Know MC's People

This was something my boss said to me earlier in my career. I'd just returned to work after taking maternity leave for the birth of my eldest daughter, and I was determined to do a good job, but having to balance my career and childcare was proving to be extremely taxing. I was so busy that to be honest, I don't recall much about my life back then, but I do remember that working from home still wasn't really a thing in Japan. Every day, I'd dash out of the office in the early evening to pick up my daughter from daycare, always frantically looking at my watch and wondering if I was going to make my train. After tending to my daughter, I'd go back to work and wouldn't return home until late at night.
Having observed this for some time, my boss took me aside one day and gave me this advice. I think in particular, it was the "just do your best for now" part that helped set my mind at ease. I still remember how it felt when he said those words, like a huge weight had suddenly been lifted off my shoulders. It was a pivotal moment for me, because it was when I realized that at MC, I could pursue my own career at my own pace, without having to worry about the influence of others.

MC's greatest assets are its people. In this VUCA* age, radical changes are taking place throughout MC, the broader business community and the world at large. Amidst so much uncertainty, those of us in human resources are tasked with anticipating the future and devising proper HR policy and strategies. Our main objectives are to recruit and retain exceptional talent, ensure that the right people are assigned to the right positions, and continuously produce next-generation leaders. Accomplishing those objectives demands a variety of agile approaches and ongoing reviews.
It takes time for HR systems and measures to start getting results, but many of the challenges in this field are global in nature, so it's vital that MC employees and non-MC upper-management teams be proactive about exchanging information. As we do so, we're also constantly working to identify best practices and adapt them in ways that demonstrate MC's unique characteristics.
This kind of work can be highly subject to public scrutiny and therefore quite challenging, but it also has societal impact in Japan and around the world. In that sense, it comes with great responsibility, and I find it very rewarding.
* Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity

The MC Group currently has a global workforce of roughly 80,000 employees. These employees have all helped establish inspiring environments where we can work with pride and bring out the best in ourselves, and they are the true source of MC's competitiveness.
This past April, MC announced its DEAR (Diversify, Energize, Accelerate, Reward) HR vision, which outlines the company's ideal workforce in ten years' time. It details our aims to attract the best talent and produce next-generation leaders, as well as our ambition to continuously create MC shared value (MCSV). From here on, we'll be using this vision as the basis for our HR strategies, but we also intend to broaden the coverage of those strategies, so that they apply not only to MC employees here in Japan, but also to employees at MC's international offices and our many group companies.
I'd like to help establish MC as a company that attracts first-rate talent throughout its consolidated and global operations, the kind of company where employees know they'll get management opportunities regardless of where they came from, just as long as they have the right skills and ambition.