Human Resources Management

We now engage about 12,000 people, including those from group companies, as of February 29th, 2024.

Looking at the environment surrounding the IT industry, Japanese working-age population is about 9.4 million, and it is said that by 2030 there will be a shortage of 0.8 million IT workers within this population.

On the other hand, as the shift to Digital Transformation advances and the demand for IT development explode year by year, the division of labor between development and quality assurance will become a matter of course in the development field. With such market needs in mind, what growing companies are expected to have an overwhelming ability to acquire human resources, as well as “compensation” and “motivation.” SHIFT believes that companies with those qualities are like social infrastructures and will grow overwhelmingly.

Against this backdrop, SHIFT has established Behavioral Guidelines for employees since its founding in order to “pursue the growth of both corporate value and themselves together,” and has been recruiting, developing and organizing human resources who can understand and implement these guidelines.

In addition, SHIFT designs human resources systems to directly link employees’ own growth and improvement in satisfaction to SHIFT’s own growth. The measures outlined below are the systems, ranging from recruitment methods to organizational design and culture, that are aimed that each employee can work enthusiastically while enhancing their own market value. SHIFT believes these personnel measures have much helped SHIFT grow significantly in the past. (Please refer to the link for more details.)

Recruiting

SHIFT hires approximately 2,700 human resources each year (as of August, 2023). We have positioned the acquisition of talented personnel as one of our key focus areas in order to strengthen and expand our supply capabilities in response to the ever-increasing demand for services.Therefore, we implement a variety of measures that go beyond our existing recruitment methods to create innovative ideas and take on new challenges.

１．Recruiting Policy

SHIFT actively recruits personnel who are suited to SHIFT business domains and who share our corporate vision and philosophy regardless of their background (educational background, occupational background) or characteristics (gender, race, nationality, ages, religion, beliefs, sexes, physical handicaps, or other personal characteristics).

２．Aggressively Reruiting Non-IT Personnel

In addition to hiring IT personnel with knowledge and experience, SHIFT actively recruits human resources with material qualities from a wide range of non-IT industries. What makes this possible is SHIFT’s original recruitment exam, so-called the “CAT examination,” which determines whether they have indeginous talent in software testing.

In the past, software tests, which form the basis of quality assurance services, were thought to be feasible only for software developers and human resources with development expertise. However, SHIFT has changed its common sense. Regardless of whether they have knowledge or experience in programming or in the IT industry, we select personnel with the necessary aptitudes and talents in software testing (such as endurance or mathematical thinking) through this CAT certification and built a system to be active after joining the company.

The percentage of people who pass the CAT examination is around 6%, but we are targeting not only one million people working in the IT industry, but also 75 million of working-age population in Japan referred to: Cabinet Office (2022). Today, talented personnel who have changed jobs from a variety of industries, including the service, food and beverage and apparel industries or the civil servants, are active on the frontline, and this fact is one of SHIFT’s strengths. (Fommer non-IT human resources recruited in FY2023: 1,309 (which includes second graduates, part-time workers, game testers, and those of group companies)

The number of people who have taken CAT examination is approximately 100,000 as of August 2023, which almost reaches to that of the notable software quality assurance certificate in Japan. Aiming to be “CAT examination as the top of mind of software testing and QA skills,” SHIFT further promotes recruiting activity with this exam.

３．Thorough Use of “Video Interviews” and “Online Interviews”

In order to reduce the lead time from application to recruitment, SHIFT holds a video interview. “Video interview” is a unique interview method of SHIFT that records the whole interview scene with permissions of applicants. This enables the person in charge in the relevant department to check the video interview on the same day or the next day to determine whether or not to accept the applicants.

The general recruitment flow in Japan requires several face-to-face interviews for several times by making applicants come visit to the office. By introducing video interview, on contrary, it has become possible to make decisions in nearly one interview. For this reason, we have reduced the number of interviews required before hiring, and by doing so we have dramatically shortened the lead time from application to informal decision making. From the perspective of human resource-related business partners who cooperate with SHIFT, it is attractive that in-house decisions be made immediately. This is a meaningful measure for three parties, candidates, human resource-related business partners, and SHIFT.

４．Expansion of Recruiting Channel

In addition to publishing information in each recruitment medium, we are focusing on increasing the number of recruiting channels and the recruiting population by implementing a referral system, developing recruiting methods that make full use of social medias, and making effective use of mass advertising.

Through these activities, the number of monthly applicants has exceeded more than four thousand. The increase in the number of applicants has made it easier to recruit talented personnel and has greatly contributed to business growth.

