Sumitomo Corporation In-house Magazine Project Goes Online: Analyzing Employees Through "16Personalities"

Tsuruno For this feature, we analyzed the responses of 239 employees who completed the 16Personalities test to see what makes Sumitomo Corporation employees tick. It's only a small sample of our roughly 5,000 employees, but even from this limited data, certain tendencies begin to emerge.

Yamashita The most common personality type among respondents was "ENFJ (Protagonist)," followed by "ESFJ (Consul)" and "ENTJ (Commander)."

Survey Data (239 Respondents)
Affiliation:
　Business Group – 64%
　Corporate Group ＆Other – 36%
Gender
　Male: 50%　Female: 50%
Age:
　20s – 32%　30s – 28%　40s – 18%
　50s – 19%　60s & above – 3%

Ishikawa I find it quite interesting that all three of the top types start with "E – – J." The "E" stands for Extroversion – people who gain energy through interacting with others, while "J" stands for Judging – those who like to plan ahead and approach things systematically. It seems that among those who took the survey, there's a tendency toward being sociable and organized.

Oka Looking at the results by age group, the top type, ENFJ, appears more frequently among employees in their 40s and older, and is less common among those in their 20s and 30s. That might mean there's a higher chance that your boss is ENFJ!

Akiniwa We asked how employees use 16Personalities in their work or daily lives.

Oka Many people said they use it for self-reflection or to reassess their own tendencies, while others apply it to team building or strengthening relationships with colleagues. Some mentioned that it "makes it easier to understand how others think and behave."

Yamashita Let's wrap up by summing up what we learned from this survey.

Tsuruno What stood out most was that many employees fall into the "E – – J" group: social and organized types. It reinforces the impression that Sumitomo Corporation is full of people who are altruistic, show leadership and have the courage to speak up for what's right.

Yamashita There are also a lot of energetic, communicative people here, which feels very true to Sumitomo Corporation's character.

Oka It was interesting that ENFJ (Protagonist) was especially common among respondents from the Media & Digital Group. A similar internal survey was carried out once within one of the departments in that Group, and ENFJ came out on top there too. I'm an INTP (Logician) myself, almost the exact opposite!

Takahashi There might indeed be some tendencies depending on the department. That said, the types ranked fifth through eighth were mostly "IN – –." Sumitomo Corporation engages in such a wide range of businesses and works with so many stakeholders – having diverse personality types on a team may actually be what leads to better results.