To strengthen our innovation-creating human resources who possess the skills, expertise and proactive actions required to execute our business strategy, we are promoting talent development who are able to lead R&D in our three prioritized business fields and management personnel who lead business creation. We are also focusing on developing autonomous human resources based on the embodiment of the NOF Group’s values of “Challenge,” “Fairness,” and “Harmony” so that all employees are able to perform their work in a proactive manner with a sense of ownership and create value within their respective roles. As an environment for the growth of autonomous human resources, we are also promoting systems that support autonomous career development and providing learning opportunities, encouraging the growth of human resources who take on the challenge of creating innovation in a spontaneous and active manner, and we will further enhance the foundation for growth support going forward.

Under “NOF VISION 2030” that we established with the aim of achieving a sustainable society, we are working on expanding our business domains, and with an eye toward the future beyond that, we are focusing on strengthening the development of R&D human resources with the ability to create new businesses. We are promoting measures for the development of human resources such as improving the business evaluation and analysis skills of R&D personnel (managers and mentoring staff), fostering future insight and marketing planning skills related to research themes, improving intellectual property skills, and promoting the use of materials informatics in R&D activities. In recent years, we have also strengthened the recruitment of experienced R&D personnel, increasing opportunities for co-creation between human resources with diverse external experience or specialized knowledge and internal human resources, and we are anticipating mutual growth among the human resources who drive R&D.

We implement “self-reporting” as a mechanism for dialogue with supervisors from perspectives such as mid- to long-term career paths, including transfer requests, and improvement of specialized skills and skill development, each year to help support the construction of career designs that aid individual growth. These dialogues using the “self-reporting” form are conducted with general employees and some managers (including secondees), and 95.7% of employees participate. We have also established an environment that supports each individual taking on challenges toward growth, such as an internal recruitment system, implementation of career training to proactively consider career design, support for self-development including skills enhancement and acquiring new knowledge, and provision of interview opportunities with members of the Human Resources Meetings, including the president, for department manager-level personnel.

• Career training for employees to independently and proactively consider medium-term career design
  → 72
  Training focused on thinking about career issues in light of one’s career path and other attributes, and preparing for expected roles. This training is mandatory for all employees upon reaching the designated age, and 98.6% of eligible employees completed it in fiscal 2025.
  　
• Initiatives for development of DX human resources toward selected human resources that promote DX
  → 65

• Development of autonomous human resources with a deep understanding of NOF Group’s values and a high sense of ownership
  → 2,032
  Continuing to focus on this initiative, in fiscal 2025 the participation rate among eligible employees rose to 97.8%.
  　
• Support for self-education/ development by enhancing distance learning
  → Cumulative total of 788 people
  Starting in FY2024, we also began actively supporting human resources who voluntarily step forward and wish to learn on their own initiative. As a result, the cumulative total of participant employees amounted to more than one-third of all employees.

NOF promotes a talent development system including support for “correspondence courses,” for which each employee can choose their own training options, “training by organizational level” tailored to address issues for different levels, and “training by specific issue” tailored to address specific issues such as issues arising in the course of execution of duties and enhancement
of expertise.
This system is aimed at effectively promoting talent development tailored to each individual’s character and responsibilities, making work more rewarding, invigorating the organization, and realizing sustainable business growth at NOF.

NOF has introduced a training program centered on external exchanges as a way of encouraging diversity, new viewpoints, and broader perspectives among section managers through discussions and exchanges with personnel from different industries. If section managers demonstrate leadership qualities even more than before, we expect that everyone will take on challenges with enthusiasm, leading to personal growth and innovation creation. Among other programs, we are developing leadership skills through “training by organizational level” tailored to job positions, as well as “training by specific issue” designed to enhance employee expertise. At the NOF Management School, aimed at developing the next generation of management, we implement programs in which discussions on transforming the NOF’s future focus are held. In addition, we provide feedback on participants’ leadership assessment results to help them understand their own leadership traits and foster their skills to create and implement new initiatives from scratch.

In an effort to develop human resources more effectively, NOF has formulated a talent development system using a framework for trainings by organizational level and by specific issue. Training by organizational level mainly targets relatively junior employees mainly, while training by specific issue targets management-level employees. In fiscal 2025, a total of 2,808 people participated in trainings by organizational level and by specific issue. Aside from this talent development system, we also offer a variety of training and educational opportunities necessary for business operations. In fiscal 2025, we continued our efforts from the previous fiscal year to hold workshops for all employees, etc. to share values and promote understanding of autonomous actions based on these values. The participation rate was 97.8%.
We have systematically implemented initiatives including programs for enabling employees to proactively design their medium-term careers, and developing human resources with expertise in digital transformation (DX) and the next generation of managerial human resources.

We will actively invest in human capital and encourage the growth of human resources who embody the NOF Group’s values of “Challenge,” “Fairness,” and “Harmony,” and create new values. As part of its human capital investment into securing and developing human resources, etc., NOF is working on initiatives to improve workplace environments, expand talent development programs, and develop DX human resources.
In fiscal 2025, a total training hours including group trainings and workshops at NOF came to 20,588 hours (10.4 hours per employee), with investment for talent development totaling 239 million yen. In addition, a combined training hours, including group trainings and workshops at NOF and its five domestic consolidated companies totaled 29,173 hours (8.8 hours per employee).

NOF provides a diverse range of self-education/development programs such as various correspondence and e-learning courses (business skills, foreign languages, etc.) to encourage employees to take on challenges enthusiastically, which we expect will lead to self-realization and further growth of each individual. In fiscal 2025, a total of 788 employees took advantage of a variety of correspondence and e-learning courses.

The NOF Group supports employees’ efforts to acquire official qualifications in many different ways. In fiscal 2025, a total of 354 people newly acquired 38 kinds of qualifications.

People who acquired qualifications

• FY2021：362persons (32 kinds)
• FY2022：366persons (43 kinds)
• FY2023：510persons (45 kinds)
• FY2024：474persons (44 kinds)
• FY2025：354persons (38 kinds)