST Pulse Survey series was launched. The survey shifted to a shorter format distributed multiple times throughout the year to a larger population across the organization. This approach was designed to better understand how employees feel about their roles, company communication, workplace relationships, and overall work environment. By listening to the views of their employees, leaders are able to focus on what really matters and prioritize activities that will make the biggest impact. Company-wide townhalls and leader-led communications provided transparent communication to all employees.

Strengthening talent that accelerates adoption of strong real x digital capabilities

BSEMEA continued to leverage the online e-Learning authoring tool, Flowsparks, and encourages Subject Matter Experts(SMEs) in different locations to create their own online content. By enabling the local teams to have access to create their own content, more intentional and specific learning needs can be addressed while also sharing that learning across multiple countries for a shared experience. This has been used in the Bridgestone Manufacturing Excellence (B-ME) program and several other locations to support onboarding and also updating employees on changes in policy and guidelines, as well as to create awareness and share updates on DE&I and Sustainability etc.

2025 saw also a focus on digital capability building across BSEMEA. This included:

• Targeted learning on Office 365, AI-powered productivity, and responsible AI use

• Digital literacy learning campaigns

• Broader use of digital tools within teams to enhance performance and collaboration

Additionally, in 2025, the IT team delivered multiple training sessions and quick tips designed to strengthen digital capability and knowledge across a broad range of technical topics including but not limited to artificial intelligence, Power BI, Threads and SharePoint efficiency.

As of December 2025, the Group has 105 production sites worldwide. The Group understands it is essential to maintain and improve product quality across all these sites. As such, the Global Manufacturing Education Centre (G-MEC) in Japan works with the personnel development organizations at the Strategic Business Units (SBUs) and worksites in every region (Japan: J-MEC; China: C-MEC; Asia: APIC-MEC; North America: NA-MEC; South America: LA-MEC; Europe: E-MEC; and Turkey: BRISA-MEC) to develop key manufacturing personnel known as “masters” at each SBU and worksite. In doing so, the aim is to develop personnel who can implement uniquely Bridgestone manufacturing techniques across the world.

Number of masters (as of December 2025)

We promote health and productivity management initiatives, including measures to address lifestyle-related diseases, cancer, smoking, and mental health, with the aim of creating workplaces where employees can work with energy and enthusiasm both physically and mentally and maintain and promote their health. Under the new Health and Productivity Management Policy revised in 2026, we aim to reduce declines in work performance caused by physical and mental health issues, minimize presenteeism and absenteeism, and increase work engagement through the implementation of initiatives based on our Strategy Map for Health and Productivity Management. At the same time, we will continue to evolve our efforts to maximize talent performance.

For further details, please refer to “Safety, Industrial Hygiene” on our Sustainability website

BSAPIC is committed to making employee health and well-being a top priority through its philosophy “Safety First, Show Care and Stay Connected”. This approach has been fully embraced by regional group companies in all 12 locations where BSAPIC operates. It remains a cornerstone to drive sustainable performance while strongly promoting employee well-being and supporting work-life balance.

Building on the foundation of its regional Hybrid Work Framework introduced in 2022, BSAPIC continues to evolve its approach to flexible work. The framework allowed each group company to localize implementation according to the dynamic needs of their countries and sites, ensuring both relevance and resilience in a rapidly changing world of work. In 2025, BSAPIC further enhanced the framework by introducing a new regional Flexible Work Arrangement Policy, which includes Flexi-Place and Flexi-Time options. While work-in-office is the default work arrangement, managers and employees are empowered to adjust where and when work is performed, enabling greater balance between professional responsibilities and personal needs.

By recognizing that employees bring diverse experiences, working styles and life stages, the policy creates a more inclusive environment where individuals feel supported to contribute and perform at their best. In doing so, BSAPIC cultivates an environment where diverse talents can thrive and where different perspectives strengthen collaboration and innovation. To further support employees, Meeting Management and After Working Hours Communications guidelines were rolled out across group companies. These initiatives reinforce respect for employees’ time by helping to safeguard well-being and promote healthier boundaries between work and personal life. Recognizing the value of the hybrid work model “Flexible Work Arrangement framework” in enhancing employee engagement and supporting well-being, BSAPIC's group companies remain committed to sustaining these arrangements. By offering employees the flexibility to work both remotely and on-site where appropriate, BSAPIC continues to foster a supportive and inclusive workplace culture that empowers its people to succeed.

