Human Resources Development Human Resources Development

Our approach to employee development

To enhance corporate value, we need to ensure that employees clearly understand their role and take the effort to develop their capabilities. We expect our employees to show initiative toward refining their skills, and at the same time encourage them to effectively leverage their respective strengths in the global business arena as part of our team.

Moreover, exceptional management ability to harness combined group capabilities plays a crucial role in our turning innovative ideas into products and delivering them to the market.

Our human resources development efforts are based on the three policies outlined in the illustration below in line with the Advantest Human Resource Development Policy established in April 2003.

Focusing on the three policies of developing an adventurous spirit among our workers, providing our workers with a cosmopolitan outlook, and improving the quality of management, we conduct human resources development to produce a professional workforce capable of navigating the global business environment. Through this policy, Advantest actively supports employees who work consistently to refine their skills, acquire greater expertise, and broaden their knowledge.

Education and training system and implementation status

Advantest prepared a training program that anyone can participate in, where a wide range of topics can be learned from basic knowledge up to the latest technology trends. In addition, to ensure that this training program adapts to the changing environment, we continue to consider further improvements. With the development of globalization, in order to adapt to the larger changing business environment, we began a study about a human resources education system in line with the above-mentioned human resource development policy. To make this training even more effective, we are forging and implementing new programs, including the expansion of our global training program. New programs will be delivered by specialists to make them more effective, and we will selectively use in-house or external lecturers depending on the program content.

We plan to restructure our education system by factoring in opinions from overseas as well as those from Japan, thus giving it a more global perspective.

Program	Objective	For	No. of times implemented	Training time (hour)	No. of trainees
Subordinate Development Training	Enhance management skills	Managers	1	10.5	24
Career Development Program	Enhance management skills	General employees	1	15	12
Evaluator Training	Enhance management skills	Managers	1	8	22
Problem-Solving Training	Enhance marketing skills	Managers	1	15	28
TM Method, Problem-Solving Training (Introductory)	Enhance marketing skills	General employees	1	15	27
Technology & Marketing Training	Enhance marketing skills	Managers	1	15	22
Global Mindset Training	Enhance communication skills	Managers	1	15	19
Cross-Cultural Understanding Training	Enhance communication skills	General employees	1	7.5	26
Third-Year Training	Enhance communication skills	Third-year employees	1	15	38
Approaches to Learning English	Enhance language skills	General employees	16 courses	24 hour each	111
TOEIC IP test	Strengthening language skills	General employees	2	2	447
IDEA HACKS! Creative Thinking Workshop	Develop ability to generate ideas	General employees	1	7.5	20
New Employee Training	Develop basic skills	New employees	1	6 months	42
Technology Seminar	Acquire knowledge about the latest technologies	Engineers	48	2 - 15 hour each	855

Development of engineers

We place particular emphasis on educating engineers with the aim of ensuring that our products continue to underpin leading-edge technologies.
We have created a training program accessible to every employee of the Group and covering a wide range of subjects, from basic knowledge to the latest technologies.
In fiscal 2014, about 50 technology seminars were provided, with approximately 850 engineers participating. The program now includes seminars hosted by Advantest's senior engineers. Meanwhile, one of the seminars features a lecture on design quality by an employee in charge of design, thereby shedding light on the basic technologies required to maintain and improve product quality based on the speaker's first-hand experiences. The program acts as a means of imparting not only technical knowledge but also Advantest's DNA to successive generations.

New employee education and training

Advantest's training program for new employees starts with a month-long, combined-group segment covering the basics of working life. After that, the new recruits are put into one of two occupation-specific training regimes, depending on whether they have been hired for engineering or administrative job assignments.
Engineering employees undergo "basic technology training" to learn the basic knowledge required, starting with the basics of design and then the methods for using products, quality assurance, and intellectual property etc., and go on to learn the necessary skills as Advantest's engineers through the basis of manufacturing "manufacturing training", hardware (electrical, mechanical) and software development "hardware-software training." New administrative employees do training in the three fields of sales, production, and management to get an overview of the Group's business and how the divisions are interrelated.
By having new employees experience various areas of company operations in this way, we are able to ensure that they will clearly understand their own roles, and value teamwork with other divisions. Our training period for new recruits acts as a key formative phase in their professional development as Advantest employees.