Going forward, we will work to expand new recruitment channels in pursuit of real value.

５．Remote Recruiting

Assuming a high security and productive environment, there are a certain number of orders from customers with which we can work at home. This means that employees can undertake these projects regardless of their location. For this reason, we began to hire people who are able to work at from throughout Japan, if they meet certain environmental requirements.As a result, employees living in rural areas can also receive “Work at urban areas” at “Salary level at urban areas.”

We believe that advancing this policy will contribute to the creation of jobs in various regions, where we do not have sites yet, as well as that in areas where we do.

６．Overseas Bases

SHIFT ASIA is one of our group companies based in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. SHIFT ASIA employs a large number of highly skilled engineers. Beside that SHIFT Group has a site in Myammar.

In offshore development, companies generally hire engineers at low wages and reduce costs. However, SHIFT is building a system for acquiring highly talented engineers by paying high-level compensation for their capabilities. The policy of providing high remuneration to talented employees remains the same regardless of whether they are located in Japan or overseas.

7．Traineeship (Internship) and Partnership with Educational Institutions

SHIFT promotes to introduce internship and to collaborate with educational institutions, from two perspectives: HR perspective such as to raise awareness of SHIFT and to acquire outsanding talents and to grow talents through the business activities in SHIFT: and sales perspective such as to train potential customers on the importance of software testing.

8．Building Talent Pipeline

SHIFT has built a human resource database that SHIFT obtained through recruitment activities and the matching business. By combining information on the demand environment for each project identified through business activities with the human resource database, SHIFT is able to develop a business for matching human resources and projects. In addition, as a secondary effect of the matching business, SHIFT is able to identify market sentiment about the skills and salary of engineers as well as the demand and supply environment for each skill, thereby enhancing the quality of its own recruitment pipeline.

In addition, SHIFT strives to build a talent pipeline that enables it to constantly secure highly talented human resources by issuing two types of offer letters: one that is valid for a certain period of time to those whom SHIFT thinks to be outstanding: the other that is also valid for a certain period of time to the outstanding talents who are unavoidably leaving SHIFT.

Training

SHIFT supports employees who are willing to grow by providing various opportunities to be trained such as skills, knowledge and experiences. At the same time in SHIFT where the training system is well organized to link with jobs, employees can immediately recognize that their skills acquisitions would be reflected to the salaries.

１．Training Map

2．Examinations

SHIFT not only recruits people with “knowledge” and “experience,” but also actively recruits those with “talent” from a wide range of non-IT industries. This is enabled by SHIFT’s unique recruitment test called “CAT exam,” which sees whether or not they have talents in software testing. Traditionally, software testing, which is the foundation of quality assurance services, has been conducted only by software developers and personnel with development knowledge. SHIFT, however, reformed its common sense. Regardless of the knowledge or experience in the programming or IT industry, SHIFT recruited personnel with truly necessary skills in software testing through this CAT exam, and established a system that they can play an active role after joining SHIFT.

As of August 2023, approximately 10,000 employees had undergone CAT exam, which is almost faster than the number of people undergoing major domestic software test certifications. In addition, what is difference from a major domestic certificate is that if they pass the CAT exam, they are qualified to work for SHIFT and can get a job immediately. Aiming at “CAT examination as the top of mind of software testing and QA skills,” SHIFT further promotes recruitment.

	CAT exam	A major domestic software testing certificate
The total number of people who have taken exams	Approximately 104,000 pelple （as of August, 2023)	Approximately 43,000 people（as of August, 2023）
Advantages	・Those who passed CAT exam are qualified to work for SHIFT. ・Those who joined SHIFT after passing the certificate will play an active role immediately.	Having the certificate is an advantage in job seeking.

3．Onboarding Training

Targeting all employees who just joined SHIFT, SHIFT provides wide-ranging onboarding training over a two-week period, from the basic things that is necessary in working at SHIFT, to fostering security awareness and practical exercises (software testing) work. As well as those who have experiences before joining SHIFT, even those who did not have experiences or knowledge but are determined to be skilled in software testing, will grow into capable human resources through the two weeks of training. To deepen understanding of SHIFT, the onboarding training also targets back-office personnel.

