Working in disaster-stricken areas, I realized what is necessary for a human life.

Since I was in junior high school, I have been involved in the activities of a volunteer NGO that works in the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. We have supported people's daily lives by helping with farming, fishing, and playing with children. I have always admired people who work with the desire to help those in need, and I knew that I wanted to become such a person in the future. For these reasons, I studied the activities of volunteer organizations in graduate school.

The focus of my job search was on industries that are necessary for a human life. During my volunteer activities in the disaster-affected areas, it was important for me to play with the children I met. I created time for them to have fun and smile, and for their parents to see their smiling faces and feel more at ease. This made me feel that entertainment is necessary for people's lives.

I wanted to apply to an entertainment company with a high awareness of sustainability, so I researched presidents' messages and sustainability activities on various company websites. Among them, I found that Sega Sammy Holdings has been very proactive, donating products to a volunteer organization with which I worked and being the first to accept refugees, at the Phoenix Seagaia Resort, after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. I was attracted to the company's attitude toward society. I thought that I want to bring smiles to the faces of people in difficult circumstances and energize society through entertainment.

How my path and that of the company crossed

For several weeks after I joined the company, I attended general training sessions with about 250 fellow new hires to learn about the values that the Sega Sammy Group holds dear, the Group's businesses, and the knowledge and skills necessary for new employees, such as business manners. After that, I deepened my understanding of the company through individual company’s training sessions. During my job interview, I indicated that my first choice for placement would be in human resources, especially in the field of education. As I had hoped, I was assigned to my current post in May 2023. I am involved in the management of Sega Sammy College. I am in charge of three areas: hand-up training, in which all Group employees are invited to participate on a voluntary basis; training for young employees; and sustainability training (understanding people with disabilities, promoting women's activities, etc.). My duties include planning and drafting training programs and overall training operations. In addition to determining the content, schedule, and budget for the trainings to be implemented, another of my responsibilities is ensuring that the training sessions are properly managed in accordance with the schedule. When conducting a training, we first post its content on the company website and recruit participants. If there are too many applicants, a ruffle is held to determine who will attend, and preparations are made to contact them. On the day of the training, we participate as observers to monitor how things are going. After the training is over, we conduct a survey of the participants and incorporate their feedback into future programs.

Training sessions are held almost every day and cover a wide range of topics, such as logical thinking, problem solving, negotiation, finance, marketing, and mental health. These skills are useful for every position, and we provide the programs that enable each employee to acquire the knowledge and skills he or she needs to meet their own challenges.

Once a quarter, we invite a celebrity or person with a high level of expertise to give a lecture. Taking into consideration the needs of our employees, we consider what kind of talks they would like to hear and how to get more employees to attend. Of course, we also want to appeal to their interest in Sega Sammy College. We organize bookings and negotiate directly with speakers, and prepare for the logistics of the event, including the creation of a script for the lecture. To ensure that all Group employees can attend from anywhere, trainings are typically offered in both online and in-person formats.

Creating a place for diverse people to gather and learn freely

The most difficult thing I have ever done was when I was in charge of a training on understanding people with disabilities. The training was designed to help people without disabilities learn and deepen their understanding through actual experiences of what people with disabilities feel in their daily lives and what kinds of support could say barrier-free. This was the first time we had conducted such a training with a hand-raising training, so we didn’t have much know how to draw on from the past, and it was very difficult to prepare for the event. I was worried about whether we would be able to attract participants, but many employees from all of the Group’s companies wanted to participate. They recognized that understanding people with disabilities expands the possibilities of games and amusement. Further, there are many employees with disabilities in the Sega Sammy Group, and this training helped to create a more comfortable working environment for them. We introduced a summary of the initiatives that the Sega Sammy Group had already implemented for people with disabilities and asked employees with visual impairments to attend and talk about what kinds of support are required, from the perspective of people directly concerned. We also thought of ways to make the training better while we were working on it.

After the training, we learned that many participants found it to be a fulfilling learning experience. A post-training survey showed high evaluations from the participants, with one person involved in game development commenting, "I would like to broaden my vision and create new things in the future so that people with disabilities can enjoy them more.”

The current program at Sega Sammy College is primarily a training program, but in the future, as the name "college" implies, we hope to create a place where diverse people can gather on their own initiative to share what they like and what they have learned, and where they can learn in a freer atmosphere. By making Sega Sammy College an even more fulfilling place to learn and grow in this way, we believe it will lead to the ongoing development of the services and businesses offered by the Sega Sammy Group.

Our goal is to create something new through Sega Sammy College and to deliver it to those who are in difficult situations. I am proud of my work and hope to continue to make the company a place where employees can take pride in their work.

Message to students and those who want to join our company

I hope you will face yourself and the company with sincerity in your job search. I knew I wanted to join Sega Sammy, so I prepared for my application and interviews by thinking carefully about my values, how I had made choices in the past, and what I wanted to do with my life. I also thought about what attracted me to the areas in which the Sega Sammy Group works. I read company reports, interviews, newspaper articles, and so on and tried to be sincere about the company.

I am sure that the interviewers will take your sincere thoughts about the company straight to heart, so I encourage you to express those thoughts at the interview and in your application. I can confidently tell you that Sega Sammy is a company that will stand by your thoughts and feelings.