What is the "Career Ownership" Needed by Japanese Companies?

As the working population declines and the nature of employment undergoes significant change, how should individuals and organizations/companies build new relationships? And in this era of growing momentum for human capital management, what practical challenges do companies face?

Initiated by PERSOL Career and involving HR representatives from companies and organizations, the "Career Ownership and Future of Work Consortium" addresses these questions. What future of work is it envisioning and putting into practice? We spoke with three key figures who have consistently driven the consortium's activities from its inception: Professor Kensuke Tanaka of Hosei University, the consortium's Strategic Advisor; Takeshi Ito of PERSOL Career, the General Planning Producer; and Akihiko Fuchi, BX Director at Dentsu Inc.'s Business Transformation Division.

(From left) Akihiko Fuchi, Dentsu Inc.; Professor Kensuke Tanaka, Hosei University; Tsuyoshi Ito, PERSOL Career

<Table of Contents>
▼Career Ownership: "The Ace Up the Sleeve to Break Japan's Corporate Stagnation"

▼Leading Companies and Organizations Gather in Consortium for Discussion

▼Data-Driven Discussion Verifies Concrete Effects of Career Ownership

▼To Transform Japan's "Work," We Must Promote Career Ownership

Career Ownership is the "Ace Up the Sleeve to Break Through Japanese Companies' Stagnation"

Tanaka: Japanese companies show signs of institutional fatigue in their membership-based employment systems, which were designed assuming a workforce dominated by the "Ice Age Generation." As a solution, I propose developing human capital and career development. I believe the answer combining these two is career ownership. Since this involves many conceptual terms, let's break them down one by one.

First, human capital refers to the concept of treating the skills, abilities, and experience each employee possesses as capital. With the Cabinet Office ordinance mandating disclosure of human capital information starting in 2023, companies have begun discussing how to develop their people as capital and help them build their careers. This is where "career ownership" comes in.

Ito:Career ownership refers to the "mindset and actions" where individuals proactively engage with their own careers. It's a process that starts with one's curiosity and cherished values, involves taking stock of past work approaches, clarifying the vision for how one wants to work going forward, and translating that into concrete actions. Simultaneously, I see it as a broader concept that includes "harmony with others" – building the necessary relationships with colleagues and the company to realize one's career goals .

Source: Our Mission | PERSOL CAREER
https://www.persol-career.co.jp/mission_value/

Ito: At PERSOL Career, while upholding our mission of "empowering people to make 'work' their own," we wanted to initiate initiatives that hold meaning precisely because they are undertaken by PERSOL Career.

• We aim to enable more individuals to take the first step toward realizing their envisioned "work," fostering diverse, authentic careers.
• Enhance "healthy talent mobility within and outside the company," improve individual work well-being, and create social impact that contributes to Japan's economic growth.

With these two points in mind, I explored mission-driven actions that would contribute to establishing long-term competitive advantage and creating/expanding markets. Through dialogues with numerous experts and corporate HR professionals, we discovered that even before "human capital management" gained prominence, many companies had already implemented various initiatives to cultivate "self-driven, autonomous employees" and "employees who approach work with initiative." At the same time, we observed the reality that many practical challenges exist, such as "corporate culture and workplace climate" and "the limitations of company-led initiatives to promote autonomy."

Amidst this context, the idea for the "Career Ownership and Future of Work Consortium" emerged as a community for practicing human capital management. Based on Professor Ikujiro Nonaka's SECI model framework for knowledge creation theory , this initiative aims to maximize human capital. It involves pooling and formalizing each company's latest expertise in career development support, internal talent mobility know-how, tacit knowledge, practical challenges, and solutions. Companies then take these back to implement internally. Subsequently, the new tacit knowledge and practical challenges emerging from these implementations are shared, creating further formalized knowledge to accelerate the practice.

Ito: When establishing the practice community, we decided to promote the concept of "career ownership" rather than the term "autonomy," which companies had traditionally used to describe their ideal employee profile. This was because "career ownership" was not yet widely recognized or clearly defined at the time, and we aimed to build relationships where both individuals and companies could jointly pursue the same vision of "the future of work."

