Rudlin Consulting Rudlin Consulting
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Publications
  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • English
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Clients
  • Publications
  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • English
  •  

calbee

Home / Posts Tagged "calbee"

Tag: calbee

Japan’s “work style reforms” backlash grows

The number of articles I have seen in the Japanese media full of complaints about the “work style reforms” announced by the Abe government last year seems to have shot up, particularly since the introduction of “premium Friday” in February of this year, when everyone was supposed to leave work at 3pm on the last Friday of each month and go shopping.

The Nikkei Business magazine’s 24th July 2017 edition has highlighted 3 kinds of behaviour attracting criticism in an article entitled “That’s not work style reform!”

Dumping work on overseas subsidiaries…

Mr A, a 30 something manager in a famous Japanese electronics company, is well known for producing great reports and yet somehow always managing to leave work on time, claiming he needs to pick up his kids from school, or do the housework.  He goes on business trips to Asia twice a month, as his area of responsibility is global sales, and is meant to meet customers to understand their requirements for automotive and electrical components. However according to the young staff (presumably either Japanese or Japanese speaking) in the Asian offices, he mostly gets them to write the reports.

This behaviour started when the work style reforms began to be implemented, such as receiving warnings the next morning if your PC was still on after 8pm.  Mr A said he couldn’t take his laptop home because his young children make it hard to work, so asked the Asia office staff to draft reports for him.  “If you try to refuse he starts talking about his kids.  how he has to take them to hospital or it’s their birthday party”.  I wonder though, unless he’s wrongly claiming credit, isn’t this just good delegation?

…and other complaints

Other behaviours which complaints have been received about include – refusing to read customer emails after 4:45, just moving the mouse around to show that you are working from home, lights going out in the middle of important meetings, “last orders” being 2 hours before the end of business.

Nikkei Business lists up the initiatives which have been taken:

  • Ajinomoto: changed the official end of the working day to 4:30 from April 2017 and shortened the working day from 7 hours and 15 minutes by 20 minutes
  • Honda: Introduced a “working interval system” whereby there must be a minimum of 12 hours break between two work periods
  • Fujitsu: Authorised unlimited working from home (but only twice a week maximum after the end of the working day) for around 25000 of its employees
  • Calbee: Has a bi-annual “get rid of unnecessary work” drive
  • Sony: promotes a “flex holiday” system of 16 day consecutive holidays including Saturdays.
  • Astellas: Introduced a “Family Friday” system where work finishes each Friday at 4:30

 

What Japanese companies should do instead

Nikkei magazine asked the Chinese founder of Japanese software company Softbrain Song Wenzhou what he thinks Japanese companies should do instead.  “It’s pointless to expect Japanese people to become more efficient by themselves.  Even if you start an initiative to get everyone to observe 9-5 working hours they will still stay in the office even if they don’t have anything important to do.  Being more efficient is seen as leading to sloppiness and if you just do the essentials of your job this is seen as bad!”

He recommends:

  1. The whole organisation – not just the individual – has to focus on how to improve productivity.  I totally agree – leaving it up to the individual will not work in a collectivist, collaborative workplace.
  2. Then you can reduce working hours

Mitsuo Sekiya, the founder of Disco Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer of precision machinery, led a true reform of work style, resulting in three consecutive quarters of highest ever profit this year.  Sekiya’s view is that true work style reform requires a radical restructuring of the company and that the problem is that employees who increase their productivity are not rewarded either financially or in terms of evaluations.

For more content like this, subscribe to the free Rudlin Consulting Newsletter. 最新の在欧日系企業の状況については無料の月刊Rudlin Consulting ニューズレターにご登録ください。

Share Button
Read More

Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2017-08-01.

