Promoting the participation and advancement of all employees

In line with our HR Vision, which was established in order to embody Mizuho's Corporate Identity, we are promoting various programs under the umbrella of Mizuho's HR Policy, with the aim of promoting the participation of all employees.

Human resources system

Group–wide HR system/management

Our HR system is designed and operated to allow each individual employee to take the initiative in developing specialized skills in the areas in which they excel, maximizing their universally recognizable value.

In Japan, aiming to better facilitate the cross-entity development and placement of personnel on a group-wide basis, Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Trust & Banking, and Mizuho Research & Technologies (with some exceptions) share a common HR platform that unifies fundamental aspects of HR systems across the companies. Additionally, the division of employees by job “track” has been eliminated as of October 2021 in order to enable employees to realize their full potential through more individualized personnel development and compensation.

In order to advance and encourage employee mobility between the above mentioned four companies and other group companies such as Mizuho Securities and Asset Management One, we have put in place HR systems that are a good fit for the securities and asset management companies in the Mizuho group.

Fair evaluations reflecting job duties and performance

To fully compensate employees for their contribution, a performance–based evaluation system has been adopted. Employees are evaluated fairly based on the degree to which they have achieved goals/targets set at the beginning of the evaluation period. This includes, for example, evaluating employees' efforts to improve their productivity. Overall evaluation results, including the degree to which employees were able to demonstrate their capabilities, are reflected in bonuses, salary adjustments, and retirement benefits. Compensation and evaluation are aligned with the employee's job duties, without regard to gender, nationality, race, or other such aspects of the employee's background. As part of this process, supervisors meet with the team member they are evaluating and directly discuss the individual's unique qualities/strengths, career aspirations, and work–related challenges or issues. This encourages employees' professional growth and further contribution, and also enhances engagement. In addition, we have implemented a "360–degree feedback" system in which managers are evaluated by their co–workers and direct reports, increasing the understanding and transparency of evaluations.

Further information

ESG data (Basic data on employees) (PDF/2,108KB)

Talent development

At Mizuho in Japan, we have launched a new HR framework, "CANADE", covering five of our group companies. It is designed to allow for strategic development of management candidates and business leaders and for flexible allocation of personnel by linking our business strategy with our human resources strategy. The foundation of this is our people being their full selves at work, which in turn allows them to find fulfillment in their growth, feel a sense of purpose in working at Mizuho, and further their professional skills. Towards these ends, through our career development management we are providing our people with even greater opportunities to learn and to take on the challenges necessary for developing their own individual careers.

Development of future leaders

Career development management

Support for self-driven endeavors and growth

Provision of individualized learning opportunities

Support for employees to take charge of their careers

Further information

ESG data: Talent development (PDF/810KB)

Executive leadership development

Given the fast-paced changes and uncertainty in the business environment, developing personnel who will lead our business is critical to Mizuho's sustainable growth. We have set a human capital KPI of being able to maintain our pool of future executive leadership candidates at two times or more the number of executive officers by FY2025. As part of this, we are seeking to identify potential candidates at an early stage. Employees we have identified as candidates enter our "Aoi Program", a job grade-specific program for developing management personnel. The program aims to promote discontinuous, enduring behavioral change by providing candidates with multiple assignments. Candidates go through a repeating cycle of learning, experiencing growth in stretch assignments, and engaging in self-reflection with the help of evaluation feedback.

Business leadership development

Starting in FY2023, Mizuho set KPIs corresponding to the five business focus areas of its growth strategy in order to enhance development in personnel/skill categories tied to advancing our presence in each of the areas. A cross-functional Human Resources Strategy Council regularly monitors the gap between the desired talent portfolio required for sustained implementation of the growth strategy and the current talent pool. The council ensures the recruitment, development, and reassignment of personnel to close the gaps in an agile manner.

Digital transformation personnel development

Mizuho has positioned digital transformation as a growth strategy and is promoting it throughout the company. We are doing this by increasing our sensitivity to new technologies and business trends and actively utilizing external resources, with the perspective of customers and users as a starting point. In FY2023, we launched a group-wide digital transformation employee development program to encourage all employees to gain knowledge and skills in digital transformation, as well as to nurture talent with more advanced expertise in the digital domain. The program is one component of achieving the quantitative targets we have set for human capital KPIs, which include those for "Digital transformation personnel who have high-level digital expertise and are capable of leading clients' and Mizuho's business transformation" and "Digital transformation basics personnel who are literate in digital transformation and are capable of applying it to their own work." We will advance digital transformation by developing core personnel who will take the lead in driving our digital transformation strategy forward and by improving the digital literacy of all our employees.

