Efforts to change the Japanese culture of extreme work weeks
bbc.com
bbc.com
Usually there were two check ins and if you didn't burn a minimum of leave by then, your manager would take your work laptop and send you home on paid leave until you met it.
Once leave becomes mandatory.. you can't judge people for taking it. Obviously the goal is for them to want to use the leave (and plan what they want to do with it) instead of forcing them to take it, but it's a leveling action.
Any examples of companies that are doing this? I haven't heard of many, at least in the SF Bay Area.
You come back with a lot of energy too :-)
"Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job"
* https://local.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacatio...
I picked at random, the `manager` and I both know I'll be working at home anyway.
From the candor of GP's comment, I would venture to guess that both he and the manager are type-A personalities who want to be at work all the time. My dad was and is like that. He progressed much further in his career than he would have otherwise and our family was none-the-worse for it. Not everyone is like that, but I don't see it as incomprehensible (or even a problem).
Although I'm not the same as my dad, I've long felt an individualist stubbornness that leads me to a similar conclusions. When I was a kid, we had a birthday party at a bowling alley and the attendants put the bumpers[1] up in our alley and wouldn't take them down. I was so incensed that I instead made a game of trying to whack the bowling ball hard enough against the bumpers to bounce over them. I was elated when I got one all the way into the next alley.
My gut reacts to the idea of "mandatory days off" in an intuitively similar way, even though I probably wouldn't be incensed about it the way I was about the bumpers in the bowling alley as a child. I'm probably on the extreme end of a cultural and value difference between Americans and Europeans.
[1]: https://cdn.mykidlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0211010...
There's a bit of that. The main reason though is that I am way out of touch and unable to separate work/whatever life for a bunch of different reasons. Let's say I am a mess right now and not caring much about losing vacation.
> From the candor of GP's comment, I would venture to guess that both he and the manager are type-A personalities who want to be at work all the time. My dad was and is like that. He progressed much further in his career than he would have otherwise and our family was none-the-worse for it. Not everyone is like that, but I don't see it as incomprehensible (or even a problem).
Not really, maybe. I am a teamplayer and a people pleaser but I have some type A tendencies (types only tell a part of the story anyway). I have nothing to show for that though (not a top leet coder, not a top lead manager, etc. I am good, reliable but I am not shining).
I think if I was more "type A" I would not let such things happen.
> [1]: https://cdn.mykidlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0211010....
How did you do that :D
The rest of the days might be lost, transferred into next year’s vacation with a cutoff (like until end of Q1 next year or end of the year otherwise they are lost), or with no cutoff and they stack up forever.
And if you delay two weeks to next year that means 5 mandatory weeks that year.
And: it is not just in theory. It is the law and both parts can get in trouble if you don't follow it.
If the PTO is not taken, the company can be fined by the state, so this is taken rather seriously.
It also forces people to communicate details somewhat.
Although around Old Street the buses don’t really go above walking speed.
For others reading, here is what I found:
> at a minimum, covers those officers and employees involved or engaged in transactional business or having the ability to change the official records of the institution
https://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/industry/il960822.htm
> The New York State Banking Department considers it to be a prudent business practice for every bank, and branch or agency of a foreign banking corporation, to promulgate and maintain a written vacation policy which, at a minimum, covers those officers and employees involved or engaged in transactional business or having the ability to change the official records of the institution. This policy should also cover all other staffers who are capable of influencing or causing such activities to occur. The Department strongly recommends that all traders be covered by the policy.
> Employees in such sensitive positions should be required to take at least two (2) consecutive weeks of vacation (or other leave) on an annual basis. During such time, the officer or employee must be off-site and off-line. In other words, not only should he/she be physically absent from your premises, but he/she should also not be permitted to effect any transactions or other banking business from off-site, such as through an off-site computer link.
https://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/industry/il960822.htm
archived at: https://outline.com/Y3dcgF https://archive.md/LJvbH
> We don't frown on people taking time off, but rather encourage people to take care of themselves and others by having some time away. If you notice that your co-worker is working long hours over a sustained period, you may want to let them know about the time off policy.