4．Employee Training Curriculum

SHIFT initiated employee training curriculum called “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement, from January 2020. “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement, is a unique training system for employees who wish to improve their skills and careers. This system is designed to raise their unit price presented to customers and their salaries accordingly. Building an educational system that closely links skill-enhancement, sales force, and assessment system enables employees to feel not only about rise in their salaries, but also about the improvement of their own marketplace value. This system is a win-win system for both employees and SHIFT, in which we can continuously create highly motivated, high-value-added human resources. In addition to the “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement, that we developed only for a certain range, SHIFT also developed mroe trainings to those who seek to attain higher engineer unit price. With “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement, as a trigger, SHIFT developed various types of exams including PM (Project Manager) exam and Sales exam, to encourage trainings for employees in any kinds of jobs. SHIFT has built a comprehensive training system to all employees, from executives to managers and memebers, in order to grow employees who are willing to grow.

The ratio of those who took Top-gun exam was initially at around 20% (in FY2020) because it only targets employees who wish to develop their careers. In FY2023, however, 63% of the employees who are eligible (all full-time employees) took Top-gun exam. This indicates that about half of employees are quite enthusiastic about studying for career advancement.

In FY2022, the total hours spent to study for Top-gun exam is up to 12,800 hours, the average hours per examinee is 10.1 hours. In addition, the total number of hours taken by employees for various examinations, including those for Top-gun exam, is up to 9,000 hours. (Note: The average length of time taken for each examination is 130 minutes). This achievement shows that many employees have challenged in-house exam tests in order to improve their own skills. Moreover, as already mentioned, examinations in SHIFT are aimed at employees who are eager to advance their careers, so how and how much they study is all up to themselves. Thereofore, there shows a number of efforts to pass the exam that are not included in the total number of hours spent for study and taking test.

* “Top-gun,” the internal system for career advancement and Top-gun exam is the internal system for employees of the SHIFT Group.

5．E-learning (training, internal questionnaire)

To prevent security incidents, non-compliance, insiders, etc., SHIFT has deployed a e-learning for all employees. The frequency of these seminars is monthly/quarterly, depending on the degree of importance and the timing of the seminar. It targets sll employees (full-time, contract, and part-time employees but occassionally includes business partners in case the content of the training is extremely important) and thoroughly implements the system until it confirms the participation rate is 100%. Questions deployed in e-learning cannot be completed through “flow-based operations” by distributing different questions every month or developing triggering questions.

6．Succession Planning and Management Training

SHIFT conducts training on management to the next leader candidates. Training people who manage a team is to motivate more employees.

Performances on management training in FY2022 is as follows; The average time on management trainings per manager is 2.7 hours.

	No. of attendees	Hours trained
Management training	88	352
Harassment training	197	591
Leadership training	54	54
Training to understand individual personality*	66	163

*SHIFT introduces a training to encourage each employee to understand themselves and others. The training for managers aims at deepen understanding on each memeber in managing a team.

Salary and Personnel Evaluation

Since SHIFT believes that employees are at the core of its business activities, we work actively to raise salaries. Performance-based evaluation and compensation decisions are thoroughly implemented, in which we do not evaluate their background (educational background, occupational background) or characteristics (gender, race, nationality, ages, religion, beliefs, sexes, physical handicaps, or other personal characteristics). We have established an evaluation system that does not cause discrimination on personnel evaluations and compensation decisions, such as seniority-based compensation and the gender pay gaps.

１．Rate of Salary Increase

SHIFT constantly strives to raise fees from customer by enhancing its technological and service capabilities to provide high-value-added services ranging from software testing to consulting. Engineers in SHIFT are able to engage in high-value-added work by enhancing their technological and management capabilities. One of the distinguishing features of SHIFT is that it has a personnel system in place that is closely linked to salaries.

As a result, we have achieved increase in average annual salary by approximately 11％.
(FY2022: 10.2%; Industry average: 3.2% (Quoted from comparison of Basic Survey of Wage Structure 2018 and 2019)

２．Personnel Evaluation

Evaluation meetings are held once every 6 months to clarify personnel evaluation criteria, with the aim of setting targets and reviewing them. Mid-term interviews were also conducted in addition to the target-setting interviews. We strive to be highly persuasive by clarifying progress toward targets and the expected values of each other, and updating the target items if necessary. The salaries of full-time employees are finely distinguished into a total of 200 levels, comprising 10-level for X axis and 20-level for Y axis. This system clearly defines the skills required for each position and promotes the growth of each employee as it indicates the career advancement model. As a result, we maintain a high level of satisfaction with our salaries and personnel evaluations.

3．ESOP

SHIFT has introduced ESOP system from 2016, giving it to employees who made an enormous contribution and who SHIFT particularly want to play active roles in the long term. We regard this system as the one bringing benefits for four perspectives: HR system, employees, financial management, shareholders. For example, we recognize benefits for HR system and employees.

