Japan’s new “job type” system explained

Many Japanese companies such as Hitachi and Fujitsu are introducing a “job-type” (job-gata in Japanese) system. The term “job-type” will not be familiar to Europeans, so we will draw on a series in the Nikkei Business to explain the background to this change.

It’s common practice in Japan to hire full time, permanent staff, usually straight out of university, known as “seishain” with a ‘blank contract’ and no clear definition of the content of the work or the location of employment. Many Japanese commentators call this the “membership type” system, because the new recruit has in effect become a member of a corporate community. I like to use Trompenaars Hampden-Turner’s description of Japanese companies being a “family” company too, even if the founding family are no longer in control.

In contrast to this, the “job type” system is comonly used in Europe and the US, where the company and the individual have a carefully worded employment contract, and the content of the job and remuneration are clearly set out in advance.

	Job type	Membership type
Duties	In principle, duties outside the job description are not undertaken	Boundaries of the role are not clearly defined. Job rotations are common.
Salary	Salary is based on job evaluation/duties	Salary is based on ability and position in a career track, which in turn is based on years of service
Job location	Job location is defined and limited. In principle there is no relocation	Job location and assignment is not defined. Relocation is the norm
Training	for immediate applicability – up to the individual to acquire	long term employment is the precondition, so the company trains the individual.

3 decades of HR reforms

There is plenty of criticism that this is just a repackaging of the much criticised seikashugi or performance based system. Many Japanese companies introduced this after the economic bubble burst in the 1990s but it was seen as simply a cost cutting exercise. Managers started looking for ways to reduce employees’ bonuses, which up until then had mainly been based on company or divisional performance. Nikkei Business notes that the “3 lost decades” in Japan have seen a series of crises followed by changes to HR systems, but somehow the change is watered down and the company reverts to seniority based HR management.

Companies that have introduced the job type system include Mitsubishi Chemical. When they first introduced it in 2017, it was still the manager who made the decision on promoting employees, and as a consequence the seniority element remained. So from October this year they are introducing an open application system, to increase fairness and transparency. Mitsubishi Chemical’s HR Director Nakata Ruriko notes that their workforce is no longer the homogenous group of lifetime employees recruited as graduates. There are more mid career hires and dual income couples, trying to balance child and elderly care. Nakata is introducing choice and the ability to build your own career, to respond to this diversity.

The telecoms company KDDI has skipped trying to negotiate with the labour union to introduce the job type system to current union members and is only introducing it to managers and new graduates from April 2021. There will no longer be the same salary for all new graduate recruits – compensation will depend on skills and internships undertaken before entering the company.

Fujitsu has ended “side by side” cohort based training and a mandatory retirement age. The position of manager will be open to all, but if you do not ask to be a manager, you will not be promoted.

Working from home and relocations

Having a job type system also helps with working from home, as people have more autonomy and clarity on the boundaries to their work. Several Japanese companies are also ending the “tanshin funin” job relocation where the employee (usually male) would be assigned to another location and move there without their family.

From the management side the intentions behind bringing in a job type system depend on the sector, but at least one of three main reasons are usually cited:

the need to bring in people from outside the company who have the skills to support the company with technological innovations such as AI
to counter the constant increase in labour cost brought about by the seniority based system
a unified, globally applicable HR system which will improve internal job mobility across multinational operations

Over half of Japanese employees prefer the job type system

Nikkei Business surveyed over 1100 employees and found that nearly half preferred the job type system, compared to 24% who preferred the membership type system. When asked “do you think you can survive a switch to the job type system?”, 62.4% felt they could. More than 75% of the respondents said they would like to continue to work from home even after the pandemic was over.

But better state support and retraining are needed

The chairman of Rengo, Japan’s Trade Union Confederation, points out that Japanese employees are still very dependent and tied to their companies. If the aim of a job type system is to increase labour mobility, there needs to be more of a state safety net provided than there currently is. Some companies will simply be looking to reduce costs and those employees whose skills are no longer needed will find it very hard to switch to another company if they are no longer satisfied with the pay they receive for the work they do.

