President’s Message

Words of a new employee changed my outlook on life

In June 2023, I became President and Representative Director of the WILL GROUP during the General Meeting of Shareholders. I joined SAINT MEDIA, INC. (now WILLOF WORK, Inc.) in 2003 and have held various roles in the Group, including General Manager of Sales, President and Representative Director of a group company, and General Manager of the HR Division and Director at WILL GROUP, where I currently work.

During my student days, I didn’t aspire to follow a traditional corporate career path; I had dreams of becoming a skateboarder or a rapper. I envisioned a future as a globe-trotting backpacker, earning money to fund luxurious trips with friends. To achieve this goal, I set targets: to become a company president by 30 and chairman by 40. I actively pursued job opportunities in industries with the potential for rapid career growth and found SAINT MEDIA. During my interviews, I expressed my ambition to start my own business by 30. SAINT MEDIA’s response was unique; they encouraged me to begin my entrepreneurial journey earlier, recognizing that my goal was quite common. This advice led me to join SAINT MEDIA with the aim of achieving exceptional results within five years.

In my third year at the company, which coincided with the founding of Will Holdings (now the WILL GROUP), Chairman Ryosuke Ikeda (at that time President Ikeda) emphasized the need for an HR department to facilitate growth, and gave me a copy of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, by Jim Collins and others. This book had a profound impact on me, igniting a strong desire in me to build a company capable of lasting across generations. Later, I took the initiative to create our Mission, Vision, and Value (MVV) as the basis of our HR department.

Let me recount an episode that perfectly represents the WILL GROUP’s culture and was a turning point in reshaping my dreams, work values, and perspective on life. We were in the process of defining our values during an internal meeting for a recruitment project. The theme for that year’s recruitment campaign was "Believe in Your Possibility," and as the meeting concluded with a motivating message for the year, about 30 attendees, including executives and managers, began to rise from their seats.

A recent female graduate, who had just started in the HR Department as one of the secretaries/clerks who were taking notes, unexpectedly shared her thoughts. She expressed the idea that the recruitment theme, "Believe in Your Possibility," resonates with the values of the entire organization, and that whether it was reaching out to clients despite a lack of prior achievements or building teams dedicated to delivering results, our shared belief in our potential and that of our colleagues is what drives us. She emphasized that this unwavering belief in our potential had brought us to where we were and that this was a value that we should preserve.

Igniting hearts and building a sustainable company

The WILL GROUP’s strengths and the creation of our desired business ecosystem

In the highly competitive field of human resources, where differentiation can be challenging, the WILL GROUP has identified the management abilities of field supporters (on-site managers) as one of our strengths.

For example, when a client needs 100 employees for their workplace, it’s rare for a single staffing agency to send out all 100 individuals. Instead, multiple staffing agencies will provide the necessary people. However, issues with staff members can arise every day, making it difficult for a client to contact every staffing agency separately. This is where our field supporter becomes invaluable: as the go-to person for consulting and coordinating within the workplace. The field supporter becomes the most reliable partner on-site and, as a result, the first point of contact for assistance. This has led to an increase in demand for WILL GROUP services, making us the preferred choice for clients.

The WILL GROUP’s ability to take this approach stems from our employees and field supporters emphasizing teambuilding and fostering positive relationships within the workplace. They place great importance on creating a comfortable and welcoming workplace that is more than just a place to work; they strive to make it a place that facilitates interaction and where employees can truly belong. By prioritizing the quality of relationships and human connections, we have built a proactive, reliable outsourcing organization, earning high praise from our clients.
Our ability to accomplish these objectives has been a result of our dedication to the recruitment process. During our selection process, we seek out individuals with a strong sense of emotional intelligence capable of keenly understanding others’ needs. These individuals, in return, foster a deep commitment to the WILL GROUP and a genuine fondness for our clients, enabling them to deliver peak performance on-site. We see this as a key strength.

We are also committed to creating mechanisms in the workforce that add value. For instance, we aspire to create a framework where individuals have the qualifications and career paths that are in demand within their environment and can consistently make choices about their future direction based on their own preferences and intentions.

I believe that temporary employment will increasingly become an appealing work option in the future. In the past, being a long-term employee at a well-known company was the more easily recognized and valued path. However, today’s work landscape has varied forms, including freelancing, and simply belonging to a company is no longer the sole measure for making an evaluation.
Unlike the traditional model, which highly prized long-term employment, today’s emphasis is on the level of personal freedom and the ability to make choices. Temporary employment, in this context, offers security against unemployment as long as the staffing agency continues to employ people even after their contract with the host company ends.
Compared with permanent roles, temporary employment provides greater flexibility with fewer compromises for life events and location. However, one limitation of temporary work is that what might appear to be career development does not always translate into genuine career growth.
Traditionally, distinct roles, like administrative and sales positions, had limited flexibility for transitioning between different job categories. I believe that when considering the career development of temporary staff, it’s essential to focus on the depth of their career. Depth, in this context, refers to the importance of gaining the types of skills that are in demand.
Someone who has been doing light work with a two-hour quality inspection task and then transitions to an administrative role without upgrading their skills isn’t experiencing career development; it’s merely changing jobs. This is because the individual might lack the necessary elements that will be in demand in the future, resulting in a lack of depth in their career.

In my view, career development occurs when individuals, driven by their interests and suitability for a particular role, are able to enter that role and then progress within it, where their contributions are genuinely valued. This essentially means transitioning from roles with limited depth to positions that offer greater expertise and opportunities. For instance, someone who previously worked in quality control at a food factory can acquire programming skills and embark on a career as an engineer, unbounded by constraints on their location. Similarly, a former call center operator can earn specialized certifications and step into a highly specialized role, such as a construction site project manager. The existing model where only companies benefit from the staffing industry has reached its limitations. To foster industry growth, it’s imperative that temporary staff can earn income in proportion to their hard work.

Some investors have labeled us as a conglomerate. Until a few years ago, I shared this concern about the diversification of our job categories. Today, as I look at the WILL GROUP, I see an even wider range of job categories. However, this diversity is what allows us to achieve what I consider real career development. The WILL GROUP’s strength lies in our ability to cover the broad job categories, both specialized and nonspecialized. This unique combination enables us to create a career path ecosystem in the business world, as we discussed earlier.

In the future, our goal is to keep growing this ecosystem and, ultimately, to introduce a method for placing individuals in the companies they want to work for. We hope to see scenarios where individuals transition to careers in fields that require depth, commonly thought to be inaccessible for those with minimal experience. Witnessing these changes is something we look forward to. I believe that individuals advancing in their careers and creating a more fluid job market can contribute to resolving societal issues, such as labor shortages and job mismatches.

Creating a society that believes in human possibility

We want you to believe in the possibilities with us. This is our message to all stakeholders. In comparison with other advanced nations, Japan invests less in human capital, has lower employee engagement, and the data suggests that employees lack motivation, have no intention to change jobs, and are not pursuing more education. I believe this is because Japanese society has not fully embraced the potential of its people. The question of what we need to do to make society have more faith in human potential is a challenge for our future. We must change the negative stance where children, when they grow up and enter society, have little hope.

Let’s remain optimistic and confident about overcoming challenges and proactively seek out our passions and aspirations. We are dedicated to shaping a society where everyone believes in their potential. Our core value, “Believe in Your Possibility,” drives our business inspiration. To realize this vision, we are committed to fostering a shift from negativity to positivity. We welcome your suggestions for what you would like to see from the WILL GROUP. Our employees genuinely value your feedback and the process of addressing it, which helps us grow. We invite you to have high expectations for the future of the WILL GROUP.