Maybe, but if you've worked in Japan, or even just living here, you know about the long, pointless meetings, desk warming and busy work. Thus, it's highly possible the government is saying "let's get rid of pointless meetings and busy work". Things are that top-down here that often companies won't do anything unless the government has said something (and it's likely that it was the big companies that control the politicians that told them to say it).
There are plenty of examples of this kind of thing, one is when the government had to do the same to force companies to let/get employees to use their holiday entitlements. Western principles such as truth, innocence and self-reliance aren't foundational here - the moment you accept that you understand so much more about the culture, in much the same way you won't understand Buddhism if you use a mental model constructed out of your understanding of Christianity.