Takeda Yoko, a Director at the Mitsubishi Research Institute recommends FLAP as a way to succeed in a job type system – Find the work you want to do, Learn how to do it, Act upon this learning and then Perform – be evaluated and treated correctly.

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Japan’s lost three decades – what are the causes?

The 1990s were called the Lost Decade in Japan, and then as the economy seemed to stagnate in the 2000s, it became the Lost Two Decades. Now the Nikkei Business in a recent special series seems to be saying it has been a lost three decades. Turnover and profitability were growing through to around 1990 when the economic bubble burst. Then profits fell – although since 2010 they have been growing again. The total revenues of Japanese companies (excluding financial services) has been static, with only a small bump upwards around 2005-2008.

Nikkei Business says the lack of growth in turnover is the key problem. Even sales overseas, which were meant to be the growth driver, have not shown much of an upward trend. According to Nikkei Business the root causes of this lack of growth are:

low investment (1991 capital investment as a percentage of cashflow was 133%, compared to 82.2% in 2018)
low wages (106.5 in 1990 indexed against 100 in 2015, down to 99.6 in 2019)
low efficiency (return on assets was 4.3% in 1990, down to 3.8% in 2018)

It cites Panasonic as an example of #1. Every time profits rose, Panasonic increased its investment, but every time profits shrank, it cut investment back, since 2001. As for #2, Nikkei Business lists all the major restructurings since 1999 with major Japanese companies, which makes for sobering reading for a country famed for lifetime employment:

1999 – Nissan plan to cut 21,000 from its workforce, closing 5 factories
2008 – Sony announced it would reduced its electronics workforce by 16,000
2009 – Panasonic announced it would cut 15,000 people and 27 factories. Pioneer axed 10,000 jobs.
2010 – All Nippon Airways proposed reducing its workforce by 16,000 as part of its revival plan
2011 – Ricoh announced a mid term plan aiming at reducing its workforce by 10,000
2012 – NEC announced a workforce reduction programme of 10,000 job cuts
2013 – Fujitsu announced it that by axing its semi-conductor business, it would remove 5,000 jobs.
2015 – Toshiba announce it would erduce its workforce by 15,0000
2017 – Mizuho Financial Group announced an administrative work reduction programme targetting 19,000 roles.
2019 – Nissan restructuring to impact 12,500 personnel

The low efficiency seems to be in the service sector, where there has been a lack of economies of scale. The number of Japanese companies with turnover of over Y100bn/$1bn doubled from around 40 to 80 from 1980 to 1991, but has not risen much since – apart from a blip in 2008 – after the birth of Japan Post, and is still heavily manufacturing oriented.

I will cover the analysis and suggestions from the rest of series for how Japan can “wake up” in my next blog posts.

The top 5 Japanese companies in Europe, Middle East & Africa all have headquarters in the UK in 2019

Over half a million people worked for the 30 largest Japanese employers in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in 2018, 22% more than in 2015. Going by the research we have done on the main host countries of the region (Germany, UK, France, Netherlands), this would indicate there are around 750,000 employees of Japanese companies in EMEA.

The top 2 by a large margin are Sumitomo Electric Industries and Yazaki, both making automotive components such as wire harnesses. They both have multiple manufacturing sites employing thousands of people, mainly in eastern Europe, north Africa and South Africa.

Yazaki‘s EMEA headquarters are in the UK and Germany. The UK side supervises branches and subsidiaries across Europe, with R&D and customer service centres across the UK and the EMEA region. Yazaki Wiring Technologies European HQ is in Cologne, with subsidiaries in Eastern Europe and Turkey. Yazaki’s EMEA workforce has grown by nearly 20% since 2014/5 with recent greenfield investments such as a new factory in Serbia and a third plant in Bulgaria.

