Noting that its diverse group of companies were operating in silos, Hitachi’s then Chairman and CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi envisioned making Hitachi “a major global player by leveraging the power of Hitachi’s superior technology, our 270,000 employees, and co-creating with our customers.”
At the core of this vision was “One Hitachi,” made possible by a unified HR system that could track human resources globally. The first step in making this a reality was constructing a Global Human Capital database to consolidate the data of all Hitachi Group employees. The company also established the “Hitachi Global Grade” for ranking manager-level and above positions worldwide, along with standard development management frameworks.
Finally, to consolidate independent solutions into a single scalable system, Hitachi implemented a talent management platform powered by Workday.
Introducing a growth mindset.
When Hitachi first began implementing Workday, the team faced several challenges, including resistance to changing pre-existing work methods. To help the business adapt, the team created six guiding principles for Workday implementation:
- Think Global: adopt Workday suggested best practices
- Make Quick Decisions: project teams follow final management decisions
- 80/20: prioritize the solving of critical issues
- Remove Roadblocks: exercise caution and take calculated risks
- Embrace Change: don’t cling to pre-existing processes and methods
- Think of the Greater Good: focus on One Hitachi’s benefits rather than individual company or local interests
“I know that in Japan ‘perfection’ is preferred but it’s not realistic,” says Corporate Officer and Deputy CHRO Imtiaz Shaikh, who leads global HR strategy at Hitachi. Shaikh believes that if there are standard methods serving as best practices, adopting them will ultimately lead to greater benefits for the company.
Now, building on the powerful experience of implementing Workday, Hitachi aims to create a culture with a growth mindset where people embrace failures as opportunities to learn.
End-to-end talent management across the global group.
When Workday was first implemented at Hitachi, the platform only had 3,000 users. But within a year that number had grown to 42,000. Today, the Workday HR platform is used by more than 270,000 Hitachi employees across 550 companies in 68 countries.
The platform has continued to evolve at Hitachi, including the construction of a global recruitment website and updating of talent management functions, global expense reimbursement and learning systems, user experience optimization, and the addition of a data-quality program.
Next, Hitachi plans to leverage AI to implement continuous talent management from hiring to retirement and to better understand the value that each employee can bring to the company.