A decade since launch, we proudly serve 60,000 companies.
But the real journey towards “well-working” starts now.
At SmartHR, our corporate mission is pretty straightforward: "Solving societal issues surrounding work and creating a society where everyone can choose how they contribute".
We’ve been growing steadily since launching our HR cloud service in 2015, reaching over 60,000 registered companies¹ and expanding to a team of more than 1,300 employees². However, with over 3.3 million businesses in Japan³, we recognize that we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how our service can impact society.
Our ambition is to become an indispensable service for every working person in Japan, like any other core piece of infrastructure they engage with on a daily basis. Moving forward, we aim to broaden our service value and reach more businesses and workers, thereby driving change in Japan’s work culture. Pursuing our mission of creating a society where everyone can work in their own unique way is just the beginning.
- ※1 As of November 2024, representing corporate accounts (tenants) with completed office registration on SmartHR (excluding tenants who have canceled subscriptions).
- ※2 As of November 2024.
- ※3 Based on statistical data from the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency’s "White Paper on Small Enterprises 2024".
SmartHR’s Roots
SmartHR was inspired by a personal experience of our founder, Shoji Miyata.
In 2015, Shoji saw his partner, who was pregnant at the time, struggling with piles of paperwork for maternity and childcare leave. These forms, which are typically handled by companies and submitted to the government, revealed to him inefficiencies in the existing system. While Japan’s social security system itself plays an invaluable role in society, its outdated processes place an unnecessary burden on employees. This became the driving force behind the creation of SmartHR in 2015—to simplify and modernize HR tasks, making them more accessible and human-friendly for everyone.
Since then, SmartHR has grown from a purely HR management tool into a full-fledged suite of services, now offering a broad range of talent management features. Today, we are also expanding into areas like information management systems, continuing our commitment to building workplaces where workers of all backgrounds can thrive. Our goals, however, remain the same: to create a society where everyone can choose how they contribute and to support sustainable business growth. This is our priority when it comes to developing new solutions.
Where We Stand
Our Service’s Role in Solving Societal Issues
SmartHR is tackling the ever-changing challenges of Japanese society head-on, working to address key issues and deliver impactful solutions.
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Accelerating Digital Transformation (DX)
The shift to new digital technologies is gaining momentum as legacy systems reach the end of their lifecycle and the demand for IT talent outpaces supply.
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Shrinking Workforce
By 2030, the workforce shortage in Japan is projected to reach 6.44 million due to a shrinking labor pool overall as well as regional disparities in labor availability.
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Evolving Work Styles
Remote work, side jobs, and shifting values are driving a transformation in the way people think about their careers.
In today’s complex and shifting landscape, SmartHR helps businesses by focusing on two key areas: streamlining operations and enhancing employee engagement.
Our Services
Transforming Work Begins with HR Operations
We help improve HR and labor management efficiency, while also assisting with talent management, all to create genuinely engaging workplaces where employees can perform at their best. Our intuitive, user-friendly system minimizes friction for employees, and by capturing accurate data through everyday tasks, enables impactful changes in workplace management.
Labor Management
Main Features:
- Onboarding procedures
- Employment contracts
- Payslips
- Document Signing & Approval
- Year-end tax adjustment and more
Talent Management
Main Features:
- Recruitment management
- Performance evaluation
- Organization restructure simulation
- Employee career profiles and more
Real Efficiency for a Worker-Friendly Environment
From paperless employment contracts and onboarding to year-end tax adjustments, our platform simplifies every aspect of labor management. Designed for ease of use and built with employees in mind, SmartHR promotes better working conditions and enables seamless management of critical data. Furthermore, the accumulated employee data can be leveraged for talent management and human capital strategies.
Reliable Data to Empower Your Teams
Our talent management system streamlines HR tasks while helping to identify and develop top-tier talent. Built for simplicity, it gathers up-to-date, accurate HR data that's crucial for informed decision-making, empowering talent management strategies to deliver tangible results.
App Store
Boosting SmartHR’s Capabilities Through Customization
SmartHR Plus is a platform that provides a curated collection of third-party applications to make SmartHR even more convenient. Users can choose apps that extend SmartHR functionality to adapt it to their own needs, receiving access to HR data stored on SmartHR for use in various back-office workflows.
Building on Accurate, Up-to-Date Employee Data to Expand Our Value
SmartHR initially focused on making HR management tasks like filing documents more efficient, becoming the centralized “entry point” for employee data during the onboarding process. We then expanded to cover workflows for employee data updates, such as address changes, ensuring all employee information remains contained within SmartHR. Today, we’ve grown into a trusted platform for accessing and managing accurate, up-to-date employee data.
Our core strength lies in our ability to continuously gather various employee data in the course of daily operations. Building on this, we’ve been able to expand our offerings beyond HR to include talent management and broader back-office functions. We’re already the domestic market leader in HR and labor management, and within just five years of launching our talent management solutions, we've become one of the top three providers in that arena as well.
※ Lineup as of November 2024
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Digitizing processes and paperwork related to labor management, streamlining calculations, and improving overall operational efficiency.
- Onboarding Procedures
- Employment Contracts
- Payslips
- Document Signing & Approval
- Year-End Tax Adjustment
…and more
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Collecting and analyzing employee data to execute the talent management strategies that your organization needs.
