The Future Pioneered by the ENEOS Group: Our HR Strategy to Ensure Every Employee Performs Their Best - Part 1

Part 1: The Human Capital Management of the ENEOS Group, Which Aims to Become a Robust Organization

Investing in our people to maximize their potential to convert their abilities, knowledge, and skills into productivity

――How has the ENEOS Group positioned its people in the Fourth Medium-Term Management Plan, which was announced earlier this year?

Funo: The ENEOS Group has declared its commitment to supporting “today’s normal” and taking the lead for “tomorrow’s normal” to realize the Group Philosophy. The goal is to dedicate ourselves to both the society of today and the society of the future. We aim to put this philosophy into practice by providing a stable supply of energy and materials, while realizing a carbon-neutral society as set forth in our Long-Term Vision for 2040, and by implementing our management strategy. Ultimately, these initiatives will be carried out by our people. Our products are energy and materials, which are extremely difficult to differentiate from our competitors. In the current business environment, where change is dramatic and rapid, it's vitally important that our people at the frontline can flexibly respond to changes and resolve their tasks. We believe that our people are the wellspring of our Group’s competitiveness.

――The new three-year management plan that started this fiscal year (the Fourth Medium-Term Management Plan), announced in May 2025, includes human capital management initiatives.

Funo: The ENEOS Group has always said to both employees and outside stakeholders that “people are our greatest asset.” The environment surrounding the Group has changed significantly. In the past, our business had been focused on Japanese domestic markets, and its business environment was relatively stable. However, we must now face the fast-changing cross-border business. We were securing results as a whole team, but under such a bustling situation, we need to have each and every employee create value instead, and compete against the global market as a group of powerful people. As it says in the new management plan, the Group is focusing on human capital management to tone up into a more robust corporate organization.

――How would you describe the ENEOS Group’s human capital management?

Funo: Formerly, employees have been called “human resources.” This is because when competition is about organizational power, like I mentioned earlier, people are one of a company’s management resources. However, under human capital management, people are seen as capital, and the company invests in them to draw maximum value from them. Because employees are capital, their individual experience, knowledge, skills, and the like, must be converted into productivity. Productivity consists of maximizing performance while balancing work quality and quantity. We plan to focus on the value and specializations of each employee while developing our human capital, so that they can achieve the targets set forth in our management plan.

――What specific kinds of people is the ENEOS Group seeking?

Funo: The baseline is that each employee should become a professional and an authority in some field. To this end, the ENEOS Group provides employees with opportunities to enhance their skills, gain experience and grow. We’re looking for people who can boost results through this. Until now, employees were to take a passive approach to their tasks, thinking how to produce results at their given position in the company. But going forward, they’ll need to take a more proactive approach in their career development, and try to achieve targets by leveraging their own strengths.

――So the ENEOS Group’s HR development will change significantly. What do you think the role of a CHRO will be? CHRO stands for “Chief Human Resource Officer,” but how does that differ from an HR General Manager?

Funo: Since 2010, the ENEOS Group has had a structure in which the holding company is at the top and operating companies underneath it. During these 15 years, business has become borderless, changing the whole business environment dramatically. With this, demands from the society placed on us are also changing. When we thought about how we should manage the Group in the midst of these dramatic changes, we decided to gather the strengths of each operating company by fostering a greater sense of unity among them. In managing the whole Group as one, CHRO is responsible for the Group’s overall people strategy. People are valuable management assets, so I see the position of CHRO as a very important one. The CHRO has to think about how to leverage the capabilities of individuals and how to use them to improve the Group’s strengths and value. It’s different from an HR General Manager (hereinafter “GM”) in that, while of course an HR GM also thinks about people strategies, a CHRO formulates the Group’s overall people strategy from a more management strategy-oriented perspective. Then the HR GMs of operating companies and ENEOS Holdings follow, decide on, and implement detailed measures.

――I see. So what is the ENEOS Group’s people strategy you’ve mentioned?

Funo: We’ve formulated a human capital management framework (shown in the figure above) and shared it among the Group, led by our commitment to realize the Group Philosophy by supporting “today’s normal” and taking the lead for “tomorrow’s normal.” Our mission is to meet the demands of society and to support people’s "normal" lives. To continue serving the world in the midst of this changing business environment, we need to create a cycle of generating value by ourselves, using that value to meet the needs of society, and generating further value. To accomplish this, it’s important that we create an environment in which all of our employees enjoy good health, both psychologically and physically, and can perform at their best and use their potential fully. We are doing two things to achieve this. The first is to advance effective systems assigning the right job to the right person. The other is to foster a corporate culture where employees can work comfortably and with pride. The former hinges on job-based talent management focused on expertise, and on developing strong leaders who can overcome uncertain times. The keys to the latter are health, work environment, and job satisfaction.

――So it’s a two-pronged people strategy. In the future parts of this series, I’d like to delve into inside of this people strategy.

■Summary

This article discussed what was behind the ENEOS Group evolving from its traditional view of human resources as “management resources” to its modern view of them as “human capital,” and its transition to the human capital management approach of active investment in its people. This report covered the framework of the new people strategy and the types of people the Group is seeking. It also touched on the roles of the CHRO and how they differ from those of an HR GM. The next part will discuss the details of these strategies. Don’t miss it.

→Continued in Part 2: The Future Pioneered by the ENEOS Group: Our HR Strategy to Ensure Every Employee Performs Their Best - Part 2 | ENEOSWAYS | ENEOS Holdings