Talent

Maximizing Employee Performance and Supporting Professional Development

We work to ensure that all employees are always mindful of Our Principle, that professionals empowered by diversity reinforce and support each other to produce results as a team, and that each individual continues to take on new challenges. We are committed to developing professional human resources who embody this vision.

Human Resources Training and Development

We have identified the need and are actively advancing efforts to "encourage employee development" under Our Vision. In specific terms, we are developing human resources who can spearhead the creation of new business and innovation of existing businesses in order to evolve from a leasing company to "a business company with financial capabilities." In addition, we are working to develop digital human resources to promote DX.

Human resources development and training policies

In order to realize Our Vision within the "SMFL Way" and implement our human capital strategy, we have set the following three policies with respect to human resource development and training.

  • Support self-led challenges and career development
  • Foster a culture of human resource development in business units and departments
  • Provide job satisfaction and unlock employee potential through learning

Based on SMFL’s human resources development and training policies, each business unit and business department has taken the initiative to set and establish development opportunities. By providing learning opportunities centered on online content for all employees, we are putting in place a cycle in which employees engage on self-led learning and growth.
As a part of these endeavors, we launched SMFL Academy as an in-house learning platform in October 2022.

This diagram illustrates Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing’s policy on human resource development. As part of executing a human resource strategy linked to the company’s overall management strategy, various training and development initiatives and career support programs are interconnected to ensure that employees “derive fulfillment from learning and maximize their potential.” It also includes information on department- and branch-level human resource development, cultivating and promoting the corporate culture, and support for self-directed challenges and career development.

  • Trends in investment in human resource development and education expenses

    A bar graph showing the human resource development investment and education expenses of Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing. In the fiscal year 2022, the human resource development investment was 700 million yen, of which 200 million yen was for education expenses. In the fiscal year 2023, the human resource development investment was 900 million yen, of which 400 million yen was for education expenses. The plan for the fiscal year 2025 indicates a human resource development investment of 1.2 billion yen, of which 600 million yen will be for education expenses. The bar graph is arranged from left to right in the order of 2022, 2023, and 2025 (planned).

  • SMFL Academy

    A structural diagram of the

Career Development Support

In conjunction with the deepening and transformation of our businesses, we will work to optimally allocate personnel to each business unit. When allocating personnel, we listen carefully to employees in aims of ensuring personnel transfers and allocations that allow each employee to best apply their abilities. In addition to regular dialogue through one-on-one meetings between employees and their supervisors, we have worked to enhance internal communication with the introduction of a career consultant program and interviews with a total of over 2,500 employees per year held by the Human Resources Department. Moreover, we support each employee in their self-led efforts to consider and realize their desired careers.
SMFL engages in multiple endeavors as follows.

Job Forum、Job Format

To support self-led career development and growth by our employees, we implement a career cycle that includes Job Format, which documents operations and skills required in each business unit, Job Shadow, which provides employees with work experience outside their affiliated business department, Job Forum, which disseminates information that helps employees better understand the wide range of tasks and roles at SMFL, and the SMFL Career Challenge internal open recruitment system. This cycle thereby provides an environment for employees to undertake new challenges. Countless employees have also used SMFL Career Challenge since its inception in 2018 in an attempt to achieve their desired career goals.

SMFL Career Challenge participants

A bar graph showing the number of transfers and applicants for each fiscal year (from 2018 to 2024). The graph illustrates the number of transfers and applicants as of April 1st of each year. In the bar graph, the dark blue sections represent the number of transfers, while the light blue sections represent the number of applicants. The total number of individuals for each fiscal year is also displayed.
This is an illustration introducing four career support programs. At the top center, it says career challenge and explains it as a support program for proactively developing self-directed at the bottom left there is job forum described departmental briefings conducted to understand wide range of operations within company right shadow which explained one-day experience in workplace outside participant s current department top says format materials explaining required skills each these four elements are arranged circular pattern center illustration

Instructor (on-the-job training), mentoring system

Young employees serve as instructors to help guide newly hired graduates with a sense of purpose and long-term perspective to grow autonomously and to teach them how to behave in a manner that befits top-class employees in the industry. In addition, young employees from the Human Resources Department conduct regular interviews three times a year as a part of the mentoring system. The goal is to help employees acquire business as well as issue solving skills and to support career development from a Group-wide perspective.

Short-term trainee, in-house intern system

The goal of these initiatives is to develop human resources with expertise in various specialized skills, including screening, customer proposal, the environment, and DX, that are essential as a base for SMFL’s business on a Group-wide basis regardless of their business category or affiliation. Each system is not intended to be effective in a short period of time, but rather to help employees acquire skills over a period of two to three months.

Personnel interviews, career development sheet

Employees are given the opportunity to reflect on past experiences, understand their aptitude for their work, think independently about their future career, and share their thoughts with supervisors.

President's Town Hall Meeting, Executive Round Table

Through interactive communication with top management, including the president, employees are given the opportunity to experience their passion and to rethink own careers.

Global human resource development

As the scope of the SMFL Group’s overseas operations expands, SMFL provides employees with the opportunity to improve the necessary knowledge and language skills through the Global Academy. Moreover, we help employees acquire global business skills under our overseas operations trainee program.

Digital talent development

With the aim of becoming "an advanced digital company" as stated in Our Vision of the "SMFL Way", we are leveraging digital technology to drive a transformation in our business. Looking ahead to 2030, we seek to be a ubiquitous digital company and a company with digital as a business pillar. In addition to providing learning opportunities through the Digital Academy, which offers training and on-demand videos, we have launched an in-house trainee program for the purpose of developing digital talent as well as in-house DX talent certification systems (DX Pass and DX Drivers), and are working to enhance the digital mindsets, literacy, and skills of not only specialized human resources, but all employees.