In his New Year’s message to employees in 2007, our founder, Momofuku Ando, wrote, “Our people define our worth. Success’s verdict rests with the Universe.” These words imply that the essence of a company is its people, and that the reputation of people leads directly to the reputation of a company. Even in the days when short-term profits were the focus of investors, even before the words human capital, mission, vision, and value were coined, NISSIN viewed human resources as the source of corporate value.

Companies view human capital in terms of social responsibility and economic efficiency. We believe that creating positive and productive work environments for diverse employees guarantees human rights and meets a company’s social responsibility. Given this viewpoint, the perspective of economic efficiency is the aim to achieve a vision and obtain profits through activities such as human resources development and the strategic placement of employees. We work in concert with employees to create social impact while valuing human capital from these two perspectives.

Traditionally, companies measure human capital investment only in terms of monetary value. In other words, how much profit could a company make efficiently within a fiscal year? We believe that this monetary axis alone is not sufficient to enhance corporate viability in today’s rapidly changing economic environment. We must strengthen our ability to increase earnings by delivering products and services that meet changes in the market while developing the talents of each employee. In other words, the perspective from the time axis is also important.

Human capital investments of this type enhance three areas of corporate value. The first is value acquired from existing businesses. The second is value acquired from creating more opportunities in existing businesses. The third is value acquired from developing new businesses. An example of the first is ensuring the supply of CUP NOODLES series products to customers who have loved the product for so many years. An example of the second is developing the CUP NOODLES PRO series with added value (high protein and low carbohydrate) and aiming to attract potential customers on a global scale. An example of the third is to add value through new products such as our KANZEN MEAL series. The success of the people who achieve these goals increases the value of the company.

Our Approach to Corporate Value and Human Capital Investment

The Role of the Human Resources Department
Fill the Right Place With the Right Person

In a nutshell, the role of the human resources department is to engage in a series of tasks related to human resources, from human resources development strategy to human resources utilization strategy.

Human resources development strategy is based on our Human Resources Management Policy, which clarifies the type of people we need, how we develop these people, and how we evaluate performance for achieving the NISSIN FOODS Group, MISSION, VISION, VALUE, and management objectives. At the same time, we pursue measures focused on our human resources portfolio, which provides an analysis of what talents, what stages, and to what extent we require human resources. Our human resources roadmap incorporates these two perspectives.

Under the human resources roadmap, our personnel strategy is to assign or hire the right people in the right places, develop their talents, create a system to evaluate performance and skills, and reward employees for their work. The concept of the fill the right place with the right person is important for pursuing and uncovering new opportunities in existing businesses, as I mentioned earlier. Above all, however, this approach emphasizes encouraging employees to work with a sense of fulfillment in their daily lives. We want to link this sense of fulfillment to company growth and the happiness of society for happier employees, a happier company, and a happier society.

We disclosed this approach and specific initiatives in Human Capital Report 2023, the report of its kind for the NISSIN FOODS Group. We prepared this report in conjunction with our acquisition of ISO 30414 certification, which is the international guideline for disclosures of information on human capital. Incidentally, we were the first food company in the world to acquire this certification. The certification authority noted how the NISSIN FOODS Group measures the awareness of our philosophy, human resources development centered on the in-house NISSIN ACADEMY, and quantitative disclosures of human capital, leading to our acquisition of this certification.

We began the NISSIN-style job-based model with management-level positions to define and clarify the duties necessary for achieving our Mid- to Long-Term Growth Strategy. Our aim is to help employees develop careers autonomously to match increasingly diverse views on work. We hope to attract the best talent by indexing compensation to the market.

This system is a hybrid of the functional job grade system and internal job posting system. The NISSIN FOODS Group uses a functional job grade system, but this system alone is not indexed to the human resources market, making it difficult to recruit people with specific skills (DX, etc.) from outside the company. To resolve this issue, we redefined our expected skills and outcomes in detail for the people that the NISSIN FOODS Group seeks. We then analyzed how well such individuals would be compensated in the open human resources market. We confirmed a certain market connectivity based on the size of our company and our position in the industry. At that point, we decided to introduce the NISSIN-style job-based model by incorporating factors that include the individual job skills defined in this analysis.

As part of this initiative, we established a new Professional Course in which participants must demonstrate their expertise and perform specific tasks. This Professional Course exists in addition to the Management Course that we continued from before. The Professional Course is designed for personnel who wish to demonstrate their expertise in marketing, IT, research, etc. This course has also made it easier for us to recruit professional personnel from outside the company. We also created a new post within the Management Course for the early development of next-generation leaders.

We plan to expand the NISSIN-style job-based model to other countries in the future. With the recent growth of our Overseas Business in particular, we must find people who can play active roles in the global market to strengthen our earnings further. To this end, we are creating a Human Resources Needs Map in cooperation with local subsidiaries around the world. This map indicates the type and location of positions needed, as well as upcoming vacancies. We will use this map to implement the NISSIN-style job-based model overseas.