Incentivizing employee to improve performance with a rise in the price of SHIFT shares
Contributing to improvement in retention rate of employees who achieved the highest increase rate of annual income
Major improvement in productivity of the entire organization in conjunction with the improvement in motivation of top management
Building asset linked to performance improvement

In addition, from a financial perspective, we believe that this will be a beneficial measure for both SHIFT and our shareholders; the issuance of ESOP is expected to realize compensation benefits in excess of the amount recorded in the income statement; the share buybacks is anticipated to influence the share price.

SHIFT has developed an award system for all employees (full-time, contract, part-time, and partner employees) from FY2022. Employees will vote those whom they want to receive awards, and those who have received a large number of votes will receive awards. Since this system is held by multiple departments and categories, over 500 employees will be awarded annually. The awarded employees are also eligible for ESOP. This indicates that SHIFT gives as many opportunities to be granted ESOP as possible more equitably and to a larger number of employees.

Here below is the recent performances of ESOP granted.

	FY2017	FY2018	FY2019	FY2020	FY2021	FY2022
The number of employees who have opportunities to be granted	351	445	655	1,078	1,609	2,122
The number of employees who are granted	21	34	55	51	176	113

As we were able to recognize this as a very effective measure, we extended the trust period, which was scheduled to end at the end of February 2021, for 6 years to continue this system.

4．Employee Stock Ownership Association

SHIFT established the Employee Stock Ownership Association in 2022. By joining the Association, employees can buy and hold SHIFT shares while reducing the risk of insider trading. SHIFT also believes that by sharing shareholder value with its shareholders, employees will contribute to the enhancement of employees’ own motivation. All employees (full-time, contract, and part-time) are eligible to participate in the Association, and more employees are provided with the opportunities to freely trade SHIFT shares.

As of August 2023, 409 employees, about 7% of all, participate in the association.

Work Style

SHIFT is implementing a number of initiatives to ensure that each employee continues to improve their skills and work comfortably. In particular, we strive to manage working hours and physical/mental health, based on the belief that mental and physical health should be a key factor in enhancing performance.

１．Remote Work

SHIFT started to prepare remote work system from the end of March 2020, when the COVID-19 started to spread. We officially began to work at home at the same time as the Emergency Declaration, in April 2020. For employees, we prepared an environment in which employees can concentrate on their work while ensuring safety during the COVID-19. For customers, we created an environment in which our service quality remains. During COVID-19, we did our best efforts to respond flexibly and swiftly to all the changes happening, and to give the top priority to the safety and health of employees, their families, customers, and partners.

This highly-secured remote work system will be continued even after COVID-19, as one of our work styles. This system enabled us to expand our recruitment potentials, such as personnel who work only remotely.

In addition to establishing remote work environment in terms of infrastructure, we have also organized it in terms of communications, such as the distributing e-learnings to prevent remote work harassment.

2．Hybrid Work All Over Japan

In addition, the SHIFT Group has opened a series of new regional offices in FY2022, in Miyagi, Hiroshima, Gunma, and elsewhere. This has enabled a hybrid work style that combines work from home and work at offices while living locally, and has enabled SHIFT to provide a comfortable working environment for more people. As a result, employees living in rural areas can also receive “Work at urban areas” at “Salary level at urban areas.” With this initiative, SHIFT aims at recruiting engineers from all around Japan.

3．Reducing Overtime Work

In order to reduce overtime, SHIFT voluntarily complies with 36 agreements, introduces an application system for overtime, and expresses overtime hours for the month on its own personal portal site. As a result, overtime performance was as follows.

Note: 36 agreement is an labor management agreement set by Japanese government, which limits the number of overtime work hours or holiday work to improve the work condition in Japan.

	FY2019	FY2020	FY2021	FY2022	FY2023
Overtime Work	15.2H	10.3H	10.1H	5.5H	7.5H
Industry Average	16H	13H	11H	12H	11H

Source: Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2018, 2019, 2020
Note1: Due to 1) changes in definitions of each item in the survey and 2) change in SHIFT’s business scope, we have changed the items that we use to quote (as of October, 2021).
Note2: Caluculation targets are SHIFT full-time employees. Managers and discretionary members are not included

4．Health Management

In addition to maintaining the physical health of employees through annual health checkups, we also actively manage risks related to employees’ mental health. One such measure is a mental check test conducted once every 6 months. The results are accessible to each promptly so that they can maintain a balanced psychological condition.

