Human Resource Strategy

GRI 3-3

SMM Group positions Human Capital Management as the foundation for all six materialities. Mine development, which is our core business, stably supplies resources essential to human progress. To continuously contribute to construction of a sustainable society in the future, including achieving carbon neutrality, we believe in human resources as capital and consider maximizing their value as a cornerstone for improving corporate value.
Looking ahead to 2030, we aim to be a company that attracts a diverse workforce and allows them to grow and thrive. To achieve this, we promote the construction of a sustainable foundation for human resources and organizations as well as personnel development directly connected to our business strategy. Amid the acceleration of changes in the recent business environment, to realize a long-term vision for becoming the world leader in the non-ferrous metals industry, we set KPIs for Human Capital Management and quantitatively manage advancement of corporate culture and organizational and human resource functions. Setting each KPI as a measurable numerical target, we strive for continuous improvement via the PDCA cycle. In particular, the newly introduced “engagement score” quantifies mutual understanding and trust between employees and the Company. With a focus on the improvement and maintenance of such value in the future as well, we will aim at sustainable improvement of corporate value.

Engagement Survey

In order to realize our "Vision for 2030"—to become a company that attracts a diverse workforce and allows them to grow and thrive—we believe it is essential to foster a corporate culture in which our diverse employees feel pride and attachment to our group, and can work with high engagement.
Until last fiscal year, we conducted employee awareness surveys. However, starting from fiscal 2024, we have begun implementing an engagement survey to quantitatively measure employee engagement levels and to clarify the strengths and challenges of our organization. Within our group, we define a high level of engagement as "the existence of a state of mutual understanding between the Company/organization and its employees, in which the Company/organization values its employees and the employees are committed to the development and vitalization of the Company/organization”.
We are actively working toward realizing this state.
According to the 2024 survey, the engagement score (where the average score of participating companies—about 10,000 companies—is set at 50 as a deviation value) was 47.7 for the Group (9 companies) with a response rate of 98.2%, and 49.9 for Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd., with a response rate of 96.3%. Through the survey, we found that while relationships with direct supervisors are a strength, there are challenges in outward orientation and a sense of personal growth, as well as significant variation in scores among different organizations. We believe that creating a safe and secure workplace leads to higher engagement, and in order to sustainably improve the Group's overall score, we are simultaneously working on "initiatives to address company-wide issues and raise the absolute score" and "initiatives to raise the baseline score within each organization."
As a key issue and KPI for our "Vision for 2030," we aim to raise the Group's score to 55 by 2030. By understanding, through the survey results, what employees expect, are satisfied with, or dissatisfied with, and by working to improve engagement, we will enhance various aspects of organizational performance.

Open and Vibrant Organizational Climate

We are working to create an open and vibrant organizational climate. We believe that under such a climate, every individual will respect the backgrounds of others regardless of differences and will engage in competitive hard work together with open discussion and generation of ideas to realize both individual and organizational growth.

Open and Vibrant Organization

An open and vibrant organization that our group strives for is expressed in easy-to-understand language and communicated to our employees.

• Freedom enabling all members to express their thoughts and observations regardless of their position within the organizational hierarchy
• An atmosphere that welcomes new ideas and new challenges
• A structure in which judgements are based on what is right, and not on who is right

The foregoing is predicated on the common sharing of organizational policies, targets, rules and regulations.