Fuchi: Dentsu Inc. has been responsible for the overall design of the consortium activities, supporting some subcommittee activities, and editing and planning the "Future of Work White Paper" that compiles the consortium's outcomes. We also developed the "Career Ownership Management Index," a tool enabling companies and organizations to assess their own implementation levels. Through discussions on practical challenges brought by participating companies and organizations, we came to realize the necessity of rebuilding the relationship between individuals and companies centered on career ownership. We constantly considered how to achieve breakthroughs on this shared challenge and establish it as a practical theory for corporate and organizational transformation.

Ito: Historically speaking, I believe Japan's approach to "work" has evolved in a unique way. During the high-growth era, lifetime employment, seniority-based systems, and mass hiring of new graduates became widespread, forming a social climate where companies tended to take greater responsibility for their employees compared to Western societies. Regarding learning after entering the workforce, Europe offers substantial support from the state and professional communities, while the US has systems designed around individualism. Japan, however, fits neither of these models. Even in today's Japan, where the "lifetime employment system has collapsed," companies still bear significant responsibility for fostering individuals' mid-to-long-term career development and career ownership.

T anaka: Exactly. When individuals and organizations collaborate to support employee careers and enhance organizational engagement, it directly contributes to business growth. Against this backdrop, I believe career ownership is the trump card philosophy for Japanese companies.

Leading companies and organizations gather in the consortium to exchange ideas

Ito: While the fourth-term consortium now includes 48 leading Japanese companies and organizations, we started from scratch when we launched.

Source: Career Ownership and the Future of Work Research Group (Phase 1)
Session 2: Exploring "HR and Talent Challenges and Needs" from a Management and Business Perspective
https://co-consortium.persol-career.co.jp/article/2021/07/01/index.html

Ito: Looking back at the reports and graphic recordings from those discussions, you can see the step-by-step journey we took to define what a world with career ownership actually looks like, and what HR can do to achieve it. Initially, we focused on groundwork discussions like "Which department should take responsibility and what should they do?" and "Is it possible to measure effectiveness or create metrics to determine if career ownership is being realized?"

Tanaka: During Phase 1, we relied heavily on the secretariat at Persol Career and Dentsu Inc. for many tasks, such as reaching out to participating companies and organizations and organizing the agenda. I believe that having defined outputs created the fertile ground for participating companies and organizations to focus their discussions.

I myself published "Practicing Career Ownership: 20 Action Guidelines to Foster Sustainable Growth for Individuals and Organizations" last year. This achievement was made possible by the practical work and research of this consortium.

Verifying the concrete effects of career ownership through data-driven discussions

Ito: The "Career Ownership and the Future of Work Consortium" achieved two key outcomes. First, we advanced career ownership based on data and concrete practices. Rather than discussing idealistic theories about career ownership, we delved into the question: "When specific measures like career ownership, side jobs, and cross-organizational collaboration both inside and outside the company take root, do they actually contribute to business outcomes like company sales and profits?" We had participating companies and organizations analyze this.

Tanaka: The clearest results emerged during the fourth phase held this year. For details, please refer to the " Working Future White Paper 2025." This phase saw the cumulative efforts of previous phases bear significant fruit. Most importantly , we were able to demonstrate a clear correlation: promoting career ownership does lead to business contributions.

Ito: Another key outcome was proposing various practical methods, starting with cross-company employee exchanges for mutual side jobs. We also identified effective strategies for addressing common challenges across companies and organizations: developing the managerial layer, creating quick reference guides, conducting effective 1-on-1s, building reskilling communities, creating roadmaps for fostering and adapting corporate culture, and methods for connecting HR with other departments.

Additionally, proposals reflecting more on-the-ground challenges emerged, such as approaches for operations prioritizing stable management (e.g., manufacturing, logistics) and methods for instilling a career ownership culture across generations. We also produced a document titled "107 Action Items for Career Ownership Management," which comprehensively covers specific HR measures being implemented by consortium member companies/organizations and Career Ownership Management AWARD winners.

