AISAN INDUSTRY CO., LTD.

Aisan Industry Co., Ltd.(hereinafter Aisan Industry) is in the middle of the transformation of business portfolios  from its existing powertrain product business to new business such as electrification system products and clean energy technology utilization. However, the results of an engagement survey first implemented in 2022 highlighted that employee engagement is low. Meanwhile, there is a “passiveness” rampant in which employees wish to remain in their comfort zone and stick with their current jobs. In order to promote the transformation of business portfolios, Aisan Industry urgently needed to eradicate this “passiveness” blocking the desire for challenges and change that is required to facilitate the transformation. In addition, the survey showed that there are very few employees who think that positive changes will occur at the company. Thus, Aisan Industry faces the challenge of how it can change the mindset from giving up on improvements to that of expectation of change.
That is why, due to its extensive experience in both engagement research and analysis, as well as in formulating, planning, and executing strategies for establishing employer branding, ABeam Consulting was chosen as a partner, beginning efforts to improve engagement in 2022.

[Establishing a transformation concept that employees can understand, remember, and embrace]
With ABeam Consulting, as a partner,  Aisan Industry began its employee engagement transformation to eradicate the passive work environment. Initial considerations were Aisan Industry establishing an engaging work environment concept together with its employees and positioning it at the center of its activities. Three parts to the concept were chosen: (1) “Change in the company starts with you,” (2) “It’s your career, make it about you,” and (3) “End each day with satisfaction.” In establishing this concept, ABeam Consulting led discussions so that the client could reach an agreement as a company on how they would make their workplace unique, not only through the analysis of the engagement survey results but also through comparative analysis with competitors in talent acquisition. ABeam Consulting was also central to helping produce creative key visuals, copywriting, and video content so that employees could understand, remember, and embrace the concept.

[Aisan Katariba forum where management listens carefully to what employees really think and engage in dialogue with them] 
 Aisan Industry adopted the concept of shifting from a mindset of resignation, thinking the company would not change, to one of positive expectation, believing everyone could change the company together. To achieve this, we took the simple idea of engaging in open dialogue and got creative to create a forum for management to communicate their ideas and to encourage employees to express their thoughts too. To avoid the dialogue becoming a one-way affair like a recital or a superficial event in which management interrogate attendees, ABeam Consulting helped develop the scheme based on examples of internal communication strategies from a wide range of companies. Furthermore, ABeam Consulting assisted training for management to help them improve their listening skills as the hosts of the dialogue event. As a result, in six months, over 160 sessions were held with over 1,600 people taking part, leading to 70% of employees giving positive responses to the question: ‘Do you agree that Aisan is trying to change to create an engaging work environment for you?’
■ [Aisan Industry Co., Ltd. – Work Engagement Transformation Project] Learn about the Aisan Katariba program: a forum for dialogue between employees and management (Aisan Industry Co., Ltd. – Official Recruitment Channel)

[Aisan Career Canvas program for employees to take on new challenges by creating their own goals]
 A career development transformation was also planned and deployed to bring to life careers where employees can dream and continue challenging themselves. While the surveys and interviews indicated that there was a lack of career development support, we learned that, even more fundamentally, there were challenges with the absence of clear career goals to guide each employee’s development, as well as a lack of overall clarity in the career development process. Therefore, the new career program concept was made to focus on improving the clarity of career goals. Aisan Career Canvas is a program that helps employees paint a clear picture of the exciting career goals they truly want to achieve. Making full use of career theory and advanced gamification theory, ABeam Consulting assisted the program so that employees could enjoy themselves while thinking of career goals, enabling them to act with them in mind on a day-to-day basis. For example, we incorporated ideas into the program to enable employees to have fun while also being able to clearly define the core values that they wish to prioritize in their careers. We did this by creating a Career Trump card game based on the interview answers of Aisan Industry’s employees.

ABeam Consulting not only helped visualize employee engagement but also assisted in all aspects of the project. ABeam Consulting was there to help, whether it be extracting key challenges from analysis of the employee engagement data, formulating strategies to act as the the center of its activities, planning and executing measures from both the system and mindset perspectives to realize said strategies, or establishing an improvement cycle through measuring effectiveness.
As a result, employee engagement improved significantly, and in particular, the positive response score for “trust in management” increased by over 10 points within a year.
As a partner to Aisan Industry, ABeam Consulting aims to continue to contribute to the establishment of a company brand image that is committed to human capital management in the recruitment market and among investors. We will achieve this by sharing information about its three-part concept for an engaging work environment and its related activities with both internal and external parties.