The TDK Group's Important CSR Issues

Develop Human Resources

Develop Human Resources
ImportantThemes■■

Develop global human resources
Cultivate a corporate culture that respects diversity

Stakeholder Dialogue
Diversity rooted in commonvalues and a license to createPeter David Pedersen
Co-founder, E-Square Inc.
(sustainability consultancy),
Executive Director, TACL

— Develo p Glo bal Human Resourc es
Orchestrating the HR Vision
as a ‘trusted enabler’Andreas Keller
Corporate Officer
General Manager of Human Resources HQ
TDK Corporation̶ The Academy for Corporate Leadership

Date of implementation: March 6, 2018

Building on last year’s first dialogue on Global Human Resource Development and a year of new one,Human Resources General Manager Andreas Keller and consultant Peter David Pedersen discuss thecurrent state of HR-related initiatives and the road ahead.

21Dialogue on Global Human Resource
Development

State of Human Resources: Addressing
and Accommodating Diversity

In March 2018, General Manager of Human Resources
HQ Andreas Keller sat down with sustainability expert
and corporate consultant Peter David Pedersen to takestock of corporate HR-related initiatives. The discussion
built upon last year’s dialogue, covering subsequentdevelopments influenced by the 2017 dialogue.
The discussion revisited the current state of HR
development at TDK in the context of its needs as
an increasingly diverse corporate group in a world ofintensifying competition.

Since 2000, the TDK Group has grown rapidly throughmultiple mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Today thegroup boasts a portfolio of more than 100 companies
and over 100,000 group employees. Moreover, only 10%
of TDK personnel are now located in Japan and roughly
80% have joined the group through M&As.
This growth has been accompanied by new needs inthe areas of HR. Key challenges include establishinga platform to ensure that diverse talented entities andindividuals can fully engage as group members rooted
in a core concept of harnessing diversity for greater
resilience and global success.

Milestones and the Road Ahead

Strength through Unity

A number of HR-related initiatives were launched following
last year’s dialogue. Major milestones included a global
HR meeting and the first group-wide career development
program launching in 2018.
These initiatives are part of the new Global HR Midterm Plan 2018-2020, which includes key performanceindicators (KPIs) for each initiative. The initiatives include
succession planning, defining global competencies,
global grading, talent management and outreach to raiseawareness of global HR initiatives. All of this is supported
by an IT talent management system that is being rolled
out to enable the integration of these activities.
“The idea is not just to utilize talent from Japan, but fromaround the world. In order to do so, we need to havecommon platforms and definitions of certain things likeglobal competencies and evaluation criteria,” Keller
explained. In addition, standardized global KPIs will makeit easier for local and global management to monitor andmanage risk to improve the resilience of TDK, he added.

Keller reported that last year’s dialogue had contributed
to the TDK Group organizing its inaugural global HRand Administration meeting. (See page 23 for details.)“At the meeting we were able to firm up our visionand mission statements with the primary objective offunctioning as an enabler for group members. We are
now aligned and heading in the same direction,” Keller
explained.
Meeting participants agreed on the need to better
share TDK’s common values and enhance group-wide
compliance while harnessing the unique strength andculture of group companies. This vision and mission
statement subsequently formed the cornerstone of
the new Global HR Mid-term Plan.The second global
HR meeting will be held in 2018 to build on last year’sprogress. The gathering will bring TDK personnel toAkita Prefecture in Japan—the birthplace of TDK.

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The TDK Group's Important CSR Issues

Identifying and Tapping Talent
One of the areas that saw significant progress in fiscal
2017 was talent management and development. The newTerritorial Career Development Program (TCDP) is TDKGroup’s first group-wide career development initiative.
This scheme is an example of intra-group sharing ofknow-how and best practices. It was premised on asubsidiary-run program with a long and successful
track record in Greater China. A key pillar of HR efforts
to develop next-generation talent worldwide, the new
initiative has been adapted to be applied across thegroup with the roll out happening in spring 2018 inEurope, Asia and the Americas.
The goals of the annual program include strengthening
leadership and management, fostering a supportive
corporate culture and creating stronger bonds among
TDK Group members.
“We have received so many applications. Expectations
on both the part of management and employees areextremely high,” Keller said, adding that the program is
expected to bring more non-Japanese employees to HQ.

Develop Human Resources

Embracing ‘Enabling’ and Referencing
ResearchPedersen praised the initiatives, direction and progress
made over the past year.
“I’d say you are definitely on the right track. I wouldkeep ‘trusted enabler’ at the center of your discussions
always.” Pedersen said. He emphasized the need forcompanies to engage and enable employees by giving
them a “license to create or innovate.”“If employees feel that they are part of a company it
becomes possible for people from diverse backgrounds
to come together around an issue and provide their own
ideas and create something together,” Pedersen said.
“With more than 100,000 group employees worldwide,
it is crucial to have common group values. Moving
forward, you will want to consider how to link or anchor
these programs to the fundamental elements of thecompany— the original principles of TDK of vision, trustand courage,” he added.

Global HR and Administration Meeting in Munich
TDK held its inaugural global HR and Administration meeting bringing on July 13–14, 2017. The meeting brought over to TDK
members from group operations around the world to Munich, Germany. During two days of meeting and workshops, participants
crafted a vision and mission statement to guide future HR and Administration activities and policy. The gathering also set in motion
a concerted effort to put in place a more integrated HR and administrative policy to realize a common platform to better harness thediverse talent of the TDK Group.

Cultivate a Corporate Culture that Respects Diversity
Presented here are reports on an important theme—and progress made during fiscal 2017—on cultivating a
corporate culture that respects diversity. Staff working outside of their home country share their background,experiences, and situation.

Fiscal 2017 Goals and Achievements

Achievement● Compile consolidated● Complete the consolidated

management database, and geta solid grasp of the data

management database● Consider expansion and improveaccuracy of human resource
attribute information collected by theconsolidate management database

Technical Collaboration
and Respecting Local Business Culture

Meeting People of All
Kinds Leads to Personal Growth

I work in Israel, a country that has many innovative
startups and prestigious universities. My job is to assess
promising local technologies and to plan and promotecollaboration with TDK's technology and products.
When having a discussion, if you have an opinion toexpress, you sometimes have to interrupt others to get
it out. That is a big difference from how things are donein Japan, so I appreciate the effort it takes to adaptto a different business culture. Our office has opened
only recently, so we have no storehouse of know-how,and there are still many problems we face trying tocommunicate with each other in English, but we havebeen getting tremendous assistance from the folks at
TDK-Lambda in Israel. While enjoying myself on the job,
I will continue exploring ways toachieve better collaborations thatwill lead to outstanding new TDK
products and services.

My job is to customize software products to meetthe needs of customer around the world andto support resolving issues prior to the start ofproduction. The most exciting things are learninga wide range of things both through my job andby working with others, plus working with newtechnologies.
When you work overseas, it is important to stepout of your personal comfort zone. In San Jose I
am able to encounter people who have differentc u l t u re s , l a n g u a g e s a n d s t y l e s o f w o r k i n g .
Meeting those people and building trust havehelped me to grow as a person. I will do my best
to support customers with the idea of seeing
things from “customer focus”
in our TDK Value.

Narutoshi Fukuzawa
ManagerIsrael R&D Office, Technology Planning Group
Technology and Intellectual Property HQ
TDK Corporation

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Main activities andmeasures

Goal

Suma Veerabhadrappa
Sr. Staff Application Engineer
MEMS Sensor Business Group
Sensor Systems Business Company
InvenSense, Inc.

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