Global business leadership development

We are committed to developing talent capable of increasing the recognition of Mizuho in the global arena and of driving business with insight into local markets. We actively assign employees hired in Japan to our offices in other locations so that they can become more familiar with advanced financial technology and adept at making high-level proposals. This practice enhances our global business. In addition, we also support our employees' self-led learning through our Study Abroad Program, which sends employees to graduate schools outside Japan so that they can gain expertise and a global mindset while also developing valuable business networks, and our Language Study Support Program, which provides subsidies for those learning a foreign language.

Further information

ESG Databook (Human Capital KPIs) (PDF/810KB)

Regardless of age or job title, individual employees need to take the initiative to learn more and to meet challenges, while also sharing their professional objectives and goals with the company, if they are to build their own careers and grow with Mizuho. We seek to provide careers that benefit both employees and Mizuho by helping employes make the most of their potential through three steps: “knowing oneself”, “thinking about one’s career together with the company” and “developing one’s career together with the company”. This initiative, which we refer to as “career development management,” offers career support interventions in light of the career stage of each employee, including opportunities for effective learning challenges, regular conversations between the employee and the company (as represented by their supervisor or HR), relevant feedback on the goal they should attain and the expertise they should acquire, and communication to support growth. These effectively facilitate the motivation and growth of the employee.

Management development enhancement initiatives

We are seeking to further improve the skills of those in middle management, who serve as a channel of communication between the company and employees. If we are to encourage self-driven endeavors and growth and reward contributions, middle management must be able to measure employee growth and provide appropriate feedback on strengths and weaknesses, as well as advice on meeting challenges. We strive to ensure that such feedback leads to an environment where employees with a variety of backgrounds and experiences can feel that their strengths, capabilities, and personalities are respected; can be physically and mentally fulfilled; and can recognize their own growth and development. Towards that end, we offer training programs for all supervisors to enable them to develop conversational skills for personal engagement and assessment skills for fairness and equity. Given the importance of transforming attitudes and behavior amid changes in roles, we have also reinforced training for new managers. Also, we are strengthening managerial skills at both the individual and organizational levels by encouraging managers to review their own challenges and ideas about organizational management, in light of the results of Middle Management 360 feedback.

Digital learning and development platform "M–Nexus"

"M–Nexus" is a digital, group-wide platform that serves as the foundation for individual employees to collect career information, learn autonomously, and meet challenges to realize their own career, based on their own aspirations. As part of the critical infrastructure supporting career development, M-Nexus serves as the starting point for individual learning and growth. The platform also offers a wide range of functions to assist in career design, including e-learning for self-development, information on Mizuho employees engaged in various fields and departments, application for various training programs and internal job openings, and a database of expertise such as individual experience and skills. We are working to provide personalized career design support through talent management that leverages the tracking and visualization of each employee's learning and development.

In addition to supporting the growth and application of employees’ expertise through roles in various fields of business, we also provide diverse opportunities for learning, including various training programs and support for self-development, both in and outside Mizuho.

Open recruitment programs

One way in which we help our employees further their professional development while on the job is by offering a wide variety of education programs. These diverse programs offer opportunities for a vast number of employees to gain knowledge and experience outside their everyday work. In doing so, they enable employees to develop their skills and overcome their challenges through their own initiative. Some examples of programs include the Industry Exchange Training Program, in which employees take part in group work with next-generation leaders at other companies in order to improve their own leadership skills; the Instructor Challenge Program, in which employees interested in education take on instructor roles in orienting new employees; and the Action Learning Program, in which employees with a range of backgrounds come together to create new business and solutions.

Internal job posting system / Internal concurrent assignments

As a platform for employees to build their own careers, this system allows employees to apply for other jobs throughout the group so that they can construct their own careers and obtain increasingly specialized capabilities. Every year some 300 positions are posted, including assignments to Mizuho offices outside Japan and secondments to consulting firms and leading manufacturers. The varied positions attract applications from employees at a wide range of stages in their careers. In FY2023, we also launched the Job Challenge Program, which allows employees to join the section in which they are most interested even when the section does not have an internal job posting out. In addition, we have a concurrent assignment program with positions available both within and outside the Mizuho group. These concurrent assignments allow employees to apply the skills and abilities gained through self-development in a position of their choice, while maintaining their current duties, as a way to expand their potential and deepen their expertise.

