The Japanese labour market is currently at a major turning point, particularly among highly educated people, and is becoming increasingly fluid. From the perspective of companies on the demand side, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain traditional Japanese-style employment practices such as lump-sum graduate recruitment, lifetime employment and seniority-based wages, etc. In 2019, Mr Nakanishi, then chairman of Nippon Keidanren, referred to this issue, stating that 'it will be difficult for companies to continue lifetime employment in the future'. Correspondingly, from the perspective of individuals on the supply side, according to NLI Research Institute (2020), young people tend to be more 'career-focused' and less 'workplace-loyal'. As a result, a survey by the PERSOL Research and Consulting (2022) also found that "there is a noticeable trend towards a positive change in the image of changing jobs in early 20s among young people compared to other age groups", indicating that the career views of young people are changing significantly.
In response to this situation, the 'Guidelines for Integrated Three-Pronged Labor Market Reforms' shown by the Government's Council of New Form of Capitalism Realization on 16 May 2023, presents the idea that individuals taking career ownership will also contribute to the growth of the Japanese economy, and the direction of three-pronged reform based on this idea.
In these changing times, career design, which provides employment stability, is becoming increasingly important from the individual's perspective, while talent management, which provides stability in securing human resources, is becoming increasingly important from the organisational perspective.
The individual's perspective and the company's perspective are two sides of the same coin: securing employment and securing human resources. Therefore, it is considered effective to build respective strategies based on an understanding of the position, logic, types and trends of the other side. In other words, understanding the position, logic, types and trends of individual career design enables the organisation to realize efficient and effective talent management to attract talented people and achieve individual and organisational growth. Conversely, it is only by understanding the position, logic, types and trends of organisational talent management that individuals can design their career appropriately for themselves and their clients, according to individual preferences, abilities, characteristics and career stages.
In this lecture, in light of this historical background, career design and talent management will be discussed in an integrated manner.