> Not taking vacation is viewed as a weakness and people shouldn't boast about it. It is viewed as a lack of humility about your role, not fostering collaboration in training others in your job, and not being able to document and explain your work. You are doing the company a disservice by being a single point of failure. The company must be able to go for long periods without you. We don't want to lose you permanently by you burning yourself out by not taking regular vacations.
First of all, it's literally not unlimited and effectively boils down what you would've normally had anyway. But because of the murkiness and psychology involved it often results in people taking less time off than if they simply had N days of allocated vacation. It also means that if you quit or get laid off, the time you didn't take is worth $0. Additionally, as was alluded to, I've seen it breed resentment when people are seen as taking too much vacation.
The company has a big upside though, as they have less liability on the books.
Required minimum would help, but that's very rare.
Unless it is an emergency, communicate early and often, and it is not a problem. That way, you and everyone who depends on you knows what to expect (or not) and when to expect it (or not).
The best part about it is not worrying over small details, like if I take my time off in the summer and fall, will I run out of PTO before flu season hits this winter?
Yes, it is unfortunate that you dont have anything to cash out once you quit, and you might worry about taking too much off. As to the first, oh well, take the time off. As to the second, if you can't have an honest and fair conversation with you boss about your concerns regarding time off, you aren't going to have honest or fair conversations about a lot of really important work matters that process and time-tracking and firm clear cut rules won't fix.
Expect to be treated like an adult, act like an adult, and if you aren't treated like one, take advantage of the good market now and find a better job. That advice applies to a lot of maybe-maybe worries in the workplace for in-demand positions.
I took something like, 3 work weeks off per year; most people took a bit more than I did, with a few taking 6+ weeks off in a year. The guy who took the least vacation, that our manager had to remind to take time off, probably took around 1.5-2 weeks off.
All that disappears if you just give me a set number of days.
Some days you just can't be arsed to go out.
It took some preparation and coordination, understanding my reasons (I had to settle some business overseas), but it was granted and paid for, and I was welcome to come back to work.
It's also worth pointing out that most normal expenses (rent, food, etc.) don't stop when you take time off, so we decided that if we want people to feel like they can actually take a vacation and get away, we should actually be giving them a bonus from their normal salary to enable that.
We try to do a lot of things to respect our team and create a culture of positive work/life balance, and so far, we feel really good about the results of the tradeoffs we've made.
When I worked in Germany the company I worked at did that. You had until the end of the first quarter of the next year to use all of your vacation days. If you still had vacation left after this date, they forced you to take them until the end of the second quarter - this was frowned upon and managers made sure it wouldn't happen.
I'm not sure if this is a law or just something the company did but the problem here isn't peer pressure. It seems to be part of the business model of Japanese companies because implementing and enforcing such a policy is easy.
I was clear with everyone how it worked and always worked with everyone to make sure time off worked out for all involved. It really isn't that hard if you put the time in to getting along with folks / understanding what they want, etc.
Eventually though I would have to "force it". I'd schedule random days off here and there, suddenly a week off for some folks who never took time off. Most folks kinda liked it as a sort of "happy surprise". Everyone was salary so nobody lost any money or anything like that.
It actually worked out well, mostly because I made sure everyone knew what to expect / how it would happen if they just didn't use any PTO and I kept everyone up to date as to where they stood.
I was surprised by how many people just really ... never took time off until I made them.
It was also a really nice environment.
It was a sort of stress free ... high stress technical support situation. But everyone supported each other so it was surprisingly easy going.
Part of the reason is we don't schedule anything very far in advance, so I am hesitant usually to use vacation days early in the year when I might want to use them later on.
Also, my work schedule is flexible enough that there is rarely a reason to take time off. If I need to leave early, I leave early. If I need to go to an appointment, I go to an appointment. None of it affects my time off.
And I guess maybe I just like routine?
Things are changing in Japan, but progress appears to be moving at a glacial pace.
https://qz.com/1084591/despite-japans-generous-paternity-lea...
