SustainabilityHuman resource development

TOCALO has identified cultivating and activating diverse human resources as a material priority in terms of achieving sustainable growth. We respect diverse perspectives and values and conduct ability-based recruitment of human resources focused on capabilities and achievements, irrespective of gender or nationality. In addition to human resource development, we also strive to create workplace environments where employees can express their individuality and capabilities while enjoying their work.

Please see the “Long-term vision and materiality” page for more information about our material issues.

We seek individuals who will embody our corporate mottos of Technology & Ideas, Youth & Passion, Harmony & Reliability, and Good Service and seek to take them to a new level.

We aim to be the best partner for our clients by creating value with our surface modification technologies. To achieve this, we must cultivate personnel with the ability to work autonomously in the four key areas of reinforcing our market development, reinforcing our technological development, enhancing the sophistication of our manufacturing, and realizing sustainable growth to become a 100-year company. We accordingly provide various growth opportunities to employees to bring out their potential and motivation and support the advancement of their careers.

1. Improve proposal-based sales capabilities to provide optimal solutions

   We strengthen our proposal-based sales capabilities so we can provide optimal solutions to diverse customer needs. We do this by providing employees with opportunities to join projects in our priority fields and our conference where employees give presentations about actual business case examples so they can expand their specialized knowledge and learn from actual application cases.

2. Encourage ingenuity in manufacturing and solidifying our foundation (personnel development)

   We encourage thinking creatively about ways to improve manufacturing efficiency so we can both provide coatings designed to individual customer specifications and increase our production capacity. One of the ways we do this is through initiatives to improve manufacturing, including holding QA-presentation competitions. We also have mechanisms (personnel development) to ensure work processes are performed according to specifications and procedure manuals, which are overseen and supervised by a foreman.

3. Continuously enhancing quality control

   A quality management system is of fundamental importance to our business because of the extreme difficulty confirming the quality of a coating after it has been applied. To maintain strict control of the coating application process, we encourage employees to obtain skills that will further improve our quality control systems, including earning quality control certification (QC Kentei) and non-destructive inspection engineer qualifications.

4. Cultivate a corporate culture with a flexible approach to technology development

   The technology report presentation competitions and technical conferences we hold for employees are events that embody our Technology & Ideas motto. We foster a corporate culture that creates enthusiasm for technological development and flexible thinking unbound by pre-existing concepts.

5. Provide digital education and selecting DX human resources

   Digitalization and DX are important to improving the productivity and quality of all operations. We are implementing digital education to raise the digital literacy (the ability to understand and use it) throughout our organization. We are also selecting and training individuals as DX human resources who can use data and digital technology to lead to innovation.

6. Cultivate strategic thinking by broadening perspectives with a global experience program

   We are launching a new global experience program to develop human resources who will lead not only our global expansion but also for our corporate development in the long term. The program is intended to broaden the perspectives and nurture the strategic thinking of highly motivated employees.

Fiscal 2026 was our fourth year of activities under the global experience program, which TOCALO first introduced in fiscal 2023. The goal of this program is to train people who bring global perspectives to strategic business development in Japan or overseas. Participation is voluntary and open to all employees. A total of 10 people were enrolled as of fiscal 2025.

Participants deepen their understanding of global business through approximately one year of training with TOCALO divisional general managers acting as instructors. For employees who are motivated to achieve personal growth and take on the challenge of overseas business, the program offers an opportunity to build knowledge and experience. Alumni apply the experience that they gain through the training to their work activities. They also develop broader perspectives and achieve growth as business people with global skills.

Digitalization and digital transformation (DX) have become vital tools for improving productivity and quality across all of our business activities. We see the improvement of employees’ digital literacy and their ability to use data in their work as vital to TOCALO’s future competitiveness. We therefore provide extensive digital education opportunities on a company-wide basis to enable employees to understand and use digital technology. We have also prioritized the training of digital talent who can use data and digital technology to create new value and drive business transformation and innovation. We have established a cross-organizational problem-solving structure centered on DX promotion core members selected through a company-wide open recruitment process, and DX promotion team members chosen from candidates at each business site. The DX promotion team is now working on various priorities, including the realization of our smart factory concept, which involves factory automation and labor-saving measures, and the use of AI and IoT systems to streamline business processes and reduce energy consumption.

Our human resource development policy is to actively invest in developing and strengthening the human resources we need to become the best partner for our customers. TOCALO Co., Ltd. invested a total of ¥77 million, or ¥69,700 per employee, in employee education in fiscal 2025.

We will maintain a comfortable work environment for all employees so that they can express their individuality and abilities and achieve harmony between their work and private lives.

1. Foster corporate culture with psychological safety

   Foster an open corporate culture where all employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions and feelings and where everyone is supportive of taking on challenges.

2. Maintain and improve a comfortable work environment, including health and safety

   We ensure employee workplace safety and health in accordance with the Labor Standards Act and the Industrial Safety and Health Act and strive to maintain a clean, functional, and people-friendly working environment.
   Please see Occupational safety and health for details.

3. Provide equal-opportunity career advancement and merit-based evaluations

   We actively employ human resources with various attributes (nationality, age, presence or absence of disabilities) who can feel motivated to work to their full potential. We promote the active participation of women. We provide equal opportunity for career advancement and merit-based evaluations.
   Please see Diversity Promotion Activities and Human resource development for details.

4. Support employees balancing work with childcare and nursing care

   We provide career assurance to employees who are raising children or providing nursing care by offering and disseminating information about our temporary leave, holidays, shortened work hours, and other programs. We also take steps to maintain the understanding and cooperation of superiors and others in the workplace.
   Please see Supporting work-life balance for details.

5. Create a workplace environment allowing flexible work styles and healthy work activity

   We strive to provide and develop flexible work structures (work locations, hours) and to create a work environment where employees can physically and mentally work in a healthy manner. We believe that a flexible and healthy work environment improves productivity and enables work-life balance.
   Please see Supporting work-life balance for details.

6. Provide learning opportunities and establish an award program

   We provide a variety of learning opportunities for employees to improve their work skills and advance their personal development. We also created an award system to stimulate employee motivation.
   Please see Human resource development for details.