5．Working Styles Aligned with Life Stages

We are working to develop a variety of personnel systems tailored to the life stages of our employees, including maternity leave, parental leave, and reduced work hours for employees who have children.We also partnered with a nursery school near our sites for employees (full-time employees, contract employees, and part-time workers) who need the support. We also provide supports to resolve a variety of concerns that may arise outside of daily operations but within their daily lives, such as preferential interest rates for housing loans.

In particular, the reduced working hours system for those who have children can be applied to employees with children under the fifth-grade. As a matter of course, the use of this system does not have any impact on the evaluation.

6．Employee Satisfaction

SHIFT watches employee satisfaction once every six months in order to improve the engagement of employees, which the core of the business activities, and to raise productivity. Employee satisfaction is measured from four perspectives, “empathy with the company,” “sense of growth,” “sense of security,” and “eNPS,” and we are implementing a number of measures to improve employee satisfaction.
Employee satisfaction survey is also conducted in group companies of SHIFT.

Trends in SHIFT employee satisfaction are as follows:

KPIs of employee satisfaction (tracked twice a year)

	FY2019	FY2020	FY2021	FY2022	FY2023
Empathy with SHIFT	4.2	4.5	4.7	4.6	4.6
Sense of growth	3.8	4.0	4.1	4.1	4.2
Sense of being secured	3.7	3.9	4.1	4.2	4.2
eNPS®*	-65.0	-57.0	-45.0	-47.0	-41.0

* For “Empathy with SHIFT,” “Sense of growth,” and “Sense of being secured,” the maximum score is 6.0.
*Abbreviation of “Employee Net Promoter Score.” eNPS® sees how much employees want to recommend to others to work in SHIFT on a scale of 0 to 10.The score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of “critics” who do not recommend working in SHIFT from that of “recommenders” who want to recommend to work in SHIFT.
* Net-Promoter, Net-Promoter System, Net-Promoter Score, NPS, and the emoticons used in anything related to NPS are either registered trademarks or service marks of Bain & Company, Fred Reichheld, NICE Systems, Inc.
* Employee Net Promoter, Employee Net Promoter System, Employee Net Promoter Score, eNPS, and the emoticons used in anything related to eNPS are the Bain & Co., Fred Rikehold, and NICE Systems, Inc. service marks.

Benefits

In order to maximize employee performances, we are also focusing on welfare programs designed to create comfortable working environments. Specifically, in addition to the provision of employee benefits such as the elective defined contribution pension plan and general welfare benefits, we have developed in-house massage facilities to maintain health capital, and has introduced a bicycle commuting system to reduce the stress of commuting by trains.

１．Compensation Benefits for Optional Defined Contribution Pension Plans

We have introduced a optional defined contribution pension plan to encourage employees to think about their own life plans and to lead better lives. This is a system that allows employees to choose whether to fund the future (as a pension) or to receive now (as an income).

２．SHIFRe

SHIFT has a private massage room at its headquarters that all employees, regardless of its contract type, can use at any time. There are two types of SHIFRe: a 40-minute service and a 15-minute service, the latter one is called “Quick SHIFRe.” Employees can use it during business hours according to their work conditions. The masseurs are people with disabilities. Therefore, this is a welfare benefit that not only enables them to make full use of their own strengths, but also contributes to maintaining the health care of employees.

３．Furusato-Nozei (Hometown Tax System)

In order to make it easier for employees, all employees, from full-time to part-time workers, to use Hometown Tax System, SHIFT has established an internal portal-site called “Mampuku (which literally means “I’m stuffed” but also implies “full of happiness” from its kanji character).”

This site is affiliated with “Furusato Choice,” one of largest sites which list gifts available for hometown tax system. Also, SHIFT has put its huge efforts to improve employee satisfaction with the system by focusing on its UI/UX and by making it easy for anyone to use. Furthermore, since SHIFT implements some of the procedures required to pay taxes to local governments and temporarily pay the amount of donations, required to use “hometown tax system,” employees can easily use the system only by selecting gifts.

*Furusato-nozei, or hometown tax system is one of Japanese tax system which targets to increase tax income of municipalities in rural areas in Japan. With that system, people will donate money to those local governments, through which they can receive local gifts in accordance with the amount of donation. People who have donated money to the local governments can also deduct income and resident tax.