External part-time work

We have introduced an external part-time work system to offer employees the opportunity to start and operate their own businesses outside of Mizuho work hours. Stepping outside of Mizuho to leverage off-work hours and engage in new areas of business leads to a range of new experiences and discoveries, and ultimately promotes the growth of our employees as business people.

Further information

ESG data: Talent development (PDF/810KB)

In addition to on-the-job support for furthering and leveraging expertise in each business area, we have enhanced the provision of a wide range of learning opportunities and increased investment in employee education, defining upskilling and reskilling at Mizuho as ongoing learning and practice by employees seeking to build their own skills and careers.

Upskilling programs

In today’s fast-changing world where knowledge and skills rapidly become obsolete, we organize regular training sessions for individual employees to identify gaps in their knowledge and skills, then improve those skills as necessary on an ongoing basis. For example, we organized upskilling training in computers to further operational efficiency, automation, and statistical analysis and upskilling training in portable skills to improve ideation, leadership, communication and self-management. The trainings were attended by a total of 5,000 employees in FY2022. We also hold, industry exchange training under an open recruitment program, which allows our employees to increase their ideation, problem-solving, leadership and other key skills by solving social issues and (co) creating new business with members of leading companies other than Mizuho.

Reskilling programs

We provide a selection of opportunities and learning tools to employees aligned with their individual levels of experience. These range from basic knowledge and skills to cutting-edge expertise. The e-learning program on the digital platform M-Nexus offers a breadth of high-quality content from external learning services for employees to study recent business trends, sustainability, IT/digital areas, and the liberal arts anytime, anywhere. We also offer remote education courses with curated, specialized topics for self-paced learning, alongside a variety of programs supporting self-development in line with the learning style and career stage of the learner. Among such offerings is assistance for gaining formal qualifications or taking remote learning courses.

Studying with colleagues at internal employee-led seminars

As a platform for group learning and voluntary self-development efforts by employees, we have a group-wide program called "BE; Teachers", in which employees with diverse backgrounds and expertise volunteer to serve as trainers and convey their knowledge and skills to their colleagues. Internal speakers sharing their experiential insights and know-how across the group helps employees improve their own expertise and promotes an organizational culture that encourages people to learn from one another. In FY2022, we held eight courses with participation from 1,237 employees in total.

Professional development leave

We have established a new system that allows employees to take leave for a set period to focus on learning outside Mizuho. This enables them to deepen their expertise or update their knowledge in graduate level and other types of schools and external programs. The perspectives and experience they obtain from outside the organization foster the growth of other employees and Mizuho overall.

We offer a variety of opportunities and support programs to help our employees proactively design their future careers.

Career design programs

We are supporting our employees in planning their own careers in line with the multiple career options available within Mizuho and with the roles they are expected to play. At the end of their first year at Mizuho, new graduate hires attend a group–wide training program to verbalize their career perspectives. In addition, all employees have access to a variety of career design support programs, including a generational career planning program with group discussion and e–learning on ideas and methodologies for career development.

Departmental briefings

To help our employees develop their own careers, we provide them with opportunities to learn about the wide range of career fields available to them. We organize briefing sessions covering topics such as the operation of different departments (divisions), the features of specific jobs, the types of personnel being sought in particular areas, and required expertise. Session attendees then meet with members of relevant departments. We also post documents and videos about the briefings and departments to M-Nexus, a group-wide digital platform, to facilitate access to career information.

Career advisor consulting system

This system provides employees with opportunities to consult with a career advisor about balancing longer-term career development with changes in one’s personal situation, such as marriage, childbirth, parenting, and caring for an aging family member. Through dialogue, employees can receive advice on fulfilling their potential from nationally certified career advisors, in line with their career stage and individual career goals.

Creating a safe, comfortable workplace

Creating a comfortable work environment

At Mizuho, we make every effort to ensure a comfortable and safe work environment where employees' rights are respected. To establish a relationship of mutual trust between the company and our employees, Mizuho promotes ample communication between management and employees, and endeavors to create workplaces where employees are highly motivated.

In addition, Mizuho defines human capital risk as the risk of losses due to employee turnover or lowered morale. To deal with this form of risk, Mizuho has an ongoing initiative to enhance management methods and conducts monitoring to identify and reduce human capital risk, such as via staff surveys.

Workplace safety and hygiene, and health management

In accordance with occupational safety and health regulations, we are putting in place a safe and comfortable work environment by conducting various types of medical checkups, providing health management by industrial physicians, and establishing a health committee.