Sumitomo Electric Industries also has European headquarters in the UK and in Germany (the Bordnetze side of the business). The Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems operation in the UK originates in the acquisition of Lucas Industries in 1999. There is no longer any manufacturing in the UK but it supervises factories in Germany and Italy, with Sumitomo Wiring Systems Japan directly owning factories in Eastern Europe and Africa. Similarly the German HQ arises from the acquisition of Bordnetze from VW and Siemens in 2006. Sumitomo Electric Industries’ workforce in EMEA has grown 7% in three years, including acquisitions in Germany and a new plant in Moldova.

Sumitomo Electric Industries and Yazaki were the top 1 and 2 in 2014/5, but the third largest Japanese employer in EMEA, NTT Data, was only the 9th largest three years ago. NTT Data has grown through acquisitions such as Dell’s services business, Everis, MagenTys and Keane. NTT Data EMEA is based in the UK, owning subsidiaries across Europe. Again, there is a split regional HQ, with NTT Data Europe GmbH owning Itelligence – but not for much longer. The parent company, NTT is undertaking a major restructure of its business, uniting NTT Data EMEA, Everis and itelligence as part of EMEA & Latin America region, moving to a matrix rather than vertical organization. By 2020 NTT intends to have 2 companies under its new NTT Inc holding company for its non-Japanese business – NTT Data and a merged NTT Communications/NTT Security/Dimension Data organisation. The global headquarters for NTT Inc will not be in Japan but in London.

Dropping down a place from 3 to 4 over the past 3 years is Fujitsu, another Japanese IT major, in the awkward position of being both a supplier and competitor to NTT. Fujitsu’s presence in Europe originates from its acquisition of the UK’s ICL in 1990 and a joint venture with Siemens, which it later bought out. Fujitsu’s workforce in EMEA (or EMEIA as it names it, adding in India) has dropped by 8% since 2014/5 and looks to shrink further in 2019 and 2020 with the closure of the last PC manufacturing plant anywhere in Europe, in Augsburg, Germany. As it shifts to IT services business, its workforce in its global delivery centres and service desks is growing in lower cost but skilled, multilingual countries in the region such as Portugal, South Africa, Poland, Morocco and Russia.

Canon was also pushed down a place to 5 from 4 three years’ ago by NTT Data’s rise, but its workforce in EMEA has grown around 15% over the period. Canon acquired Dutch company Oce in 2009 and Canon Europa is the Netherlands based holding company which owns Canon Europe in the UK, acting as the functional and marketing headquarters for the region. Canon has grown partly through taking on Toshiba’s medical systems business and also through the acquisition of Sweden based Axis Communications in 2015.

From a UK perspective, whilst it’s reassuring that all of the top five Japanese companies in the region have some kind of regional headquarters in the UK, this does not mean that largest proportion of the jobs they have generated is in the UK. In manufacturing the drift is eastwards and southwards, and even for IT services, business process outsourcing and support jobs are shifting to Eastern Europe, Portugal, Africa and India. As they all have an EU based alternative headquarters, it is unlikely there will be any change in the HQ structure post Brexit, rather that virtual management teams dispersed across a very broadly defined region will become even more common.

Pernille Rudlin’s latest book, Shinrai:Japanese Corporate Integrity in a Disintegrating Europe is available on Amazon.

Acquire or be acquired – predictions on the future of Japanese mergers and acquisitions

Japanese companies used to be seen as very reluctant to acquire and merge with other companies, but the record breaking £46bn acquisition, finalised in January 2019, of Irish pharmaceuticals company Shire by Japan’s Takeda may not even be the peak of what has been at least 10 years’ of an overseas spending spree by Japanese companies. Faced with a declining, ageing domestic market, Nikkei Business magazine expects Japanese companies to continue their spending spree in 2019, even if there is not a big ticket purchase like Takeda/Shire.

Autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things and other new technologies are likely to be the focus of future M&A. For example Japan’s tyre maker Bridgestone has acquired the telematics business of Dutch company TomTom. “Tyre companies are also entering the era of CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Sharing Electric)” says Bridgestone’s CEO Masaaki Tsuya. Sensors can be placed in tyres to understand driving conditions, for example.

In the IT sector, NEC has acquired the UK company Northgate Public Services in January 2019 and in December of the previous year acquired Denmark’s KMD Holding and is looking to acquire a stake in India’s Mindtree.

Food and drink companies are also active – Mizkan, Ajinomoto and Asahi Beer have all made acquisitions recently in Europe.

In the financial sector, Nikkei Business speculates that a Japanese company like SMFG or Orix might be interested in acquiring GE’s aircraft leasing business GECAS, headquartered in Ireland – although GE has since denied GECAS is for sale. MUFG might be interested in the US Bank of the West.

Most of the acquisitions of Japanese companies have been by Chinese companies, but Nikkei Business also wonders whether some of the big Western automotive suppliers such as Bosch, Continental, ZF, or Magna might not be interested in acquiring Japanese automotive suppliers.

Declutter and dispose

M&A is also an opportunity for Japan’s keiretsus (conglomerates and company groupings) to do a bit of tidying up. The trendsetter in this has been Hitachi, who have been pursuing a rigorous policy of “selection and focus” in rearranging their business portfolio. Over the past 10 years or so they have sold off Hitachi Global Storage Technologies to Western Digital, Hitachi Logistics to SG Holdings, sold a 27% share in Hitachi Capital to MUFG, sold Hitachi Power Tools and Hitachi Kokusai Electric to KKR and Clarion to Faurecia.

Japanese investors and banks are keeping a watch on Hitachi High Technologies, Hitachi Chemical, Hitachi Automotive Systems, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Hitachi Metals as the next possible candidates. Hitachi Chemical and Hitachi Metals were supposed to be two of the “Three Branches” of Hitachi along with Hitachi Cable, so the idea that they could be sold off would be heresy to some Hitachi old timers. As the Nikkei Business magazine says, Hitachi is trying to compete as a global company, so any business that has no synergy with its “social innovation” vision is likely to be dropped.

Panasonic already sold off its security camera business and foreign funds are eyeing up Panasonic Avionics – an inflight entertainment company – as a likely next candidate. “It has nothing to do with Panasonic’s main business”, one investor commented.

Takeda seems to be preparing to dispose of its consumer healthcare business to help fund its acquisition of Shire, as it has spun off its vitamin drinks and other products into a separate company.

Fujitsu has also been disposing of its hardware businesses – mobile phones, car electronics and PCs and Sony‘s mobile phone business is still struggling, and rumours that it could be sold continue.

Spark surprise

Nikkei Business concludes with some surprise predictions from the experts it spoke to:

Astellas and Daiichi Sankyo merging
Pioneer and JVCKenwood merging
SoftBank acquiring NEC
Fast Retailing acquiring Gap
Google acquiring Recruit
Amazon acquiring 7&i (7-11 convenience store chain)

Unsettling though it may be for the employees concerned, if clarity in the focus and business of Japan’s iconic companies results from these M&As, ultimately it should make for a more confident Japan Inc.

Lessons from the decline of Japanese electronics manufacturing in the UK for the automotive industry

Although around 10,000 manufacturing jobs in Japanese electronics companies in the UK were lost in the 1990s-2000s, about the same number have been added, either created by Hitachi Rail or in the automotive or air conditioning sectors. Japanese electronics companies such as Sony, Fujitsu, Panasonic, NEC, Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi still all employ thousands of people in the UK.