I’m not sure what the solution is, but one idea is to lock out work laptops after a time limit, or at least record overtime when a work laptop is being used.
Until we can begin to accurately track and measure the unreported overtime, we won’t be able to improve it.
Finally, I think working in multicultural teams helps. When you see your peers have diverse beliefs and actions about work and life, you may be more willing to take more time off, and more accurately report the overtime you do take.
And while I haven't seen first-hand the Japanese style overwork, I have seen Silicon Valley startup "overwork" up close and have similar concerns. My pet theory is that in early-stage startups it's so unclear what is actually valuable and productive work that the overwork becomes a proxy for productivity.
It used to be in Japan that you would not leave the office before your manager left whatever time that was.
This is one reason why Japan has so many public holidays: it's a way to legally enforce that most salarymen get some time off.
That's just nuts. I had 15 for a while and it felt to me like I could never get a break and life was just a never ending string of work.
"used to be"? has this changed? I thought this was still the case in the older salary-men type companies.
She recently came to visit us in my home country for Christmas whereupon I learned that she has a 2 hour commute each way on purpose because of this. I asked her isn't commuting 4 hours a day just awful, why don't you live closer to work? And she replied that if she lived closer to work she would simply be at work longer and having a long commute means 4 hours a day she can spend not doing work stuff but doing things like listening to music and playing games on her phone.
Still is.
This nails it. That pang of guilt and horror knowing you'll be reacted to in such a seemingly viscous way just stops you dead in your tracks.
I think the silly thing is it's always framed as "maintaining the group harmony" but it's more like maintaining the group misery.
Why do the co-workers react the way they do? It's such a bitter way to react. "I can't take time off because you'd be mad at me for doing so, because it would put you out, yet you're ok with taking time off and putting me out? What kind of bullshit is that? I'm definitely very mad at you!".
So the idea is that you don't want to do anything that would make anyone mad at you because "that's not what Japanese do".
It's just so circular.
Another way to confirm this is to compare with the morning rush hour. Way more crowded as most people start work at around the same time (most companies have a starting time of 9 or 10 am).
i am not a researcher, but i dont think that’s the root cause, since
1. there are many types of “western culture” and 2. if it were a sign of collectivist vs individualistic the the u.s should be fairly low on the list but appears above japan! [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#OECD_ranking
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just my opinion from working in jp for more than 10 years, but the only thing that will truly fix the overwork problem will be to officially change the workweek to 4 days... they tried something like this with “premium friday” [2] which went absolutely nowhere...
“ @here I want to thank everyone for a great year. We’ve accomplished a ton, and I think we need to stop and recognize it. My ask for everyone is to take the week off next week. We have a few things we need to be on-call for, and heaven knows we could use the time to write more tests, but I think it is important to pause, rest, and reflect.”
Im so glad that this is totally cool in our company and our culture. I wish this was the rule and not the exception.
For example, how many here have ever heard of Burakumin[1]? It's a taboo subject to talk about in Japan, so it is rare you'll hear of it through mainstream news.
Basically, in many places in southern Japan, when you apply for a job, employers will look up your surname to see if your ancestors were burakumin (held "impure" occupations in the feudal era like butcher, tanner, etc). If so, they won't hire you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Buraku_Liberation_Le...
Like you said, a lot of people don't care, especially in urban regions, because the concept of buraku itself is fairly foreign to people living there. Maybe this is but more prominent in rulal areas.
Source of information that often cited as is a 本籍 (honseki -- a location of where national registry is filed and hence, stored.) This information used to be required for a lot of the places (including driver's license, job application, among others) but because of this abuse, this is no longer a commonly collected information unless it is required. (And also you can change honseki, too.)
There are also restrictions on the kinds of names you are allowed to choose, if for example you are naturalizing. The list of allowed names clearly distinguishes you and your family from "true" Japanese.
Do you have a source for that?
Just FYI, this is complete pablum. While it’s true that Japanese society has a collectivist bent, that this by default maps to some authoritarian business culture, elides the political and ideological project of the right wing in Japan.