４．Other Welfare Programs

Benefits that we provide includes followings:

	Full-time	Contract	Part-time
Fully covering statutory social insurance	○	○	○
Use of facilities affiliated with health insurance association that SHIFT joins (including recreation facilities)	○	○	○*1
Commutation allowance	○	○	○
Bicycle commuting	○	○	○
Remote work/ remote work compensation	○	○	○
Hourly paid leaves	○*2	○*2	○*2
Sick / nursing leaves	○	○	×
Preferential interest rates on housing loans	○	○	○
Rent referral services	○	○	○
Maternity leave, parental leave, and nursing care leave	○	○	○
Use of nursery school affiliated with SHIFT	○	○	○
Group term life insurance	○	○	×
Defined contribution plan	○	×	×
Employee Stock Ownership Association	○	○	○
Congratulatory / condolence money	○	×	×
Congratulatory / condolence leaves	○	○	○
Skill improvement support (support for acquiring qualifications)	○	○	○*1
Internal recruitment system	○	○	○
Technology study meetings and internal exchange meetings	○	○	○
To support Furusato-nozei	○	○	○
Internal loyalty system	○	○	○
SHIFRe (in-house massage service)	○	○	○
Club activities	○	○	○
Award system	○	○	○
General meetings of employees	○	○	○
Athletic meetings	○	×	×
Year-end parties	○	○	○

*1 Some part of welfare program may be excluded.
*2 Hourly paid leaves are only for those who are granted with paid leaves.
*3 Business partners are also able to work from home and to participate in events that SHIFT organizes such as club activities or general meetins of employees.

Corporate Culture

“Openness” is an indispensable element in expressing SHIFT’s corporate culture. In addition to valuing the horizontal links between employees, we are striving to create an environment in which employees can communicate individually, from the president to part-time employees.

１．Human Resource Management Concept based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In order to create an open culture, various human resources measures are designed based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For all employees, business partners, and stakeholders in SHIFT, we are preparing personnel measures for each level of desire.

２．Internal Events

Several events are held annually that all employees would participate in order to enhance employee sense of belongingness and engagement. These events include athletic meetings to raise the sense of unity among employees, and general meetings of employees to appreciate employees who have played an outstanding role during the year. These events are vital to SHIFT. We also believe that the cooperation of families is essential for employees to achieve high performance in their work. In order to convey their daily appreciation to their families, we hold events in which they can participate with their families, and also provide books on child-rearing from the President, Masaru Tange.

３．External Events

“89 Festival” (Bug Festival, it is possible to pronounce “bʌ” for “8” and “gu” as “9” in Japanese as word play ) is held in August as one of SHIFT’s major external events, inviting current and potential customers. Every year, we set a theme, hold seminars and talk sessions with prominent people in the IT industry, and organize other ingenious events to provide fun and meaningful time and convey our daily gratitude to our customers.

4．Online Events

Shifted from real events to online events, triggered by quarantine period for COVID-19. Using a system developed in-house, SHIFT have organized a system where both speakers and viewers feel a sense of unity even at online events. This system is used for both external and internal events. In external online events, we have managed to increase the number of participants of this event in FY2020 grew 7.5 times compared to that of the previous year and to expand customer contacts. In addition, in internal online events, we were able to increase employee satisfaction with the events, which was 88% recorded before COVID-19, to 97%. Now we use online events to improve the quality and quantity of communications towards becoming a company with over 10 thousand employees.

5．Utilization of In-house Social Media

SHIFT operates in-house social media that can be used by all employees regardless of the type of employment. This social media encourages each employee to freely express their opinions and respond/comment on them. This enhances interaction among employees and the creation of ideas, which also helps managements to make the workplace more open.

6．Interactions between Executives and Employees

One of characteristics of SHIFT is that our executives interact with employees quite often. For example, there are many initiatives and events that make all executives and employees get closer, such as lunch time with executives for new employees of each month, active exchanges at various internal events, broadcasting internal radio by executives, distribution of in-house content which features words of the president, and the establishment of a hotline through which employees can report directly to the president. For this reason, a corporate culture has been cultivated in which the voices of executives are easily communicated to employees and employees can casually convey their voices to executives.

Various Work Style

１．Basic Consept

SHIFT have diverse employees. The diversity of SHIFT includes not only background (educational background, career background) and characteristics (gender, race, nationality, age, religion, beliefs, sexes, physical handicap, and other personal characteristics), but also those that are subject to change such as residential place, life stage, and desired work style. Against this backdrop, SHIFT is working to create conditions that enable individuals to feel satisfaction to each work. The environment encompasses not only the personnel system, but also the spirit among employees, and through harassment training and other means SHIFT has fostered a culture of mutual acceptance.

In addition, SHIFT recruited approximately 2,700 employees in FY2023, some of whom are non-IT personnel who do not have work experiences in IT industry. These non-IT personnel have even more diverse backgrounds, but they can overcome each other’s differences by having a shared objective of SHIFT operations. SHIFT believes that creating such a culture promotes employee diversity. Moreover, SHIFT believes that the growth of a diverse organization will enable each of our diverse talents to grow.