It is a story of how industrial policy cannot ultimately stop product obsolescence, shifts of manufacturing to cheaper locations or the transformation from mass manufacturing of products to supply chain ecosystems providing solutions and services. Recent investment from Japan in the UK is in services and infrastructure, for the domestic UK market, and at least for now, the EU. But this has meant fewer jobs in the areas that voted Brexit.

Bunging £10s of millions at Nissan to compensate for tariffs was not going to stop these shifts. Over 10% of the 7,000 Nissan employ in the UK are working in design centres, not on the factory floor. Being a gateway to the EU now, even in manufacturing, needs regulatory alignment and free movement of people so suppliers can visit and base themselves at client sites and provide services and ship prototypes around the region.

The shift to electric vehicles means the car companies have to cooperate more than ever with ICT and electronics companies. Many of these ICT and electronics companies have joint European HQs spread across the UK, Netherlands or Germany, with senior management and teams scattered across the region, working virtually or at customer and partner sites. They have also integrated back office and technical support into cheaper locations such as Portugal or Poland.

Some examples of the history of Japanese electronics companies in the UK over the past 30 years:

Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the biggest Japanese employer in the UK with over 8,000 employees, 2,000 down on a few years ago, as it grows delivery and support centres in Portugal, South Africa and India and downsizes in the UK. It acquired 80% of UK’s ICL in 1990 (increasing to 100% 1998). ICL had 2,000 UK employees, 26,000 worldwide, with mainframe and PC factories in Letchworth, Manchester and the Midlands. ICL was born out of 1960s industrial policy – the British government had a 10% stake in it for a while. To this day, Fujitsu provides a lot of government IT infrastructure and services. Its last computer factory in Europe, in Augsburg in Germany, will shut down in 2019, retaining manufacturing in Japan only.

Hitachi

Hitachi used to employ around 1,000 people in its factory in Aberdare, Wales, making cathode ray TVs, video recorders and microwave ovens. It was shut in 2001, blaming low price competition from Asia. Hitachi has since shifted away from consumer products to infrastructure. In the UK it acquired the now stalled Horizon Nuclear Power projects in Wylfa and Oldbury and set up Hitachi Rail in the UK as the global headquarters with a new factory in Newton Aycliffe, employing nearly 2,000 people.

Hitachi employs another 4,000 people in the UK services sector – for example credit and loans company Hitachi Capital, IT consultants Hitachi Vantara and Hitachi Consulting and Vantec, providing logistics for Nissan.

Sony

Sony came to the UK in 1973, and had 2 plants in Pencoed making cathode ray TVs, employing 1,800 by the 1990s. As these started to shut down, Pencoed transformed itself into an innovation centre, developing and producing broadcast and professional equipment, employing 500-600 people.

Sony has been restructuring across Europe recently, consolidating back office functions into cheaper regions. It was still manufacturing DVDs in Enfield in the UK but this was shifted to Austria in 2017/8, reducing capital in UK by over £250m. It still employs nearly 2,000 in its music, home entertainment and interactive businesses in the UK.

Ricoh

Ricoh still has a factory in Telford (and two other plants in UK), employing the same number of people in 2018 as in 1991 – around 700 – but the product range has shifted from faxes to printers and consumables.

Mitsubishi Electric

Mitsubishi Electric acquired Apricot Computers in 1990, with a plant in Glenrothes and R&D in Birmingham, employing 442 in 1991. Glenrothes was shut in 1999, blaming cheap competition in Asia. It still has manufacturing in the UK, employing nearly 1,000 people (many of whom are non-UK EU citizens) in Livingston, at its airconditioning plant.

Panasonic

Panasonic, formerly known as Matsushita, had many plants in UK from 1970s to 1990s, employing 1,621 in Cardiff (TVs, microwaves), 469 in Gwent (electric typewriters, carphones), 160 in Port Talbot (components for TVs, video recorders, microwaves) and 63 in Reading (fax machines). Most Matsushita/Panasonic plants in UK shut down in early 2000s, with production shifting to Eastern Europe. 1 plant remains in Wales, employing 400 people, manufacturing microwave ovens but also conducting R&D into fuel cell technology. Panasonic has acquired Belgian IT company Zetes and Spanish automotive supplier Ficosa recently.