Recent Posts

  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Italy 2022
  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Germany – 2022
  • People rather than shareholding unite Japan’s conglomerates
  • Pernille Rudlin gives evidence to the UK Trade and Business Commission on UK-Japan trade and business relationships
  • Japanese manufacturing in the UK – resilient, but not growing

Categories

  • Africa
  • Brexit
  • China and Japan
  • Coaching
  • Corporate brands, values and mission
  • Corporate culture
  • Corporate Governance
  • cross cultural awareness
  • CSR
  • customer service
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • European companies in Japan
  • European identity
  • Foreign Direct Investment
  • Globalization
  • History of Japanese companies in UK
  • Human resources
  • Innovation
  • Internal communications
  • Japanese business etiquette
  • Japanese business in Europe
  • Japanese customers
  • M&A
  • Management and Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Middle East
  • negotiation
  • Presentation skills
  • Reputation
  • Seminars
  • Social & Digital Media
  • speaker events
  • Trade
  • Uncategorized
  • Virtual communication
  • webinars
  • Women in Japanese companies
  • Working for a Japanese company
  • Zero carbon

RSS Rudlin Consulting

  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Italy 2022
  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Germany – 2022
  • People rather than shareholding unite Japan’s conglomerates
  • Pernille Rudlin gives evidence to the UK Trade and Business Commission on UK-Japan trade and business relationships
  • Japanese manufacturing in the UK – resilient, but not growing
  • A very timely introduction of a new trade compliance diploma from the International Trade Institute
  • UK no longer the biggest host of Japanese automotive manufacturing in Europe – and the rise of Africa
  • UAE and Japanese companies – diversity and decarbonization
  • Trends in Japan owned financial services companies in the UK
  • Working from home means you won’t get promoted – in Japan and elsewhere too?

Search

Affiliates

Japan Intercultural Consulting

Cross cultural awareness training, coaching and consulting. 異文化研修、エグゼクティブ・コーチング と人事コンサルティング。

Japan Intercultural Consulting EMEA

Japan Intercultural Consulting UK

Japan Intercultural Consulting France

Japan Intercultural Consulting Germany

Professional Services Alliance

Translation, recruitment, market research and legal services for companies doing business in Japanese. 通訳・翻訳、人材紹介、市場調査・参入支援、法務全般

PS English

PS English has specialised in teaching English to Japanese people in the UK since 2001. PS Englishは、2001年以来、英国で日本人を対象に英語のレッスンを提供してきました。

LinguaLift

LinguaLift provides guidance to thousands of busy Japanese language learners through a course structured so that you always know what to do next.

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required
Email Format

To receive the newsletter, please tick "Email" below. Rudlin Consulting Ltd will also use the information you provide on this form to be in touch with you and to provide updates and marketing by email.

You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or by contacting us at pernilleatrudlinconsultingdotcom. We will treat your information with respect. For more information about our privacy practices please visit our website. By clicking below, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

We use MailChimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to MailChimp for processing. Learn more about MailChimp's privacy practices here.

Recent Blogposts

  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Italy 2022
  • Top 30 Japanese Employers in Germany – 2022
  • People rather than shareholding unite Japan’s conglomerates
  • Pernille Rudlin gives evidence to the UK Trade and Business Commission on UK-Japan trade and business relationships
  • Japanese manufacturing in the UK – resilient, but not growing

Rudlin Consulting on Twitter

  • @jessphillips being brilliant right now on @Channel4News about the underlying power relationships and sense of self… https://t.co/20MHTrhTnT about 6 hours ago from Twitter for Android in reply to jessphillips ReplyRetweetFavorite
  • That's the trouble about getting tangled up with despots in business - precisely because you justify it as being go… https://t.co/15JjEESrcN about 16 hours ago from Twitter Web App ReplyRetweetFavorite
  • Fujifilm to pump $1.6bn into biopharma in U.S. and Europe - although the article does not mention the UK, I'm guess… https://t.co/stZ8w89de6 08:14:37 AM June 30, 2022 from Twitter Web App ReplyRetweetFavorite
  • This is such an important painting both in culture with a big C as in one of Sir Joshua Reynolds finest portraits b… https://t.co/XErGUZFavN 07:02:00 PM June 29, 2022 from Twitter for Android ReplyRetweetFavorite
@pernilleru

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Web Development: counsell.com