BSAM is dedicated to fostering a culture that prioritizes well-being, addressing the diverse needs of its teams to help them flourish. By actively listening, communicating frequently, forming strategic partnerships, and continuously evolving, BSAM provides robust resources, comprehensive benefit programs, and education opportunities that support employees’ emotional, physical, and financial well-being. Since BSAM established the Well-being Task Force in 2022 to gather feedback from well-being champions across the organization, the team has continued to collaborate with Bridgestone employee resource groups (ERGs) and vendors to offer webinars on various topics, including women’s health and wellness, family forming, suicide awareness for military members and veterans, and more. BSAM has expanded its Well-being space by introducing new benefit programs that support the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of its employees.

Physical well-being is supported through comprehensive healthcare programs, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, as well as supplemental offerings such as health savings plans, preventive care resources and other tools designed to help employees manage their overall health.

Emotional well-being is supported through external resources that offer a broad range of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services, including mental-health support, addiction services, counseling, relationship and family guidance, crisis assistance, stress-management tools, legal resources and more.

Financial well-being is supported through external resources that help employees plan for the future, including guidance on retirement planning, investment strategies, understanding market changes, setting savings goals, estate planning, and managing healthcare expenses through tools such as health savings plans.

Each quarter, BSAM highlights a different well-being topic, providing employees with tools and resources to improve their wellness. These communications are also shared in Spanish and Portuguese to better support employees across the region. In 2025, topics included resilience, coping with change, recognizing how your mind and body react to stress, and building inner strength. The Corporate office in Nashville also introduced Walking Wednesdays, a weekly initiative that encourages employees to recharge, reconnect and reenergize by taking a walk, rain or shine.

In 2024, BSAM further expanded its initiatives in the U.S. by increasing paid parental leave and implementing a company-paid long-term disability benefit. The company introduced a plan design change to make one of the medical plans more affordable and eligible for tax friendly reimbursement account participation and enhanced its prescription drug plan. Holistic health sessions were added through a current vendor partnership. BSAM also launched a cancer care program and introduced a cardiovascular app supporting the heart health of teammates. In 2025, enhancements to the benefits plan included expanded EAP sessions, broader care-support options such as backup child, pet and eldercare services and updates to retirement-related tax advantages.

To recognize World Mental Health Day in October 2025, a global movement dedicated to raising awareness and supporting emotional well-being, Bridgestone WEST shared tools, resources and learning opportunities through a dedicated internal site. World Mental Health Day aligns closely with our LEAD Framework, showcasing future-focused leadership that values long-term sustainability. By empowering employees to prioritize their well-being, we foster improved focus, reduce burnout, and drive better results. This also strengthens team connections through empathy and support—core elements of effective leadership.

The Well-being Toolkit, launched in 2024, was further enhanced in 2025 with additional resources and more direct access to vendor information. This centralized hub is designed to help business partners and employees support their overall well-being, deepen their understanding of the company's benefit offerings, and make informed choices that promote healthy living, financial stability.

BSEMEA recognizes the importance of well-being for both its employees and the organization. In 2025, BSEMEA delivered a comprehensive well-being program structured around five pillars — physical health, mental and emotional health, financial well-being, and occupational health and social connectivity— designed to enhance productivity, boost engagement, and support every employee in thriving at work and in life.

Physical Health

We conducted annual health assessments in the Africa Middle East region as we seek to empower our employees with knowledge about their own health status thus allowing them to manage risks early, long before they become health crises and this enable us to protect our greatest asset, our people. This demonstrated that we value our employees beyond their day-to-day work and we care about their long-term being. Whilst the individual results are confidential, we will use anonymized aggregated health data to understand the broader health risks facing our workforce and use the data to pro-actively develop targeted preventative wellness programs in partnership with our service providers.