NEC

NEC is also shifting into IT services via European acquisitions. It used to have a semiconductor plant in Livingston (Silicon Glen, remember that?) which employed 1200 by 2001, when it shut down. NEC UK employees now number over 1000 again thanks to the acquisition of Northgate Public Services, in 2018.

Others

Oki Electric were relatively late in shutting down their Cumbernauld printer plant in 2018 – and now all production is in Asia. JVCKenwood shut down their East Kilbride TV/CD player factory in 2008 and shifted production to Poland. Pioneer closed its CD player/TV factory in Wakefield in 2009. Toshiba had a factory in Plymouth, which used to make TVs, video recorders, but is now owned by a US company and makes air conditioners. Sharp (now owned by a Taiwanese company) still has a factory in Wrexham as does Brother.

Top 30 Japanese employers in Germany – Japan’s appreciation of German ‘monozukuri’ continues.

Although Japanese business people tend to think of Germany as being a fellow “monozukuri” (manufacturing/craftsmanship) country, there are actually proportionally fewer (28%) Japanese companies which are manufacturing in Germany than there are in the UK (36%).*

Of course this has a lot to do with the fact that Nissan, Honda and Toyota have factories in the UK and do not have any plants in Germany – as well as the supply chain of manufacturers that they have attracted, many of whom set up production to be as close as possible to their customers.

The biggest sector for Japanese companies in Germany is wholesale. Automotive wholesale is playing a role here, as Japanese suppliers try to diversify away from supplying Japanese car makers and target European car brands as well. It has been noticeable that one reaction to Brexit by UK based Japanese automotive suppliers is to open a branch or subsidiary in Germany and/or transfer customer accounts and sales functions to those branches.

Like the Top 30 in the UK, the biggest Japanese companies in Germany have grown through acquisition. IT services dominate the top spots with NTT at number 1 thanks to its acquisition of Itelligence, Cirquent and Net mobile, as well as Dimension Data.

Fujitsu – the biggest Japanese company in the UK – is the second biggest in Germany. Fujitsu bought out Siemen’s share of their joint venture in 2008. Fujitsu is about to shut down the last remaining computer factory in Europe – which was in Augsburg, and around 1800 jobs will be lost across Europe.

Duncan Tait, SVP and head of EMEIA (Fujitsu’s own regional acronym – Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) somewhat disingenuously claimed on the BBC news recently that Fujitsu’s regional headquarters had been in the UK for 20 years and that “there was zero intention of moving out of London” like Sony just announced. Actually it is Fujitsu Services that has been headquartered in London, with some offices in Europe, whereas Fujitsu Technology Solutions, the hardware side, was headquartered in Munich, with a rather more extensive network of operations across Europe.

But as Fujitsu shifts, like many other Japanese electronics companies, to IT services and B2B, so the locus of power has to shift to where the customers are. Over 80% of Sony Europe’s turnover was to non-UK EU countries, but this is not the case for Fujitsu Services. Because of Fujitsu Services’ legacy of acquiring ICL in 1990, the UK public sector is still a key customer. So it’s no wonder Tait does not intend to shift out of London any time soon.

More recent acquisitions in Germany by Japanese companies do include a fair number of manufacturers – Mori Seiki has finally consummated its marriage with Gildemeister, Lixil acquired Grohe, Musashi Seimitsu acquired Johann Hay and Nidec continues on its overseas M&A rampage. As you can see from the ranking below, Japan’s appreciation of German monozukuri continues.

Rudlin Consulting can develop a more detailed, customised list of Japanese companies in Europe (for a fee). Please contact us with an outline of your requirements.

