Talent development

At Mizuho in Japan, we have launched a new HR framework, "CANADE", covering five of our group companies. It is designed to allow for strategic development of management candidates and business leaders and for flexible allocation of personnel by linking our business strategy with our human resources strategy. The foundation of this is our people being their full selves at work, which in turn allows them to find fulfillment in their growth, feel a sense of purpose in working at Mizuho, and further their professional skills. Towards these ends, through our career development management we are providing our people with even greater opportunities to learn and to take on the challenges necessary for developing their own individual careers.

Further information

ESG data: Talent development (PDF/810KB)

Development of future leaders

Executive leadership development

Given the fast-paced changes and uncertainty in the business environment, developing personnel who will lead our business is critical to Mizuho's sustainable growth. We have set a human capital KPI of being able to maintain our pool of future executive leadership candidates at two times or more the number of executive officers by FY2025. As part of this, we are seeking to identify potential candidates at an early stage. Employees we have identified as candidates enter our "Aoi Program", a job grade-specific program for developing management personnel. The program aims to promote discontinuous, enduring behavioral change by providing candidates with multiple assignments. Candidates go through a repeating cycle of learning, experiencing growth in stretch assignments, and engaging in self-reflection with the help of evaluation feedback.

Executive leadership development initiatives

Business leadership development

Starting in FY2023, Mizuho set KPIs corresponding to the five business focus areas of its growth strategy in order to enhance development in personnel/skill categories tied to advancing our presence in each of the areas. A cross-functional Human Resources Strategy Council regularly monitors the gap between the desired talent portfolio required for sustained implementation of the growth strategy and the current talent pool. The council ensures the recruitment, development, and reassignment of personnel to close the gaps in an agile manner.

Business leadership development enhancement structure

Digital transformation personnel development

Mizuho has positioned digital transformation as a growth strategy and is promoting it throughout the company. We are doing this by increasing our sensitivity to new technologies and business trends and actively utilizing external resources, with the perspective of customers and users as a starting point. In FY2023, we launched a group-wide digital transformation employee development program to encourage all employees to gain knowledge and skills in digital transformation, as well as to nurture talent with more advanced expertise in the digital domain. The program is one component of achieving the quantitative targets we have set for human capital KPIs, which include those for "Digital transformation personnel who have high-level digital expertise and are capable of leading clients' and Mizuho's business transformation" and "Digital transformation basics personnel who are literate in digital transformation and are capable of applying it to their own work." We will advance digital transformation by developing core personnel who will take the lead in driving our digital transformation strategy forward and by improving the digital literacy of all our employees.

Global business leadership development

We are committed to developing talent capable of increasing the recognition of Mizuho in the global arena and of driving business with insight into local markets. We actively assign employees hired in Japan to our offices in other locations so that they can become more familiar with advanced financial technology and adept at making high-level proposals. This practice enhances our global business. In addition, we also support our employees' self-led learning through our Study Abroad Program, which sends employees to graduate schools outside Japan so that they can gain expertise and a global mindset while also developing valuable business networks, and our Language Study Support Program, which provides subsidies for those learning a foreign language.

Further information

ESG Databook (Human Capital KPIs) (PDF/810KB)

Career development management to enable individual employees to reach their full potential at work

Regardless of age or job title, individual employees need to take the initiative to learn more and to meet challenges, while also sharing their professional objectives and goals with the company, if they are to build their own careers and grow with Mizuho. We seek to provide careers that benefit both employees and Mizuho by helping employes make the most of their potential through three steps: “knowing oneself”, “thinking about one’s career together with the company” and “developing one’s career together with the company”. This initiative, which we refer to as “career development management,” offers career support interventions in light of the career stage of each employee, including opportunities for effective learning challenges, regular conversations between the employee and the company (as represented by their supervisor or HR), relevant feedback on the goal they should attain and the expertise they should acquire, and communication to support growth. These effectively facilitate the motivation and growth of the employee.

Career development management initiatives

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Management development enhancement initiatives

We are seeking to further improve the skills of those in middle management, who serve as a channel of communication between the company and employees. If we are to encourage self-driven endeavors and growth and reward contributions, middle management must be able to measure employee growth and provide appropriate feedback on strengths and weaknesses, as well as advice on meeting challenges. We strive to ensure that such feedback leads to an environment where employees with a variety of backgrounds and experiences can feel that their strengths, capabilities, and personalities are respected; can be physically and mentally fulfilled; and can recognize their own growth and development. Towards that end, we offer training programs for all supervisors to enable them to develop conversational skills for personal engagement and assessment skills for fairness and equity. Given the importance of transforming attitudes and behavior amid changes in roles, we have also reinforced training for new managers. Also, we are strengthening managerial skills at both the individual and organizational levels by encouraging managers to review their own challenges and ideas about organizational management, in light of the results of Middle Management 360 feedback.

Digital learning and development platform "M–Nexus"

"M–Nexus" is a digital, group-wide platform that serves as the foundation for individual employees to collect career information, learn autonomously, and meet challenges to realize their own career, based on their own aspirations. As part of the critical infrastructure supporting career development, M-Nexus serves as the starting point for individual learning and growth. The platform also offers a wide range of functions to assist in career design, including e-learning for self-development, information on Mizuho employees engaged in various fields and departments, application for various training programs and internal job openings, and a database of expertise such as individual experience and skills. We are working to provide personalized career design support through talent management that leverages the tracking and visualization of each employee's learning and development.

