In Japan, 'Rocky' and 'Premium Friday' join fight against overtime
24/02/2017 07:47
By Chris Gallagher
TOKYO, Feb 24 (Reuters) - From the "Rocky" theme to cash
handouts and early "Premium Friday" finishes, a small but
growing number of companies in workaholic Japan are getting
creative with the ways they're getting employees out the door
early.
The government launched its Premium Friday campaign,
encouraging firms to let workers out a few hours early on the
last Friday of the month so they spend money on shopping and
leisure to help boost the economy.
The initiative is also part of a broader push by Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe's administration to reduce working hours,
after the suicide of an employee at ad agency Dentsu 4324.T -
ruled "death by overwork" - cast a harsh spotlight on Japan
Inc's deep-rooted problem of excessive overtime. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1CN2FG
"Excessive working hours have become a big problem," said
Etsuko Tsugihara, chief executive of public relations firm Sunny
Side Up Inc 2180.T .
"We were thinking of ways to improve our own working
environment when the government came up with Premium Friday and
we thought it was a good idea."
As an added incentive, she said Sunny Side Up would hand
employees a one-time 3,200 yen ($28) cash payment as they headed
out at around 3 p.m., while the firm stood to benefit from a
productivity standpoint.
"In creative industries like ours, inspiration won't come
just from staying in the office for a long time. But take some
time off, breathe new air and see new things and the ideas will
come, and you'll be refreshed when you come back on Monday."
Beyond easing the personal toll on workers, the government
has the economy in mind.
As the labour pool shrinks along with the population, it
wants firms to reduce hours to encourage more women to work and
get fathers more involved in bringing up children. Increased
leisure time should also mean more time between the sheets to
boost the birth rate.
'GONNA FLY NOW'
Some employers are already taking up the call.
Channelling their inner Rocky, workers at the headquarters
of Mitsui Home Co 1868.T hear the trumpets of "Gonna Fly Now"
playing over office speakers every day at 6 p.m. as a signal
that they can leave.
Saint-Works Corporation, which specializes in IT system
development for the nursing care industry, has a no-overtime day
once a month. Violators must wear a purple "cape of shame" with
gold stars.
Others, like the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, are simply
turning off the lights by around 8 p.m. to make people leave.
Leasing company Orix Corp 8591.T plans to offer up to 50,000
yen for employees who use at least five vacation days in a row.
Still, these examples are by far the exception in a culture
where workers are judged by the amount of "face time" they put
in, and feel pressure not to leave before the bosses.
SMBC Nikko Securities estimated that up to just 6.5 percent
of Japanese workers would participate in Premium Friday.
A government white paper released in October showed that
almost a quarter of companies had employees who had worked more
than 80 hours of overtime in a month - its threshold for risk of
"karoshi", or death by overwork.
To plug loopholes in the labour laws, the government last
week submitted to a work reform committee a proposal to limit
overtime to 720 hours a year, or an average of 60 hours a month.
DRASTIC OVERHAUL
Truly bidding sayonara to overtime in Japan "requires a
fairly drastic overhaul", said Yoko Ishikura, professor emeritus
at Hitotsubashi University and an expert on workstyle reforms.
Japanese offices are still employing too many generalists
with ill-defined roles making it hard to measure their work
output and thus encouraging unproductive time sitting at desks,
while an inflexible job market was exacerbating the problem, she
said.
"We're very efficient in factories but when it comes to
white collar, productivity is very low," she said. "What we're
interested in is productivity improvement and innovation, and
long work hours do not help either."
Still, some are apprehensive about changing too much, too
quickly.
At a meeting last week of the government's Council on
Economic and Fiscal Policy, Suntory Holdings Chief Executive
Takeshi Niinami expressed concern that less overtime could hurt
workers in the form of lower pay - and hurt consumer spending.
Sadayuki Sakakibara, chairman of the Japan Business
Federation corporate lobby, told reporters he was basically in
favour of setting limits on work hours but the global
competitiveness of Japanese firms could be at risk if limits
were too strict.
However, Yoshie Komuro, founder and head of the consultancy
Work-Life Balance Co, noted Japan Inc had already been losing
its global edge recently and said it must change its mindset to
improve performance and attract top talent.
"Japan thinks long working hours are a tool that it can use
to win, but the reality is they're the reason it's been losing."
($1=112.73 yen)
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Additional reporting by Hyun Oh
and Ritsuko Shimizu; Editing by Robert Birsel)
((chris.gallagher@thomsonreuters.com; https://twitter.com/ChrisGallagher4;
81-3-6441-1842; Reuters Messaging:
chris.gallagher.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: JAPAN OVERWORK/REFORMS