*2018 Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs – who identify 1814 Japanese companies (this is very loose, they include branches, joint ventures and companies established by Japanese entrepreneurs in Germany) . There are 21 categories including “other”. For Germany the top 4 are wholesale/retail 31% (of 1814), manufacturing 28%, hospitality 7%, IT 6%. UK is 36% manufacturing, 13% wholesale/retail, 8% financial, 8% “other”.

Top 30 Japanese Companies in Germany April 2021

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Japan’s megabanks most popular with Japanese graduates, electronics companies making a comeback

Japanese companies’ investment in their brand marketing, particularly their websites, may have more to do with attracting graduates from Japanese universities than attracting new customers in my experience. Given that lifetime employment is still crucial to the big traditional companies (and still something many graduates aspire to), this is not surprising.

So Toyo Keizai’s survey of how the current graduate job seekers in Japan rate potential employers at the beginning and end of the recruitment process is a good indicator of the health of the brand and how well it was communicated to the job seekers. This year the megabanks such as Mizuho (#1) and MUFG (#3) are still in the Top 3 most highly rated employers even after the recruitment process, along with travel sector companies like ANA, JAL and JTB. Other financial services companies like Nomura, Daiwa and Sompo are also in the top 10 with the other megabank, SMBC at #11. This is much in line with the previous years’ graduates’ rankings.

Toyo Keizai notes that food and beverage companies seem to be increasing in popularity – Morinaga, Kagome and Kikkoman have all become more popular during the process and compared to last year. Other major companies whose ratings improved dramatically over the recruitment process (so people got to like them once they met them) and are also more highly rated this year than by the previous year’s graduates include Panasonic (up to #39 from #156 last year at the beginning of the process), Mitsubishi Electric (#41 from #154) and Toyota (#35 from #57) and Fujitsu (#47 from #210).

Trading companies such as Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui, Sumitomo Corp and Itochu whilst still in the top 50, seem to have lost popularity compared to last year.

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:

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.
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.

Why work for a Japanese company? (#1) Corporate Social Responsibility

For most Japanese companies, despite recent changes to corporate governance and the occasional scandal, the main motivation is the long term survival of the firm, not shareholder value maximisation.

Obviously you have to make some money to invest back into the company to survive, but above all longevity means being a good citizen in the environment and communities you operate in. There are some exceptions to this of course, but by and large, Japanese companies are pretty sincere about corporate social responsibility, to the point where I used to joke when I worked in corporate communications in a Japanese IT company, that if we didn’t watch out, our mission statement would be identical to every other Japanese technology company’s mission statement as it could be summarised as “contributing to society through innovation”.

So if you are looking to work for a company that will be supportive of your wish to make a positive contribution to society, then you may find Japanese companies congenial places to work.

Some are more active in CSR than others, so when Toyo Keizai has published its latest rankings by industry, we matched these to our Top 30 Europe, UK and Germany largest Japanese employers rankings and put them in rank order as below.

As Toyo Keizai points out, it is easier for manufacturers to score highly in their CSR rankings, which is why they dominate the top 50 overall, and also why Toyo Keizai publishes rankings by industry, to ensure like for like comparisons are made. Banking and financial services are not included in their analysis. Toyo Keizai explains its scoring system (in Japanese) here. It has around 150 criteria, across the categories of diversity (gender, age, disability), environment, corporate governance and social contribution.