We also promote health management initiatives to assist employees in maintaining and improving their health, such as introducing welfare programs to support women's health, providing opportunities for exercise, and holding various seminars on health topics.

Mizuho's commitment to promoting and improving employee health (PDF/419KB)

Principal Initiatives

• Establishment of company medical centers staffed with full–time industrial physicians.
• Provision of annual health checks¹, and health advice from industrial physicians for all employees.
• Thorough promotion of preventive measures and provision of information about infections and care procedures for all employees² and their families for influenza and other communicable diseases, including subsidizing the cost of influenza vaccinations.
• Distribution of the Mizuho Health Insurance Society newsletter to all employees.
• Discussions at Health Committee meetings between representatives of management and workers of ways to improve workers' health, including prevention of overwork.
• Continual improvement to the work environment by measuring office lighting, air quality, temperature, humidity and other elements more than twice a year.
  

・Promotion of regular health checkups and coverage of reexamination costs

・Introduction of welfare services to support women's health

・Provision of exercise opportunities, such as by distributing videos

1. Annual health checks are provided to all employees, including part–time workers.
2. Costs are subsidized for all employees, including part–time workers.
   

Recognition under the 2021 Health & Productivity Stock Selection

Five core group companies–Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Trust & Banking, Mizuho Securities, and Mizuho Research & Technologies–were recognized under the 2021 Health & Productivity Stock Selection. This program administered by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recognizes organizations that take a management approach to monitoring employee health and strategically practice such an approach.

Mizuho recognized under 2021 Health & Productivity Stock Selection

Further information

ESG data(Numbers of work–related accidents) (PDF/759KB)

Initiatives to safeguard and improve employees' mental health

Mizuho recognizes mental health as an important pillar of employee health–care management and has adopted various measures accordingly. We have been providing employees with self–care tools to check their own stress levels since before the introduction of the stress check requirement following reforms to Japan's Industrial Safety and Health Act. Alongside this, managers are given awareness–raising training, while industrial physicians and other occupational health–care staff provide local guidance and other support on an ongoing basis. We have also set up a consultation system that employees can access easily, establishing advice services where employees can talk to expert counselors about their concerns and anxieties.

Efforts to improve legal compliance and working environments

Mizuho monitors the following items on a regular and as–needed basis to improve our working environments as well as to ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations, including minimum wage.

• Status of compliance with minimum wage laws, "36 Agreement", and other legislation
• Status of overtime work and leave taken
• Status of work–related accidents

Maintaining a sound relationship between the company and employees

The Mizuho Financial Group Employees' Union operates under a union shop system and is active within Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, and Mizuho Trust & Banking. (Mizuho Securities and Mizuho Research & Technologies both have their own separate unions, the Mizuho Securities Employee Union and the Mizuho Research & Technologies Employee Union, which also operate on a union shop basis and are active within Mizuho Securities and Mizuho Research & Technologies, respectively.)

Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, and Mizuho Trust & Banking have concluded a labor agreement with the Mizuho Financial Group Employees' Union, and Mizuho Securities has concluded a labor agreement with the Mizuho Securities Employee Union. Mizuho Research & Technologies has also concluded a labor agreement with the Mizuho Research & Technologies Employee Union. In order to maintain and improve the working conditions of the union members and to achieve the sound development of the organization, Mizuho and the union hold collective bargaining discussions on a variety of issues, while respecting each other's positions, with the objective of building and maintaining sound labor–management relations. Mizuho also conducts its business in strict compliance with local labor laws and regulations in all of the countries it operates.

Further information

ESG data (Mizuho Financial Group Employee Unions) (PDF/759KB)

Management Council

The council meets to exchange opinions on management policy and business results, and to solve problems in the case of disputes or potential disputes.

Central Labor Council

The council meets to discuss the revision of employees' work conditions such as work hours, salary and bonuses, benefits, and revisions to HR systems, labor contracts, and office regulations.

Workplace Council

The council meets to discuss each workplace's work conditions and other topics such as welfare benefits.

Staff survey

Each group company annually assesses employee morale and views by carrying out a survey which includes questions regarding the level of respondents' job satisfaction and pride in being a Mizuho employee.

Further information

ESG data (Employee satisfaction) (PDF/759KB)

Employee stock ownership plan

To provide incentives for increasing the Mizuho Group's corporate value and as part of activities to support employee initiatives to build their assets in the medium–to–long term, Mizuho has introduced its employee stock ownership plan for all the personnel of Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Trust & Banking, and Mizuho Research & Technologies.