Source: "Working Future White Paper 2024 Supplement: 107 Measures for Career Ownership Management - 2024 EDITION -" Released
https://co-consortium.persol-career.co.jp/report/hakusyo20240716_uchite107/index.html

Tanaka: The "Career Ownership and Future of Work Consortium" operates closer to the field than academic circles. We encourage companies and organizations to implement measures based on this data, then bring their results together for further refinement. In Phase 4, we've already tackled second-cycle challenges like "Overcoming New Barriers Emerged After Promoting Career Ownership Internally."

Source: Working Future White Paper 2024

Fuchi: That's right. Speaking of "second-cycle challenges," as we promoted the development and utilization of career ownership talent, a common practical issue across companies became clear: the usefulness of initiatives reaches a certain saturation point and becomes hollow.

We expect that identifying concrete measures and practical hypotheses to shift the mindset and behavior of the majority—who constitute the bulk of the organization—beyond just the small segment already embodying high career ownership, will offer significant insights for employees across participating companies and organizations. Furthermore, it has become clear that revising systems and initiatives based on each individual's "work values" is the key to organizational management that can cultivate and utilize career ownership talent, thereby revitalizing the effectiveness of these measures.

Underpinning these outcomes is the operational model for promoting career ownership—"See, Increase, Connect"—developed from Phase 1 activities. By proposing this as a movement theory that balances individual growth support with strategic policy design, we achieved a major result: practical implementation emerged both within the consortium activities and in the operational settings of participating companies and organizations. This involved identifying challenges, designing countermeasures, implementing them swiftly, and then pinpointing the next challenges.

Ito: Exactly. Furthermore, as the consortium secretariat accompanying participants' proactive discussions, I observed that participants themselves developed greater career ownership and grew into key figures driving change within their own companies. Even participants who initially waited for leadership instructions to decide responsibilities were, by the end, raising their hands to lead study groups and proposing practical measures to implement within their own companies.

I believe the consortium's structure—designed and implemented starting in Phase 2, where participants themselves set discussion topics, formulate hypotheses, conduct research, and synthesize findings—is functioning as a "cross-boundary, collaborative inquiry learning space for HR professionals."

Fuchi: That's right. It's not just about discussing and proposing practical methods for career ownership management; it's also about cultivating HR professionals who take ownership to implement and drive these practices within their own companies. Then, they bring back the results of their implementation and the next challenges they face, creating the next breakthrough. This transformation, which can be seen as an update to the HR OS with the consortium as its hub, has also contributed to the consortium's centripetal force.

To transform Japan's "work" culture, we must deepen the adoption of career ownership.

Tanaka: Historically, HR matters were kept confidential and not shared with other companies. Now, large corporations are opening up, sharing their challenges, and jointly seeking solutions. I believe the HR professionals participating in this process also feel their own lives have been enriched. After participating, they can become "Career Producers" within their own companies, driving and embedding career ownership.

Moreover, career ownership is never confined to the workplace alone. It can be applied in children's PTA groups or neighborhood associations. It's about gaining a life axis that enables growth at any age – that is career ownership.

Fuchi: Within our consortium activities, there is only one fundamental question we must address: "What is the axis that allows individuals and companies to align their direction?" We believe one answer lies in "career ownership" – the relationship between working individuals and their companies – and we advance our activities based on this conviction.

Ito: In the near future, an era will arrive where everyone can determine their own career path. It's a future where people work by their own will, much like self-employed individuals. Within this context, I believe companies and organizations that promote career ownership management will become entities continuously chosen both internally and externally. I feel we are just one step away from the Career Ownership and Future of Work Consortium's initiatives having an even greater impact on society. To realize a society where individuals and organizations grow together continuously, I intend to continue leading these activities.

Career Ownership and the Future of Work Consortium Official Website
Read the "Future of Work White Paper 2025" summarizing our latest achievements
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