Fujifilm – #1 overall and #1 in pulp/paper/chemicals
Canon #4 overall and #1 in electronics and fine engineering
Denso #8 overall and #1 in automotive
Ricoh #9 overall and #3 in electronics and fine engineering
Konica Minolta #12 overall and #4 in electronics and fine engineering
Honda #14 overall and #2 in automotive
Nissan #17 overall and #3 in automotive
Daiichi Sankyo #25 overall and #1 in pharmaceuticals
Toyota #28 overall and #4 in automotive
Fujitsu #30 overall and #9 in electronics and fine engineering
Astellas #34 overall and #2 in pharmaceuticals
Sumitomo Rubber 36th overall and #2 in oil/rubber/glass/ceramics
Mitsubishi Corporation #42 overall and #1 among trading companies
Lixil 44th overall and #1 in metal products
Sony #45 overall and #12 in electronics and fine engineering
Nidec #49 overall and #13 in electronics and fine engineering
Takeda #50 overall and #4 in pharmaceuticals
Sumitomo Electric Industries #52 overall and #2 in metal products
Itochu #55 overall and #2 among trading companies
Panasonic #57 overall and #15 in electronics and fine engineering
NYK #58 overall and #1 in logistics
Japan Tobacco 60th overall, 3rd amongst food companies
Brother Industries #71 overall and #16 in electronics and fine engineering
Sumitomo Corporation – #73 overall and #3 amongst trading companies
NTT Data #75 overall and #4 in telecommunications
Olympus #84 overall and #17 in electronics and fine engineering
Dentsu #95 overall and #2 out of service sector companies
Sumitomo Heavy Industries #138 overall and #11 amongst machinery companies
Calsonic Kansei #138 overall and #18 in automotive
Fast Retailing (Uniqlo) #531 overall and #19 out of 20 amongst retailers

Size matters when choosing a Japanese company

Whether you’re looking to work for or supply to a Japanese company, size matters. The most obvious reason being, as bank robber Willie Sutton apparently never said, “that’s where the money is”. That’s why we started our Top 30 Japanese Employers rankings – we’ve found them useful in understanding our customer base and the likely concerns of participants in our seminars.

We use the number of employees as a proxy for size rather than turnover or profit, and although there is a degree of correlation between employee numbers globally and in Europe and overall profit, there are some exceptions.

Toyo Keizai have recently listed up the companies* who made the biggest cumulative profit in the past 10 years and it’s absolutely no surprise that Toyota, one of the biggest companies in Japan and #9 amongst Japanese companies in Europe, made a whopping Y11 trillion ($99bn) cumulative profit from 2007 to 2017, far outstripping NTT and NTT Docomo at #2 and #3 who made less than half that amount. NTT and NTT Docomo are not in our Top 30 Japanese companies in Europe, although another group company, NTT Data, is.

However NTT and NTT Docomo never made a loss, whereas Toyota did go into the red – with a loss of $.8.6bn in 2008/9. Honda, who has had a tough time in Europe (and is #23 in our rankings), has also never made a loss, and accumulated a $36bn profit over the decade. Nissan, who made a loss but was famously turned round by Carlos Ghosn, is 10th largest in Europe in our rankings and has the 6th largest cumulative profit.

I was surprised to see my old employer Mitsubishi Corporation at #5, as they too had some rough patches particularly with losses in the commodity side, but clearly overall the Japanese trading companies have been very profitable, despite their death being heralded every decade – Mitsui is at #9, Itochu at #11, Sumitomo Corp at #14 and Marubeni at #21.

Unsurprisingly, almost none of the Japanese electronics companies feature in the top 30, apart from Canon at #10 and Mitsubishi Electric at #25. Other industries in the top 50 most profitable are automotive (Denso, Bridgestone) and pharmaceutical (Takeda, Astellas) related, and also heavily domestic businesses such as telecommunications (KDDI, SoftBank as well as NTT mentioned above), rail and retail (7&I, Fast Retailing).

Two of the largest Japanese companies in Europe – Fujitsu and Hitachi – are at #69 and #70 – Hitachi’s cumulative profit was heavily dented by the historic loss of $8bn in 2008/9. The largest company in the Europe and Africa region – Sumitomo Electric Industries (due to its labour intensive automotive manufacturing operations) is at #38, with a $6bn cumulative profit.

*Excludes banks, insurance and other financial services companies

Last updated by Pernille Rudlin at 2021-11-01.

Fujitsu

Tag: Fujitsu