Mental and Emotional Health

We recognize mental health is a key risk that should be managed as it is crucial for maintaining business continuity. To this end, in partnership with our EAP provider, LYRA, we delivered a structured calendar of well-being webinars and training interventions throughout the year as initiative-taking tool for building resilience, managing productivity and risk management.
The webinars served as cultural curators as follows:

• Education over stigma: webinars assisted us to debunk stigma and promote understanding by employees. They similarly enabled employees to recognize early signs of mental health in themselves and colleagues.

• Actionable tools: they provided practical technical techniques like stress management, building resilience, and setting boundaries that empowered employees to take control of their mental health.

• Inclusivity: webinars and virtual workshops assisted us to remove barriers to access, making support accessible to all, including remote and distributed teams across the region.

• Empowering managers: webinars equipped leaders and people managers to be the first line of support, sporting signs of burnout early and responding with empathy.

• Building belonging: these sessions supporting our objective of fostering open dialogue, promote social connectivity, create a supportive culture that keeps people engaged.

Optimized the Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

We appreciate that our employees bring their entire lives to work, not just their professional skills. Our HR strategy is not about output only; it is about investing in the resilience and well-being of our people. In 2025 we transitioned to using one service provider across EMEA that provides psycho-social services to our employees and their families, with the appointment of LYRA. This enabled us to provide employees with a consistent experience, regardless of their location. BSEMEA’s Employee Assistance Program, delivered through LYRA, provides free and confidential support to all employees and their families across a broad range of challenges — including emotional support, mental health counselling, financial and legal guidance, and practical daily living assistance. Between August and October alone, 1,200 employees actively engaged with the LYRA EAP Hub, accessing content across topics such as mental health, financial well-being, productivity, trauma support, and more.

Health and Safety Management Policy

The Health and Safety Management Policy applies to all BSEMEA employees, contractors, visitors and businesses where BSEMEA operates, as well as any due diligence procedures for new business assessments through mergers and acquisitions. The policy covers compliance with health and safety-related laws and regulations, risk assessments to identify and mitigate workplace risks, investigation and implementation of countermeasures to prevent recurrence, training and education for safety awareness and safe behavior, and continuous improvement through internal and external audits.

WEST Pulse Survey

Finally, our WEST Pulse Survey asks questions and quantitatively measures key drivers of our company culture in four areas — well-being, engagement, culture, and collaboration — which drive targeted actions for improving lower-scoring items.
We have seen a positive impact on well-being across various employee groups, one specific example of this in action: based on the Pulse feedback, BSEMEA initiated its well-being programs, with a structured action plan focused on psychological well-being, social well-being, physical well-being and workplace environment. Several in-person and online activities, events and conversations with internal and external experts were organized in 2024, with hundreds of employees participating and reporting high satisfaction. A virtual library with extensive reading and video content was also uploaded to our intranet and remains accessible to all employees.

Initiatives for work style reform

In Japan, Bridgestone complies with the Labor Standards Act by working to reduce overtime and encouraging employees to take their annual holiday leave. In order to achieve a flexible work style, the Company has implemented various systems such as flextime, a discretionary labor system, telework, and hourly-based paid leave. Furthermore, the Company engages in enhancing face-to-face communication during work time, aiming for further talent development and working, and business quality improvement based on the Bridgestone DNA in terms of “Focus on quality”, “Respect for being on site (Genbutsu-Genba)”, “Being attentive and supportive of customer problems” and championing a “Challenge spirit”. The Company aims continuously to achieve both enhancing productivity and creativity and creating value, and actively promotes the pursuit and realization of flexible, effective, and diverse work styles.

In Japan in 2025, the rate of employees taking annual paid leave was 89.4%, with an average of 17.9 days.
(In 2024, the rate of employees taking annual paid leave was 88.1%, with an average of 17.6 days.)
The Company also has a program requiring employees working more than a fixed number of hours to consult with industrial physicians to help maintain good health and prevent long working hours and health risks caused by overwork.

