Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan wins a prize in Corporate HR category of Nihon no Jinjibu's "HR Award 2021"

Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc. (headquarters in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & President Calin Dragan; hereafter “CCBJI”) is pleased to announce that the company's initiative based on its people strategy to realize a management reform has won a prize in the Corporate Human Resource category of the "HR Award 2021" which is hosted by the Nihon no Jinjibu, the largest HR network in Japan (hosted by "HR Award" Steering Committee; supported by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare).

The "HR Award" is an awarding system that aims to develop companies across the country through HR by focusing on initiatives that promote growth of companies and individuals in areas involving human resources and organizations, and by broadly communicating such initiatives to HR persons. It is recognized as one of the most trusted and prestigious awards in the HR related area, for its fair operation method and transparency due to its convincing member-participation-type screening process. From Monday, August 30, a voting by the full members of the “Nihon no Jinjibu” to select candidates for the top/excellence awards from the winning companies will be started, followed by a final screening by the screening committee where winners for the awards for each category will be selected.    

CCBJI addressed the development of a people strategy which links to realization of the management strategy, and the quantitative measurement of effects of the development program. In order to implement a management reform for sustainable growth that the company is working on under the strong motive that “business as usual is not an option”, CCBJI thought that the ideal leader profile should be changed from "a manager who takes the initiative to set a good example for the traditional method" to "a leader who drives transformation", and set a new people development strategy to strengthen the "development of transformation leaders" in each level and the "development of organizational reform managers who are good at nurturing subordinates". This people strategy had been incorporated into the mid-term business plan which was formulated in 2018, and the company has been proposing, considering, and determining ideal people profiles and development initiatives in management meetings to lead and practice the business model transformation, and executing initiatives according to the management strategy. In addition, in order to evaluate the effects of people development initiatives quantitatively, the company has been conducting a continuous survey. Challenges of individual managers captured in the survey have also been perceived as company-wide challenges, and reflected in initiatives for the following year. The details of the initiatives are as follows.

■Formulation of people strategy linked to management strategy
The company formulated a people strategy linked to the management strategy, which strengthens the development of “transformation leaders" in each level and “organizational reform managers who are good at nurturing subordinates". In 2020, the company established a selective development program, "Coca-Cola University Japan (CCUJ)", which provided a mechanism to acquire the mindset and experience of a transformation leader by selecting people from the 3 levels of non-manager, section manager, and department head, repeating input and output over 6 months to a year, and running the experiential learning cycle. Trainees are informed that training is a place where it is okay to fail, and strongly recommended trying the new ways of doing that they have learned in the training. After completing the training, the trainees join the "CCUJ Alumni Network", and receive supports from the HR to foster organizations where transformation is promoted, through cross-functional projects and pier coaching. As a result of the initiative, the percentage of "transformation-oriented leaders" increased from 19.8% to 31.9%, and "support/development-oriented leaders" from 15.3% to 26.1%, while the percentages of authority-dependent and playing-manager-oriented leaders decreased. 

■Quantitative measurement of effects of people development initiatives
CCBJI has been implementing a 360-degrees survey every year since 2018 to grasp the managers' abilities to develop subordinates as well as the actual status. Managers who have received low scores are individually presented with specific improvement measures by the HR. Improvement measures proposed to individual managers are perceived as company-wide challenges as well, and set as themes for manager trainings and reflected to the evaluation system management. As a result of the continued efforts of conducting surveys and using the results to make improvements in the next year, the number of employees with low scores decreased by half in 2020 compared to that of 2018, when the survey was first implemented.    

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