Considering the current business climate, the ratio of female engineers in Japan is about 20%. Therefore, aiming to promote diversity and reduce gender disparities, SHIFT proactively produce female engineers by promoting women’s active participation from SHIFT. In addition, by pursuing these initiatives, over the long term, SHIFT hopes to improve the gender ratio of the industry as a whole and to improve the gender ratio of all directors, employees and engineers in SHIFT to 1:1.

2．Business Support Group

Employees belonging to the Business Support Group support the day-to-day operations of SHIFT Group by leveraging their areas of expertise respectively. A massage service called “SHIFRe” for employees, which encourages employees to refresh their minds and bodies, is one of unique welfare systems to increase productivity. Or, employees in that department can edit videos, compile data and tables, and perform text-based operations to support for anyone and anydepartment in SHIFT who/ which need them anytime.

3．SHIFT Challenged Art Public Exhibition 2021

“SHIFT Challenged Art Public Exhibition 2021” is a public exhibition for artists with disabilities who possess great sensibilities and talents for art. The event was held with the aim of creating a society in which all people can demonstrate their talents and abilities by communicating widely the appeal of the works produced by the artists and the message embedded in them, and by acknowledging all kinds of diversity.

Following this public exhibition, SHIFT added “Art” as a new job category in the Business Support Group. At the same time, we also conducted recruitment activities for members who can play an active role in the art jobs. We hope that the recruited members will instill flexible and creative ideas in SHIFT through art. As of the end of October 2021, 596 entries had been received.

4．Examinations

Although the pass rate of the CAT test is only 6%, SHIFT targets not only about 1 million people working in the IT industry, but people working in Japan. As a result, talented people who have changed jobs from a variety of industries, including the service, food and beverage and apparel industry and civil servants, are now on the front line, which is one of SHIFT’s major strengths.
(Formmer non-IT human resources recruited in FY2021: 81 second graduates, 66 part-time workers, and 434 game testers)

As of end of 2023, approximately 100,000 empooyees had undergone CAT exam, which is almost faster than the number of people undergoing major domestic software test certifications. In addition, what is difference from a major domestic certificate is that if they pass the CAT exam, they are qualified to work for SHIFT and can get a job immediately. Aiming at “CAT examination as the top of mind of software testing and QA skills,” SHIFT further promotes recruitment.

Human Rights

1．Basic Concept

SHIFT conducts recruitment activities and personnel evaluations based on talents whether they are suited to SHIFT business domains, its understanding of SHIFT credo and performance during the evaluation period, regardless of their background (educational background, career background) and characteristics (gender, race, nationality, religion, beliefs, sexes, physical handicap, and other personal characteristics). The background and characteristics of individuals are linked to the human rights of the individual. Therefore, SHIFT believes that respect for human rights is important from the perspective of providing a comfortable working environment so that individuals can concentrate on their work. Based on this approach, SHIFT not only complys with Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, but also promote recruitment and evaluation activities so that discrimination on gender, nationality and etc. does not occur among persons in charge of the same responsibility. In addition, SHIFT has established an in-house contact point for inquiries regarding the Equal Pay for Equal Work, and respond to inquiries from time to time in order to maintain a situation in which discrimination against the equal work does not occur.

2．Respecting Human Rights

SHIFT respects thourough compliance. SHIFT complies with all laws and regulations in Japan, including the Constitution of Japan, the Labor Standards Law, and the Law Concerning Securing, Etc. of Equal Opportunity and Treatment between Men and Women in Employment (the Equal Employment Opportunity Law) and respects human rights of employees.

Guiding Policy
We respect the human rights of all people, strongly oppose any sort of discrimination or harassment, and foster a workplace environment that facilitates fair and equal corporate activity.
Note: Excerpted from Compliance Policy
Specific Codes
Ensuring compliance is paramount in an open corporate culture. Each of us works together to create a better corporate culture.

