Newsletter : The Global Personnel Scheme Enhancing Yamaha Motor's Strengths --Expanding Employee Opportunities to Excel through the Yamaha Assignment Policy--

Yamaha Motor conducts business in more than 180 countries and territories around the world through over 100 local group companies. If including subsidiaries located in Japan, the company employs more than 50,000 people.
The Yamaha Assignment Policy (YAP) is a new personnel transfer scheme devised from a global perspective to assign the right people to the right position at the right time, and was created to further enhance the company's strengths by facilitating personnel exchanges and transfers across national borders.

■Borderless Placement of the Right People In the Right Positions at the Right Time

Hailing from the Philippines, Ian Andrada stands next to YZF-R15M--one of the models he is working on--as he explains what he does in Japan at Yamaha Motor headquarters: "To use a baseball analogy, working in the Philippines sometimes gave me chances to hit a home run. But here at the headquarters, it's a much larger organization, so I feel that it's more important to step up to the plate as a batter, get on base, and contribute to the team. As you repeat that process, you gain the trust of the 'team' and your chance to shine will come. I personally want to move forward step by step so that I can someday stand shoulder to shoulder with other 'Yamaha man' front-line specialists I've long looked up to."
　Andrada was transferred from Yamaha's group company in the Philippines to Motorcycle Business Operations in Japan through the Yamaha Assignment Policy (YAP) global personnel transfer scheme, and is now in his second year as a planner in the Product Planning Division for sportbikes.
　YAP was introduced in 2020 in order to place the right people in the right position at the right time, regardless of national borders. "There are countless examples of Japanese employees being stationed at major overseas subsidiaries," explains Russian native Yury Panteleev (right in the cover photo) from the Global Human Resources Division, "But this scheme encourages other people to transfer not only from said subsidiaries to Japan, but also inter-subsidiary transfers and exchanges. The COVID-19 pandemic struck right after we launched YAP and that slowed things down, but as people have become able to move and travel freely again, I'm confident such global HR exchanges will become more and more common." 

■Global Personnel Exchanges Further Strengthen the Company

There are several variations with international personnel transfers through YAP, such as a request for staff from a company overseas or a company seeking to send staff abroad to better foster their talents.
　"My case was the latter," says Andrada. "Since our Philippines operation has little in terms of development responsibilities, the scope of the product planning department's role is quite limited. We primarily add color schemes or change the specs of models planned, developed, and manufactured in other countries in order to comply with local laws and regulations. I've always hoped to challenge myself by planning a product from the outset, working on a project from scratch. My transfer to Japan was decided based on the perspective that such skills and knowledge will definitely be needed in my home country of the Philippines." The scheduled duration of Andrada's assignment in Japan is three years.
　In a different example, Hendri Wijaya (pictured above) was appointed Senior General Manager of Yamaha Motor Australia's Sales & Marketing Division with his personnel transfer from Indonesia. Although the characteristics of the two markets are completely different, Indonesia has enjoyed great success with the 3S (Sales, Service, Spare Parts) Concept it rolled out for its sales network. Australia is implementing a similar approach with its Customer for Life Strategy and achieving great results.
　Since his time working in the HR department at Yamaha Motor's Russian subsidiary, Panteleev had been advocating the necessity of this kind of arrangement to the headquarters, and he has big expectations for more dynamic human resource exchanges across national borders. "We finally made it a reality. I'm confident that the active and global movement of our people throughout the company will serve to make it even stronger in the future."