The Energy Transition and New Hiring and Training Needs in Japan

What training can prepare managers to make long-term planning decisions in a changing environment, particularly with respect to energy use?

This question is especially important in Japan, where economic downturns, market collapse, and natural disasters have contributed to a major shift in employment systems.

Corporate HR departments in Japan now identify, recruit, hire, and retain talent in a way very different from the postwar reconstruction era, and the economic boom lasting through the 1980s.  Until the bursting of Japan’s asset bubble in 1991, the HR departments of large Japanese companies were optimized to perform one major task: to recruit and onboard cohorts of new university graduates. These new employees would typically rotate through different assignments every few years, learning on the job.

After 1991, two kinds of employment systems were used to reduce the number of outright dismissals. One was a system to reduce overtime, accelerate early retirements, and shift headcount between divisions.  After the Asian Financial crisis of 1997, a new system was used that combined contract employment and temporary employment. This was a much more profound shift. By 2017, fully 40% of jobs in Japan were filled by either temporary or contract employees.
Since the 2000s, corporate Japanese HR departments have faced yet another important new task: identifying, recruiting, and onboarding mid-career management personnel. These managers must be prepared to drive the company strategy forward but have not had years necessary to absorb company culture and procedures.

Together with these shifts in HR practice, large corporations must demonstrate how they are helping the country achieve its goals under its Strategic Energy Plans. Japan is now in its Sixth Strategic Energy Plan, which runs through 2025. The Plan, formulated by an agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, creates targets for energy consumption and carbon emissions across all industries. Businesses must report what actions they are taking consistent with the Plan.  Managers must make resource acquisition and allocation decisions over a very long time horizon – 10 years or longer. Practicing these kinds of decisions in a realistic but safe environment like the Tilt Global Decision Making Lab can bring together both new management hires and legacy employees.