SUSTAINABILITY Employee Relations

Personnel System

Lawson's Human Capital Concept

Development of human capital that contributes to corporate growth through self-motivation and innovation

Figure for Sustainable Company growth

Both our Group Philosophy and our Code of Conduct [Lawson's Way] formulated to contribute to its achievement have been implemented positively and systematically, with accompanying efforts to develop human capital to become core participants in activities to this end.
The image of human capital Lawson seeks to realize is of personnel capable of manifesting the Company's values through teamwork, continuous innovation to create value and determined action to achieve goals. The key behavioral characteristics of these personnel are self-motivation and innovation.
We have introduced a personnel development program to train all our employees to become more self-motivated and innovative. This equips them to identify appropriate employee behavior for achieving the Group Philosophy and for fulfilling their individual duties in order to complete their objectives for the year.
We have also developed an employee behavior level evaluation program under our personnel management system with the aim of creating a culture that encourages self-motivation and innovation among employees. The program also seeks to clarify the scope of their responsibilities and the roles they must play to fulfill the duties of their respective posts. The manner of fostering employees as human capital is determined based on two evaluations: an evaluation of their behavior on the job and an evaluation of the business results they achieve.
We employ a Career Development Sheet to ensure employees' ability to determine their own career paths, and individual employees are also asked to specify their goals for the future in light of their personal histories and current positions. Interviews are conducted to support their growth as individuals.

Role-based System

We operate a compensation system in which role grades and salaries are determined according to the scope of responsibilities and the roles to be fulfilled.
The system is based on individual merit, regardless of gender, length of service, nationality, etc.

Career Development Interviews

We employ a Career Development Sheet to ensure employees' ability to determine their own career paths, and individual employees are also asked to specify their goals for the future in light of their personal histories and current positions. Interviews are conducted to support their growth as individuals (4,276 employees were interviewed in fiscal 2022).

Flexible Employee System

In fiscal 2018, we introduced a flexible full-time employee system, which allows employees with reasons such as childcare, nursing care, or cancer treatment to limit their work location and work hours if they need to limit their work beyond the statutory or existing systems.

Active Senior Employee System

In March 2021, we raised the mandatory retirement age to 65 and introduced the active senior full-time employee system for employees aged 60 and above. This system allows employees to choose from multiple job courses. At the same time, we are conducting career design training for employees who have reached the age of 53.

FA (Free Agent) System

This system is intended to encourage employees to take on ambitious goals.
Employees who meet certain requirements can receive FA privileges, which guarantee that they can be transferred to their desired job type and location.

Varied Work Shifts

We have a system in place detailing the job contents of 21 different work shifts. Each employee can choose 4 shifts according to their work, enabling them to work according to a variety of flexible schedules.

Employee Award Program

Encouraging employee efforts to take up new challenges proactively beyond departmental boundaries

In order to create new customer value, it is necessary for each and every employee to take on challenges on their own initiative. At Lawson, we have set up cross-departmental projects in which employees from different positions share their opinions from various perspectives to create better products and services.

We are working on fostering a culture of praise through the “LAWSON Challenge Award,” the “President’s Award,” and the “Division Good Job Award.”

  • Employee Award Program

LAWSON Challenge Award

The “LAWSON Challenge Award” (L-Challenge for short) is our internal award system for gathering one-year initiatives that implemented originality and ingenuity for work on the front lines, operation improvement, or a new idea, having presentations, and recognizing them.
We started this award in 2018. In fiscal 2022, 149 applications were submitted across Japan and 10 submissions were selected to give a presentation to the President and directors for a final review. As a result, the grand prize, two second-place awards, an SDGs award, as well as a DX award were given to the winners.

  • LAWSON Challenge Award

President’s Award

The department manager nominates people who took on a challenge with an innovative idea or teams that achieved extraordinary results and the President selects the winner and awards them at the corporate morning assembly.
In fiscal 2022, 60 President’s Awards were given out in total.

  • President’s Award

Division Good Job Award

This award system is the division manager version of the President’s Award. Division managers select and award individuals and teams within the headquarters and company every half-year.
In fiscal 2022, 304 Division Good Job Awards were given out in total.

  • Division Good Job Award

Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

Next Generation Development Committee Meeting

Since fiscal 2016, the “Next Generation Development Committee Meeting” has been held on a regular basis to discuss plans for the development of the next generation of management leaders and department manager candidates. Employees at the management level serve as training leaders, creating training plans for department managers, the target personnel, and nurturing them through consultations and other means.
Since fiscal 2021, the committee meeting has been used to find female department managers and management leaders by appointing at least one female department manager candidate out of three.

Lawson Management School

From January of fiscal 2023, a training program (Lawson management school) was held for 153 branch managers and Sales Department managers throughout Japan with the President as the lecturer. The purpose of this training program was to make each individual aware that they are business managers and exercise their leadership to enable the Lawson Group to grow further. Participants from throughout Japan were divided into four teams and three-hour sessions were carried out nine times in total across the Tokyo venue, Nagoya and Osaka venues, and Okayama and Kyushu venues. The goal of this training program is to learn what a business manager is, while acquiring abilities to earn profit, create teams, and seek an ideal based on an assigned reading books and through experiences of the President.
We plan to continuously hold this training program. Follow-up training sessions will be held for these branch managers from September to October 2023. In addition, a new training program will be held for product, marketing, and development managers as well.

Policy on Executive Compensation

Our basic policy as a company is to design a compensation system for directors that is linked to shareholders’ profits through incentives to increase corporate value, sustainable growth and performance improvement, and to provide sufficient and appropriate compensation for the duties performed by each director.
In addition to fixed compensation, the basic compensation for directors also includes variable remuneration, which is linked to their performance evaluation. Variable remuneration is determined based on the percentage of budget achievement for EPS (earnings per share) and SDGs targets (CO2 reduction rate per store, etc.). The purpose of EPS is to share more value with shareholders and to link it to the company’s performance. The purpose of the SDGs targets is to set targets in order to achieve the environmental vision set out in “Lawson Blue Challenge 2050!” The variable remuneration amount is determined by adding qualitative (10%) evaluation via appointments and interviews with the Compensation Committee to the amount above. We reviewed part of our KPIs from March 2023 and decided to add the percentage of budget achievement for business profit (index equivalent to consolidated operating profit by the Japanese standard, calculated by subtracting the cost of goods sold as well as selling, general, and administrative expenses from the operating profit). Laying out the same targets as for employees will lead to improvement of the company’s competitiveness.
In addition, we also incorporate stock-based compensation options, a form of compensation that is linked to the price of stocks, as part of the director compensation, thus linking it to the interests of our shareholders.




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