(Ban on Discrimination)
Employment and treatment must be evaluated fairly in accordance with individual work details and performance. We do not tolerate discrimination based on sex, race, nationality, age, religion, beliefs, gender, physical handicap, other personal characteristic, or any other aspect. Please also refrain from any behavior that may not exactly be discriminatory but could be construed as such. Jokes based on an individual’s physical characteristics are contrary to the objective of creating a rewarding workplace.
(Ban on Sexual Harassment)
The company endeavors to create an appropriate workplace environment in accordance with the Labor Standards Act and other related laws and regulations. Accordingly, the use of one’s own position or standing to force sexual relations is impermissible. Furthermore, repeating jokes that are offensive to others are also prohibited as acts that debase the working environment.
(Ban on Workplace Bullying)
The company aims for a sound working environment. Accordingly, in no circumstances is a person permitted to use superior rank or position to engage in inappropriate behavior. However, conventionally appropriate encouragement is permitted. Please do your best to always be considerate of others and behave appropriately.
(Ban on Other Sorts of Harassment)
We prohibit all other forms of harassment, in addition to the sexual harassment and workplace bullying mentioned above. We strive to respect the values and diversity of people around the world, be considerate to others, form equal interpersonal relationships, and create a rewarding working environment.
(Protection of Personal Information)
The company rigorously manages the personal information it possesses and does not use such information for purposes other than that for which it was intended. We do not disclose personal information to third parties unless ordered to do so by a public agency for an appropriate reason or upon receiving the individual’s consent.
(Compliance with Labor Laws and Regulations)
The company complies with the Labor Standards Act, the Industrial Safety and Health Act, the report of agreement on overtime and holiday labor (the so-called “36 Agreement”), and other labor laws and regulations, giving the greatest possible consideration to the safety and health of its employees. Doing everything possible to prevent death from overwork, we engage in timely and appropriate efforts to determine and manage employees’ hours. At the same time, we provide guidance and support on highly productive working practices to ensure against long working hours—particularly for personnel at the management level. We encourage people to take their annual paid leave, create an environment making it easy for them to do so, and put in place other necessary measures.
(Freedom of Opinion)
In all circumstances, the company encourages the free expression of opinion, both in vertical relationships (from superior to subordinate and from subordinate to superior) and in horizontal relationships. We aim for an open and positive working environment in which all are free to voice their opinions to others, and work to create such an environment.
Note: Excerpted from Compliance Matters -5) Our Code of Conduct to Create a Better Corporate Culture

3．Hotline and Whistle-blowing System

SHIFT works to prevent sexual harassment and power harassment and provides equal opportunities. If such cases were to happen, the hotline and whistleblower system can be used to report anonymously, when they wish. This system is widely announced on the intranet of SHIFT and is thoroughly announced. Employees who wish to use this system can use it anywhere, regardless of the type of employment contract. External stakeholders, such as business partners or customers, can also report anonymously. We acknowledge that we must protect confidentiality and anonymity of reporters and that we must prevent any kinds of influence on their evaluations from happening. In addition, SHIFT thoroughly manages reported cases as confidential information so that none of people who are out of the parties will know them. Specifically, SHIFT has established an in-house system to limit the number of person who can act as a hotline or contact point for reports and various committees for each report and manages and limites the number of person who are able to know the details of reports by managing the right to access the data.

SHIFT’s Vision

As SHIFT strives to be an indispensable presence in the IT industry, we are aware of our social responsibilities to the environment surrounding the IT industry or the one within SHIFT. Therefore, we are determined to promote the following.

１．Elimination of Multi Subcontracting Structures

One of SHIFT’s missions is to deconstruct multi-subcontracting structure of IT industry through our business activities. Due to that structure, engineers working as “subcontractors” in the industry, which have a long trade flow from the original orderer, are unable to receive an appropriate amount of compensation for their achievements. Also, this can cause overwork. SHIFT is working to resolve these issues through its business activities, which we believe will ultimately serve as a means of protecting the human rights of engineers.

２．Thorough Prevention of Harrasment

SHIFT strives to thoroughly prevent harassment by conducting regular and repeated e-learning on human rights issues from the perspective of sexual harassment, power harassment and SDGs for all employees.
(FY2023 Actual rate of participation in sexual harassment and power harassment training: 100%)

We will not neglect efforts to enable our employees to work with enthusiasm, by creating such an environment.

３．Equal Employement Opportunity

As practiced in recruitment policies, SHIFT has established a recruitment method that determines whether or not to recruit personnel by seeing their own talents and abilities as the most critical requirements.

In addition, we have established a highly transparent personnel evaluation system that clearly links with salaries, and have adopted salary system that determines annual income solely with their capabilities and performances of the past 6 months. For this reason, we have established a system in which inequality does not occur not only because of nationality, race, religion, beliefs, birth, hobbies, or education, but also because of differences in gender, educational background. It also prevents the inequalities which typically happens in Japan, including inequal opportunities to raise salaries due to difference of age, and opportunities to recruit permanent employees.

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