With regard to overtime work, late night work, and holiday work, the Company provides premium wage that exceed the legal requirements.
While legal extra wage pay rate are 25% for overtime work, 25% for late night work, and 35% for holiday work, we pay premium rates of 30% for overtime work, 35% for late night work, and 40% for holiday work. In addition, while legal late night work is defined as work performed between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., we define late night work as work performed between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Furthermore, compensatory day off is granted when employees work on holidays.

Total annual hours worked^* 1,939 hours (FY 2025)　 (1,922 hours in FY 2024)
Annual overtime hours worked 211 hours (FY 2025)　 (196 hours in FY 2024)

* Total annual hours worked = (Annual regular hours worked) + (Annual overtime hours worked) - (Annual paid holidays taken) - (Other holidays taken)

Bridgestone also takes measures to prevent excessive working hours and achieve a flexible work style:

• The Labor Union, through the activities of the Working Hours Committee and other committees, shares with the Labor Department the existing issues and activities to improve the situation.

• Bridgestone sets targets for annual leave days taken and monitors results.

• Bridgestone implemented a telework system in 2011.

• Normal working hours were reduced from 8 hours to 7.5 hours to reduce the total work time since April 2017.

• Bridgestone has introduced a system that allows employees to take annual paid leave for 5 days (40 hours) per year on an hourly basis in 2021.

• Bridgestone abolished “core time” in the flextime system.

Employee benefits

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, Asia-Pacific, India and China, Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

In Japan, we provides support tailored to employees’ increasingly diverse lifestyles and needs, while also working on planned and continuous improvements.

In addition, welfare facilities are provided at each business site in accordance with employee activities. These include sports facilities such as gymnasiums, grounds, tennis courts, and fitness gyms, as well as cafeterias, convenience stores or shops, recreation rooms, meeting rooms, and Japanese-style rooms. Some facilities, including recreation facilities, meeting rooms, and Japanese-style rooms, remain available for use even after retirement.

Patent Compensation System

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’s work.

Ensuring pay equity

The Group’s talent strategy is centered on “creating a place where diverse talent can shine”. As the foundation for this, the Group ensures pay equity and designs its compensation programs to be competitive in each market based on regional and country-specific labor market trends and best practices.

In Japan, Bridgestone’s compensation program establishes salaries according to "role and responsibilities," "the ability to demonstrate results," and "achievement and growth," and the same compensation program is used for all employees regardless of their characteristics. Compensation levels are based on a survey conducted to ensure a competitive position in the market in talent acquisition and retention, and salary revisions are considered including their necessity each year based on social trends and other factors in Japan. In determining compensation for employees who are represented by labor unions, the Company holds labor management negotiations with the Bridgestone Labor Union every spring, and revises employee salaries in accordance with agreements reached. The Company holds labor management negotiations to maintain and ensure market competitiveness of its compensation levels, which are based on enhancing productivity and creativity, and to establish a compensation system that supports employees who are self-motivated to take on challenges and achieve growth. Regarding pay equity between male and female employees, there is a difference between male and female employees as a result of current talent portfolio in terms of job categories and the percentage of managerial positions, resulting in wage disparities. The Group is initiating efforts towards a more balanced talent portfolio, enhancing participation of female managers in key positions and strengthening recruitment of female employees, along with improving working environments at manufacturing sites.

1. This is calculated as a ratio of average annual wages of female employees to those of male employees in the current fiscal year based on the provisions of the “Act on the Promotion of Women’s Active Engagement in Professional Life” (Act No. 64 of 2015). Average annual wages are calculated as “total wages ÷ number of employees.” Total wages include base salary, extra wages, bonuses, etc., excluding retirement allowances, commuting allowances, etc.
2. Secondees are counted as employees of the companies dispatching them as secondee.
3. Regular employees include full-time employees and permanent contract employees, and part-time and fixed-term employees include fixed-term contract employees (including retired reemployed employees). Additionally, wages of employees on overseas assignments and wages during periods of leave (such as childcare leave and sick leave, etc. due to non-occupational injury and diseases) are excluded from the calculation.

