Getting everyone facing the same direction to tackle organizational
improvement and corporate culture reform

Business overview 

Mr. Inoue  
ROHM Semiconductor (Thailand) Co., Ltd. is a sales office of ROHM Co., Ltd., which manufactures semiconductors and electronic components, including LSIs, transistors, diodes, LEDs, and resistors. We provide products to Thailand and neighboring countries, playing an important role as a major sales base in the ASEAN region. I carry out management work in a position overseeing the entire administrative department. 

Organizational issues prior to adopting Motivation Cloud 

Mr. Inoue 
For some time we’d often have employees coming to the HR department regarding relationship issues between managers and their subordinates. Accordingly, we felt there must be some sort of problem in the organization and were looking for different ways to address the matter. 

One initiative was our manager communication survey. Through this survey, which is unique to our company, subordinates evaluate their managers. When the survey shed light on a problem, we would provide feedback to the relevant manager, letting them know what sort of problem was occurring and recommending they make changes to address it. We also held 1-on-1 interviews between HR and all employees. 

However, with both the manager communication surveys and the 1-on-1 interviews, the information was closed and feedback was only given to the managers themselves. I think the problem was that it’s hard for just one person to deal with such issues on their own. To solve problems throughout the organization, we wanted to introduce engagement surveys.

Behind the introduction of Motivation Cloud 

Ms. Ying  
While searching for engagement surveys, we came across Motivation Cloud. What stood out was how the survey results were organized in a way that was very easy for us to understand. The survey questions aligned with global standards and covered every facet of the organization, which I thought made it an easy-to-understand tool.

Mr. Inoue 
ROHM’s headquarters also introduced a different survey, but since it was from an overseas vendor, the Japanese and Thai translations were difficult to understand, and many parts of the interpretations were vague. In that respect, we were able to make Motivation Cloud easy for our Thai employees to understand. This was something that appealed to us and led us to introduce the service.

Conducting our first survey

Ms. Ying   
We felt that the Motivation Cloud survey would enable us to accurately measure the quality of communication between managers and subordinates. 

According to the results of our first survey, we had an engagement rating of “AAA,” which was much higher than expected.  Also, we believe that transparency will help greatly in building trust in our company. In addition, if employees know that their feedback is being reflected, they will be more likely to provide thoughtful and honest feedback in future surveys. 

Before we introduced Motivation Cloud, I felt that the Japanese managers and the Thai employees couldn’t understand each other due to a lack of good communication. And sure enough, the survey results revealed low scores for communication-related items. 

Initiatives aimed at organizational improvement  

Mr. Inoue  
Since we were introducing an external survey, we respectfully asked employees to respond as honestly as possible. 

Our objective was to understand organizational issues and create a working environment that’s comfortable for everyone, and Motivation Cloud is a tool for gathering the information to do that. So, we announced within the company that we wanted everyone to answer honestly. 

Ms. Ying 
What we were concerned about was interpreting the questions. If HR’s interpretation differed from the employees’ interpretation, we wouldn’t get correct responses from employees and wouldn’t be able to trust the survey results. But if the employees interpreted the questions the same way we did, the results would be more accurate. So, we created opportunities to explain to employees the intent and meaning behind each question before we conducted the survey. 

After we conducted the survey, we held a workshop for managers, shared the survey findings, and prepared an action plan to make improvements. There wasn’t a single person at the time who responded negatively. Nearly all the managers had a positive attitude toward making improvements. Even though scores were high overall, I was glad to see everyone clearly wanting to make things even better. I was also happy that the Japanese expatriates in Thailand were able to join us in discussing issues and drafting an action plan together. 

Mr. Inoue 
We’re currently going through the cycle of executing the action plan for organizational improvement and then checking the results through focus surveys. Within that cycle, we’ve set aside time for group sessions, which are held once a month and last from 30 minutes to an hour. During these sessions, each manager brings their issues and goals, shares how things are going with the action plan, and offers advice to the other managers on how to boost performance. 

I’d like to continue this cycle of using focus surveys to check the progress of our improvement efforts and revise the action plan as necessary.

The value of Motivation Cloud 

Mr. Inoue 
As I mentioned earlier, information had previously been closed, and solving problems was left to individual employees. But with the introduction of Motivation Cloud, we’re now all on the same page. We can share ideas to boost engagement and work together as an organization to carry out improvement activities. 

Ms. Ying
Prior to the introduction of Motivation Cloud, we had only focused on employee satisfaction, but after we adopted the system, we realized that engagement is the key indicator. To create a better organization, rather than just resolving dissatisfaction in the short term, it’s important create a “chain” to continue improving engagement over the medium to long term. 

When we were only tracking employee satisfaction, I think we were focused only on solving specific short-term problems. But since we began tracking engagement, we’ve shifted our focus to improving the corporate culture itself over the long term. 

Mr. Inoue
Your consultants have all dedicated serious thought to our company. I feel you’ve shown real affection toward us. It’s a kind of attraction that other vendors don’t seem to have. 

Also, other vendors basically just conduct the survey and then that’s it, they’re done. They essentially tell you: “You’re on your own now.” So, we find ourselves in a position where we can’t say what we’re really feeling and end up just having a superficial conversation. That’s why it’s great that your company’s total service includes support for post-survey shared sessions and focus surveys. It’s the organizational improvement following the survey that’s important, which is why I feel your company’s services, with a system providing solid support that goes that extra mile, are of great value. 

Ms. Ying
It was your after-sales service that enabled us to introduce Motivation Cloud with confidence. We received extremely thorough support, from the first steps of introducing the survey to advice, suggestions, and explanations of how to use the tool and its functions. 

What we hope to achieve with Motivation Cloud  

Mr. Inoue 
Working styles have undergone dramatic change, as we’ve seen with the adoption of remote work and working from home. At our company, 50 percent of employees continue to work from home and with the establishment of remote work, there’s a move to reduce the number of employees posted overseas. This doesn’t mean there’s no need for overseas postings, but the role they play will likely need to change. 

For our part, we’d like to promote localization. To do this, we need to raise the value of the local national staff, which is why it’s essential that we develop the next generation of leaders. The skill I’d like these next-generation leaders to have is empathy. This means being able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, understanding them, and empathizing with them. This is, of course, important in communication, but it’s also the foundation for cross-cultural understanding, which is why we want to develop leaders with empathic skills. 

I’d like to analyze the survey results from the perspective of what we need to do to boost our empathic skills and achieve cross-cultural communication, paving the way to embrace various challenges. 

A wall inevitably arises between the Japanese expatriates and the Thai employees. The wall gradually becomes lower but tends to rise again when new employees are posted from Japan. Of course, empathy and cross-cultural communication are important to remove such barriers, and I believe my role is to nurture Japanese employees with these skills and this mindset. I’d like to train not only Thai staff but also Japanese expatriates toward creating an environment where our Thai employees can work comfortably.

Looking ahead

Mr. Inoue 
The ROHM Group aims to boost engagement as a matter of policy, but this is only a means to an end. What’s important is what we can achieve by improving engagement, and for us, reforming our organizational culture is one of our goals. Specifically, we aim to create an organization that isn’t Japanese-centric, but rather can be actively run by Thai employees. 

We also want to put the “RST Way” into practice. The RST Way is a set of action guidelines formulated by the Thai employees. It isn’t something that someone else made for them, it’s a “Way” that the employees themselves created, so it’s a given that they follow it. I’d be happy to see us foster a culture in which the employees think about, act, and take responsibility not just in accordance with the RST Way, but in everything they do. People do for things for themselves when they decide to, not because someone tells them to. I believe this is the key to promoting localization in its truest sense.