Aiming for ¥1 trillion in sales; HR for unparalleled business growth 

––– Tomokazu Doizumi was formerly the head of the human resources department at SHIFT and has known Yosuke Sugahara for a long time, but for our readers, could you tell us about your career history? 

Doizumi: Yes. I joined a major human resource service company as a new graduate. In that role, I gained a wide range of experience, mainly in sales of temporary staffing services, along with placement, outplacement, outsourcing, and promotion of various other projects.  

However, and this ties into the theme of this article, I felt frustrated that I could not play an active part in the careers of the people I worked with after they were hired. 

To become an HR consultant or an HR manager? I chose the latter because I could communicate directly with employees and feel their firsthand experience.  

I wanted to learn all aspects of HR over a short period, so I moved to istyle, a fast-growing venture company with about 70 employees at the time, and was involved in launching a JV immediately after joining. 

The new company was established with about 30 employees from several companies, and from the very first year, I participated in hiring new graduates and mid-career professionals while also creating a unique personnel system. 

After working there for three years, I returned to istyle and experienced a variety of things as the head of HR, from the launch of the human resources department to IPO, establishment of overseas offices, and M&A. The organization had grown to about 1,500 employees by the time I left. 

––– You seem to be a fierce HR leader. Is this the point in your career when you joined SHIFT?  

Doizumi: Yes, although I worked for a rapidly growing company for 13 years, I had only one experience in human resources.

So when I wanted to see a company in a different industry with more than 1,500 employees that was still rapidly growing, SHIFT was the only place I could go (laughs).  

It can be difficult to immediately see the contribution of human resource policies to the business.

Even if you strengthen training, the results will not be visible for several years.

Even if you implement engagement measures and organizational development, it is hard to see the results.  

One of the main reasons I joined SHIFT was that I felt that its business model, in which human resources and business management meshed together very nicely, was a great fit.

Human resource policies have an impact on business growth. I was very interested in why the two gears work well together. 

Sugahara: At that time, sales were still less than 20 billion yen. 

Doizumi: And yet you were saying that you were aiming for sales of 1 trillion yen.

It was certainly a blue ocean with great potential, but from the perspective of the human resources world, it was a very unique and cutting-edge venture.

Nowadays, the term “human capital management” is widely used but it seemed to me that SHIFT was pursuing extremely high business goals and human resources to achieve them from that time onward.  

Sugahara: I am glad to hear that. The idea of investing in people has been around since the company was founded. After joining SHIFT, did you see how HR and business management are linked?  

Doizumi: What I felt was at the root of the linkage between the two was thorough data utilization and problem-solving in operations.

I would say we are trying to take something that tends to be ambiguous or qualitative and use a thoroughly scientific approach, turning it into a simple equation. 

We have a proprietary talent management system called Hitolog, which stores personal data on about 450 metrics, including the career and aspirations of all employees, along with their club activities and history of awards won during their time at SHIFT. 

Generally speaking, even if you can create a framework, it ends up being just a pipe dream.

However, the company not only analyzes the data in Hitolog but considers it down the operational level, implements measures, looks back, and makes improvements, all at a very high speed. 

Speaking of thoroughness, SHIFT also aims for a 100% e-Learning participation rate. 

Interviews with all employees to gather input 

Sugahara: What are you doing in your current position to create happiness for employees, which is also the theme of this discussion? 

Doizumi: We are currently in the process of creating a new policy. Until now, our business has been growing steadily without putting much effort into organizational development.

However, in the past year, new businesses and services have launched one after another, and the organization has suddenly become more complex.  

That has naturally led to a demand for more sophisticated businesses. It’s not a gentle growth curve but rather a vertical staircase with large steps to climb. 

Therefore, we must adapt our human resources and organization to accommodate growth, and we must also update our cultural infrastructure. It is a full-scale, holistic reform. 

The first thing we did was to set up an HRBP organization to strengthen alignment between the business strategy and HR strategy and to gather input through interviews with all employees. 

While each level of employee naturally has different issues, the most common concerns voiced by front-line employees were career related.  

Since our company is dedicated to expanding the career possibilities of people around the world, we felt that these were the issues we should address first and foremost. 

For example, we have introduced a career challenge system that allows employees to transfer within the company if they raise their hands, increasing career options across the group companies.

We have expanded the range of offerings for “where you can move to” by updating the organizational structure or creating organizations in areas where functionality is lacking or needs supplementation. 

As a base, we also established a career consultation service. It provides opportunities for human resources to address employees’ concerns and encourage them to take on new challenges.

I believe that this has played a role in improving employee engagement and helps foster an ambitious company culture. 

Sugahara: I see. It seems that you value the voices of employees more than anything else.  

(Note: The contents of this article and the affiliations of the interviewees are as of the time of the interview.)