BSAPIC’s compensation program aims to attract, motivate and retain the right talent with the right skills for the right position. Its major compensation programs, which include base pay and short- and long-term incentives, are designed to drive employee engagement and motivation, while fostering a performance-driven culture in alignment with both individual and company-wide objectives.

Regular annual market reviews ensure the compensation programs remain competitive and relevant within the industry landscape, providing the employees with compensation packages that reflect their true worth. We are committed to complying with legislated wage requirements in all locations where we operate. We conduct annual reviews to ensure that the salary ranges used to position our employees are regularly reviewed and adjusted in accordance with applicable wage regulations. Each program undergoes thorough scrutiny and approval by the Succession, Nomination, and Compensation Committee of BSAPIC's Board of Directors on an annual basis, demonstrating the commitment to transparency and fairness.

BSAPIC is committed to fair and equitable compensation in line with our compensation philosophy. we strive to provide equitable compensation regardless of gender and without discrimination. In determining compensation, factors such as experience, skills, market conditions, local legislation, and individual performance are carefully considered to ensure employees are rewarded fairly and in accordance with their contributions to the organization. We conduct regular pay gap analyses to identify potential disparities and ensure alignment with applicable laws and internal equity principles. Through established processes, we strive to promote pay equity in support of the company’s commitment to fairness, diversity, and inclusion. Additionally, for employees represented by labor unions, BSAPIC adheres to all relevant conditions outlined in the applicable labor agreements, further reinforcing our commitment to equitable compensation practices.

BSAM’s compensation program is committed to attracting, motivating and retaining employees who enable the company to achieve its short- and long-term business goals. Our principles are grounded in providing agile rewards that recognize both individual and company performance, maintaining market competitiveness and ensuring our approach remains simple and fair. Our compensation practices are in compliance with federal, state and local legal requirements, and we are committed to maintaining fairness, consistency and transparency in how compensation decisions are made. To that end, employees also have access to a Compensation Playbook that outlines the compensation program and provides greater visibility into the guiding principles. BSAM ensures pay equity through the job offer process, its annual compensation practices, and periodic internal compensation reviews. External market data is leveraged to evaluate and develop competitive pay structures, which are reviewed and updated annually to reflect evolving industry trends and workforce expectations. Additionally, short- and long-term incentive programs are utilized to meet business needs and offer market competitive total direct compensation. These programs are reviewed and approved annually by the Succession, Nomination & Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of BSAM. Pay practices are governed by collective bargaining agreements for those hourly employees represented by labor unions. We regularly evaluate our compensation practices to ensure they continue to reflect our values, support our talent strategy, meet the needs of our organization and enables employees’ overall financial well-being.

In BSEMEA, compensation programs operate on the principle of market-based pay, and compensation increases are driven by performance and market benchmarks. Its purpose is to attract, engage, and develop the right talent needed for Bridgestone’s growth. The total compensation consists of base pay, short-term and long-term variable pay, along with a comprehensive benefit program. To ensure adequacy, external market data from an established provider is collected as a reference. Additionally, the company maintains collective bargaining agreements with labor unions to promote dialogue and equity and adheres to local regulations in all countries and regions where it operates. Regular checks by the compensation team ensure fairness in terms of process application and salary distribution. The results are periodically shared and discussed with the BSEMEA Succession, Nomination, and Compensation Committee (SNCC).

BSEMEA is committed to upholding the principles of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. In line with this ambition, we adopted the Living Wage definition established by the International Labor Organization in March 2024: “The wage level necessary to afford a decent standard of living for workers and their families, taking into account country-specific conditions and calculated based on normal working hours. Building on this framework, we committed to conducting a Living Wage assessment across all EMEA countries every two years, starting in 2022. Our benchmark relies on a methodology that considers the essential elements required to achieve and sustain a decent standard of living, including food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transportation, clothing, and other basic needs, along with a provision for unexpected expenses.