Japanese Companies Unprepared for “Work at home” (working remotely)

I recently wrote a post about how far behind Japanese universities and higher education institutions were in online systems and e-learning compared to other developed countries outside of Japan. Japanese companies are no different, I believe presently, they are at least 10 years behind having a system where employees can work remotely away from the office. The article below that came out in the online Japan English news called Japan Today brings up some very insightful points regarding company workers working remotely. The irony is people outside of Japan usually hold Japan up on a pedestal in regards to advanced technology and IT systems. Most people think that Japanese companies are way ahead in technology, working systems and management efficiency. There are pockets of such types of advanced technology and systems in Japan, but they are a very small minority. The majority of company systems, IT technology, up-to-date computers, and hardware are most of the time, far behind developed countries in the west. I think Nick Benes who is quoted in the article states it best, “A lack of up-to-date IT systems means Japan lags in nurturing flexible work practices, office rules, management methods and even attitudes toward remote work. It's one factor contributing to relatively low labor productivity. Moreover, in addition to the “hardware” insufficiencies, the “software issues” and in this case, this would be the cultural challenges in Japanese companies can be even more of an obstacle. In Japan, employees being “present” and having good relations with their colleagues are viewed as more important than actual results in many companies. There has always been the strong focus on team building, good company relations (ningen kankei) and a working community which emphasizes harmony and being physically present. The other challenge is that Japanese managers many times assign work to teams or groups of people who share parts of the whole. So this creates more of a “generalists” type of mindset who is not really autonomous or given much authority. Everyone is responsible so you don’t have a strong leader who takes complete responsibility for the project. In places like the US, people usually develop an expertise in their field, the value is on becoming a “specialist” at their job. So that is a major cultural difference, creating and developing generalists vs specialists. Another big challenge in the company management system is the “hanko system” which is a stamp approval system (similar to a signature) that requires the staff person to visit in person each manager, supervisor, or boss that is in the chain of command above him/her and answer any questions and get their personal hanko (personal stamp). The more important the request, the more people have to give their "hanko" (personal stamp). This hanko system is deeply embedded in Japanese culture and society. Recently on NHK they featured a Japanese company who developed the electronic hanko system. So the technology is there, but this will still take some time to get accepted and implemented as well as certain big transactions would still require an in-person hanko. If you watch Japanese people stamp forms with their hanko, you can see that “hanko stamping” is highly valued and there is a real art to it. I have heard many times people compliment others who are good at giving their hanko. This means the way and amount of pressure they press the stamp and the clarity and crispness of the ink and the stamp. As the article below also mentions, Japanese companies and homes are still heavily dependent on fax machines. In the US, most people don't even have fax machines anymore, they are considered obsolete. Just recently, I had some medication which was sent from Hawaii that was caught up in Japanese customs. There were two steps, the first is you have to get the approval of the medical section that works under customs, then send their approval to Japanese customs for the release of your package. I have gone through this process three times before and so I quickly sent in by email the forms to the medical section who works under customs. They approved and returned my forms promptly by email in PDF form. When I tried to send the forms in a PDF file to Japanese customs, they called me to tell me that due to security, their computer system does not accept PDF files, only Word files or to please send in the forms by fax machine. I did not understand that because I would have thought PDF files were more secure or the same. Anyway, I wrote back and asked the medical section to please send me the forms back in Word or another program that Customs can open. They wrote back saying that they can only send the documents in PDF. I told Customs this and they said to go to the convenience store and fax the documents to them. So I ended up going to a convenience store and paid to print out and fax the approved forms to Customs. What was so unbelievable was first, the medical section under customs can only send the approved forms in a PDF format. Second, Japanese customs can only accept documents in Word not PDFs. Third, they want things sent in by fax machine. And fourth, when I asked the medical section if they could send the approved documents directly to Japanese customs since they work under them, they told me they cannot and only can send it to me in PDF. All of this is part of a government bureaucracy but also the backwardness and lack of efficiency with the use of technology by government offices in Japan. Lastly, I think another issue is that Japanese employees do not know how to work on their own remotely. In the office, they usually have constant direction and supervision with very little autonomy and authority. Even in the US, people who have never worked from home have a difficult time getting used to and not getting distracted, but in Japan because of the way work is usually assigned and managed, employees have a even more difficult time if they have never worked like this before. And managers also have a difficult time because they don’t know how much work the employee can do at home because in the office, there is a lot of sharing and supervision. In addition, my personal opinion is that there is a huge need of critical thinking which leads to informed and quick decision making. That is why I have always tried to push study abroad for young Japanese so strongly. I believe that the Japanese can only acquire these “soft skills” or “people skills” such as critical and independent thinking, quick decision making, and calculated risk taking, from outside of Japan. Japanese universities do not teach such skills and companies do not either. My guess would be that only a small number of employees who acquire these skills usually get them after several years, maybe after 10 or more years of working at a company. I think a basic cultural trait that is changing but still is very prevalent in Japan is the idea of valuing effort over results. In the US, it usually all about what you produced and your results. In Japan, although results are important, because of the way managers give out work and the way the working systems are set up, it is difficult to see the actual results of each employee. And thus, having people working from home, is a totally different way to manage and assign work and will take the Japanese companies at least a couple of years to figure this all out. But as I also wrote in my previous post, the silver lining is that an outside force, the Corona Virus is forcing Japan to do what Japanese companies have needed to do for the last 20 years to be competitive in the 21st century. Once the Japanese get their mind around this, due to the consensus way of decision making and implementation, they can actually acquire rather quickly the knowhow and systems to be successful because adaptation and consensus implementation (once they have been forced to accept a different way of doing things) are really Japan’s forte and strength. (Like in the examples of the Black Ship and after World War II). Click on this sentence to link to the Japan Today article on “Low-tech Japan Challenged.”

Tagged: Japan technology, Japan online learning, Japan e-learning, Japan and covid-19, japanese management