Support for self-driven endeavors and growth

In addition to supporting the growth and application of employees’ expertise through roles in various fields of business, we also provide diverse opportunities for learning, including various training programs and support for self-development, both in and outside Mizuho.

Open recruitment programs

One way in which we help our employees further their professional development while on the job is by offering a wide variety of education programs. These diverse programs offer opportunities for a vast number of employees to gain knowledge and experience outside their everyday work. In doing so, they enable employees to develop their skills and overcome their challenges through their own initiative. Some examples of programs include the Industry Exchange Training Program, in which employees take part in group work with next-generation leaders at other companies in order to improve their own leadership skills; the Instructor Challenge Program, in which employees interested in education take on instructor roles in orienting new employees; and the Action Learning Program, in which employees with a range of backgrounds come together to create new business and solutions.

Internal job posting system / Internal concurrent assignments

As a platform for employees to build their own careers, this system allows employees to apply for other jobs throughout the group so that they can construct their own careers and obtain increasingly specialized capabilities. Every year some 300 positions are posted, including assignments to Mizuho offices outside Japan and secondments to consulting firms and leading manufacturers. The varied positions attract applications from employees at a wide range of stages in their careers. In FY2023, we also launched the Job Challenge Program, which allows employees to join the section in which they are most interested even when the section does not have an internal job posting out. In addition, we have a concurrent assignment program with positions available both within and outside the Mizuho group. These concurrent assignments allow employees to apply the skills and abilities gained through self-development in a position of their choice, while maintaining their current duties, as a way to expand their potential and deepen their expertise.

External part-time work

We have introduced an external part-time work system to offer employees the opportunity to start and operate their own businesses outside of Mizuho work hours. Stepping outside of Mizuho to leverage off-work hours and engage in new areas of business leads to a range of new experiences and discoveries, and ultimately promotes the growth of our employees as business people.

Further information

ESG data: Talent development (PDF/810KB)

Provision of individualized learning opportunities

In addition to on-the-job support for furthering and leveraging expertise in each business area, we have enhanced the provision of a wide range of learning opportunities and increased investment in employee education, defining upskilling and reskilling at Mizuho as ongoing learning and practice by employees seeking to build their own skills and careers.

Upskilling programs

In today’s fast-changing world where knowledge and skills rapidly become obsolete, we organize regular training sessions for individual employees to identify gaps in their knowledge and skills, then improve those skills as necessary on an ongoing basis. For example, we organized upskilling training in computers to further operational efficiency, automation, and statistical analysis and upskilling training in portable skills to improve ideation, leadership, communication and self-management. The trainings were attended by a total of 5,000 employees in FY2022. We also hold, industry exchange training under an open recruitment program, which allows our employees to increase their ideation, problem-solving, leadership and other key skills by solving social issues and (co) creating new business with members of leading companies other than Mizuho.

Reskilling programs

We provide a selection of opportunities and learning tools to employees aligned with their individual levels of experience. These range from basic knowledge and skills to cutting-edge expertise. The e-learning program on the digital platform M-Nexus offers a breadth of high-quality content from external learning services for employees to study recent business trends, sustainability, IT/digital areas, and the liberal arts anytime, anywhere. We also offer remote education courses with curated, specialized topics for self-paced learning, alongside a variety of programs supporting self-development in line with the learning style and career stage of the learner. Among such offerings is assistance for gaining formal qualifications or taking remote learning courses.

Studying with colleagues at internal employee-led seminars

As a platform for group learning and voluntary self-development efforts by employees, we have a group-wide program called "BE; Teachers", in which employees with diverse backgrounds and expertise volunteer to serve as trainers and convey their knowledge and skills to their colleagues. Internal speakers sharing their experiential insights and know-how across the group helps employees improve their own expertise and promotes an organizational culture that encourages people to learn from one another. In FY2022, we held eight courses with participation from 1,237 employees in total.

Professional development leave

We have established a new system that allows employees to take leave for a set period to focus on learning outside Mizuho. This enables them to deepen their expertise or update their knowledge in graduate level and other types of schools and external programs. The perspectives and experience they obtain from outside the organization foster the growth of other employees and Mizuho overall.

Support for employess to take charge of their careers

We offer a variety of opportunities and support programs to help our employees proactively design their future careers.

Career design programs

We are supporting our employees in planning their own careers in line with the multiple career options available within Mizuho and with the roles they are expected to play. At the end of their first year at Mizuho, new graduate hires attend a group–wide training program to verbalize their career perspectives. In addition, all employees have access to a variety of career design support programs, including a generational career planning program with group discussion and e–learning on ideas and methodologies for career development.

Departmental briefings

To help our employees develop their own careers, we provide them with opportunities to learn about the wide range of career fields available to them. We organize briefing sessions covering topics such as the operation of different departments (divisions), the features of specific jobs, the types of personnel being sought in particular areas, and required expertise. Session attendees then meet with members of relevant departments. We also post documents and videos about the briefings and departments to M-Nexus, a group-wide digital platform, to facilitate access to career information.

Career advisor consulting system

This system provides employees with opportunities to consult with a career advisor about balancing longer-term career development with changes in one’s personal situation, such as marriage, childbirth, parenting, and caring for an aging family member. Through dialogue, employees can receive advice on fulfilling their potential from nationally certified career advisors, in line with their career stage and individual career goals.