- Recruitment Management
- Performance Evaluation
- Organization Replanner
- Career History
- Skill Management
- Training Management
- Employee Surveys
- Reports
- HR Analytics
…and more
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Employee Portal
Optimizing internal information sharing and clarifying points of contact to enhance the employee experience.
- Mobile app
- IdP
- Announcements
- Logo & Theme Customization
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Employee Database
Centralizing employee information for proper management and access.
- Org Charts
- Employee Directories
- Requests & Approvals
- Employee Lists
- Data Edit History
- Data Update Scheduling
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Other Useful Features
- My Number Management
- Custom CSV Exports
- Multi-Language Localization
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Third-Party Data Integration
- CSV Import & Export
- API Access
- Data Synchronization
- Data Adapters & Batch Processing
- SSO Integration
Delivering Meaningful Results
Our Commitment to User-First Design
Our goal isn’t simply to get users to adopt SmartHR—it’s about ensuring they can use it effectively to drive real, positive change in their day-to-day work and within their organizations.
SmartHR’s true strength lies in empowering organizations with an employee database that fuels smarter, more effective decision-making at every level. That’s why we are dedicated to creating a service that is easy to use for everyone involved—not just those in HR and management.
Ease of Use for Employees
To gather accurate up-to-date employee data, our service needs to be easy for everyone to use—not only HR staff and managers but for every single employee who needs to enter their information. With this in mind, we’ve built a highly intuitive interface that takes into account a wide range of user needs and potential use cases.
Ease of Use for HR and Management
A large database of employee data is only valuable if it’s up-to-date and easily accessible. SmartHR consolidates data from daily operations into a singular, centralized location, making it readily available anytime. Plus, our system syncs data across all functions, which eliminates the need for data re-entry. From onboarding details to the latest engagement survey results, SmartHR helps analyze organizational challenges, support staffing decisions, and inform other key processes effortlessly.
Strong Support from Our User Base
Nearly a decade after its initial launch, SmartHR has earned strong support from its users. We’re proud to count more than 60,000 companies among our users, and our high retention rates and customer satisfaction are a testament to our success. As we continue to evolve, we remain committed to being an indispensable partner in our clients’ organizational success.
- *1 Number of tenants that have completed business location registration on SmartHR (excluding tenants that have canceled their accounts).
- *2 Source: Deloitte Tohmatsu MIC Research Institute, “HR Tech Cloud Market Trends and Outlook 2023 Edition”, Labor Management Cloud Market - Shipment Value (Projected for FY2023).
- *3
J.D. Power 2023 Japan Talent Management Cloud Customer Satisfaction Study. Based on responses from 2,134 users of talent management systems.
japan.jdpower.com/awards
Where We Are Headed
Connecting All Back-Office Operations to Become the Central Hub for Employees
SmartHR is expanding its offerings beyond HR to transform back-office operations. Our goal is to become the core service and the central hub that connects employees and back-office staff, simplifying interactions at every step.
Building New Services Around Employee Data
SmartHR’s employee data empowers more than just HR functions.
By leveraging our core strength—accurate, up-to-date employee data—we’re expanding its impact beyond HR and labor management, extending into areas like employee workflows, portals, IT systems (such as ID management), and broader platform services.
Addressing Organization-Wide Back-Office Issues
In many back-office workflows, data must be passed between systems at various stages, requiring staff to spend time managing and syncing that data. SmartHR tackles these hidden inefficiencies by connecting back-office operations through centralized employee data. This approach not only streamlines individual tasks but also drives greater efficiency across all back-office operations.
Investing in a Unified Infrastructure
To unlock greater value and expand our product’s capabilities, we’re focusing on technological investments into key areas like authentication, permissions management, AI utilization, and APIs—all of which help to seamlessly interconnect back-office functions.
SmartHR’s Vision for the Future
Connecting all workflows around employee data.
SmartHR’s Vision for the Future and Well-Working
At the heart of SmartHR’s mission is the goal of creating a society where everyone can choose how they contribute. However, we know that achieving this vision of "well-working" is no easy task. As we continue along our journey, we’re reminded daily of the challenges ahead. One of the major themes we tackle—efficiency and automation—often leaves behind more complex and demanding tasks. In the age of rapid digitalization, we often hear about the importance of the "human touch", but it’s clear that even these tasks require new skills and training to keep up with advancing technology. For those who don’t adapt, the opportunities to contribute may diminish.
That’s why we believe our mission is not just about improving efficiency. We’re focused on empowering people to master new technologies and adapt to ever-changing working styles. Our commitment to talent management is central to this, as we help unlock the potential of every employee, enabling them to thrive in this shifting landscape.
Our mission doesn’t stop at streamlining back-office tasks, however. We’re also committed to providing the tools that help companies invest in their people and maximize organizational productivity—from recruitment and talent development to fostering employee engagement.
We’re here not just to provide tools, but to support meaningful transformation in every organization, helping them achieve the outcomes they envision.
The societal issues surrounding work remain abundant, and the path to achieving “well-working” across society is still a long one. But it’s exactly because of these challenging issues that we are committed to expanding our business and transforming the landscape of work in Japan, one step at a time. Our hope is that, years from now, people will look back and say, "SmartHR really helped change Japan’s work environment for the better”.