Prior to the war and up into the 1970s, Japan was a hotbed of radical politics and labor activism that roiled the country. Unions dominated many industries, socialists and communists won major parliamentary victories, and Japanese thinkers and activists were on the vanguard of many left wing movements.
This state of affairs was, however, completely unacceptable to the US. And so they proceeded to massively subsidize right wing politicians, work with organized crime to intimidate and disrupt unionized workers, and gather intelligence against opposition to the LDP’s rule.
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-...
So if you want to understand why the country has devolved into this kind of crushing exploitation and culture of suffering, you really need to begin with the fact that the US rehabilitated a bunch of fascists, helped orchestrate their rule over the postwar order, and crushed all meaningful challenge to this state of affairs. There’s nothing inherent to the Japanese people that makes any of this necessary.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Italy#Cold_W...
Maybe younger people?
How can this come out of the same country as the Toyota production system, the popularization of quality control, and the intense study of Deming?
What I have realized talking to the native people here is that working late is due to :
1. Impress peers and managers 2. Impress wife and her friends that you are important to the company 3. (For people with young kids) Not be a nuisance to the sleeping schedule of kids by coming early 4. Nothing much to do after going home because of lack of intimacy with spouse/partner 5. Actual work requirements 6. To earn overtime pay since basic pay is too low to cover all the expenses.
People have different reasons at different points in time.
Japan has an amazing diversity of environments, biomes and subcultures. It's a shame if their own people are usually too busy to enjoy much of that.
The entire company got a mail from HR last week asking people to please take at least 5 days off every year.
My team is international, so we all had a good laugh, but it was a bit disturbing to think enough of my colleagues take so little time off that it prompts this email...
Let's remove the Japanese cultural aspect for the sake of argument. Its relevant but lets keep it general.
You'd be amazed how much you can glean from even something as apparently simple as staff leave entitlements.
Based on my experience in a previous type of role interacting with "less than stellar" businesses, here's how I'd review that guys manager and company performance:
That guy's manager is either incompetent or in a high stress environment themselves from on-high. They don't know how to manage people. Likely running all staff at overload. They are therefore underperforming with fatigue an issue. Likely error rate is excessive, or worse, minor mistakes are being covered up and are already on slow burn to becoming larger ones. Fear is a factor in all decisions involving responsibility. CYA is overused.
Leadership is probably running the business poorly across multiple measures. Untested or non-existent disaster contingency plans. Every person is either a critical link or near one. Too much in each persons head because they are too scared to share information. Proliferation of business silos. Entire groups are isolated from each other. Pointless duplication of work or systems. Managers increase headcount for power but then purge when expenses get flagged.
Embezzlement or some other fraud is likely because no one is second guessing the day-in-day-out work. The corrupt group are left to run continuously and uninterrupted because no one honest takes the reins at regular intervals. No rotation of staff at any particular point needed because no one really goes on leave. Financial mismanagement at minimum is likely even if fraud is not present.
Poor social inclusion/cohesion. Staff are isolated from their communities and those links are shaky or broken. This is not good for anyone and the damage will flow back in other ways. Low cohesive people later turn into messes of their own and in turn result in increasing turnover overall or worse they stay and lower performance of themselves or others. Bullying/mobbing are likely present.
Since corporations are legal individuals, this one is a workaholic jerk that doesn't play well with others and at extreme is headed for prison / bankruptcy / or both. Even if the corporation succeeds its still a failure since it had to sacrifice so much to get there it barely got there at all. Dying at the summit is not success when the real success is returning to what matters. Plenty of companies are run this close to failure. Next financial hiccup will cause this company to trip or fall over.
And that's how much you can link from staff leave entitlements. Its a lazy way of identifying red flags for sure. Some of these are only related because a company with bad leave arrangements is of a certain design or style. But the financial aspects have served me well as a rule of thumb. Culture matters. Be very suspicious of short leave entitlements and actual usage as they hide a multitude of sins and dysfunctions.