Overtime in the Workplace Work-Life Balance Apparently 68.

7% of 129 people say that a Work-Life Balance system has not been introduced in their workplace. According to one survey by CNET Japan, over 90% of the 1,080 people questioned (around 68% of whom were male businessmen) think that overtime is necessary for the companys survival and, to a certain extent, something that cannot be helped. However, nearly everyone thought that Work-Life Balance is important and in order to achieve it, we must raise the efficiency of work and reform the thinking of companies that see overtime as necessary.

Work-life balance more important than ever

By Taro Fujimoto Yoshie Komuro CEO Work Life Balance Co, Ltd TOKYO One oft-quoted word that symbolizes the plight of overworked Japanese workers is karoshi (death by overwork). However, as the economic recession results in an increasing number of companies laying off workers, more people in Japan are starting to realize the futility of not having a private life. The term Work-Life Balance (WLB) has become an in-vogue expression in the worlds second largest economy. The economic downturn is an ideal opportunity for Japanese companies to focus on WLB since it gives everyone a chance to reconsider their traditional working style. Men and women can no longer divide their working lives and private lives without creating some sort of balance, says Yoshie Komuro, CEO of Work Life Balance Co Ltd in Tokyo. Since being launched in 2006, the company has been offering consultation services to companies on how to achieve WLB for their employees. It also provides a computer system called armo to support employees return to the workplace after maternity, child-care, and sick leave. Komuro joined major cosmetic company Shiseido in 1999 after graduating from Japan Womens University. During her college life, she took a year off and worked as a babysitter in the United States where she worked for a woman who was trying to balance child-raising and work. Komuro launched an internal venture project within Shiseido that supports women returning to work from temporary leave through Internet-based applications connecting them with the company. She was named Nikkei Woman of the Year in 2004. At first, I wanted to create a framework to help women balance child raising and work in Japan. But I later found that mental problems among male workers are much more serious issues in Japanese companies. Work-life balance is important for both men and women, says Komuo. Komuro thinks work-life balance is an essential issue for efficiency among white collar workers in Japan. Unlike the manufacturing sector, the productivity per hour among Japanese white collar workers is extremely low, she says. Work-life balance is essential for white collar workers to foster their creativity, especially if they are moving to new types of industries. According to Komuro, the most important issues for achieving a work-life balance in Japan are the personnel assessment system and overtime payment at companies. People see the merit system from an achievement-oriented viewpoint. What is actually important is how efficiently people work during normal hours. Even if companies pay overtime, it is not good for employees to become reliant on it because all they end up doing is working even longer hours to achieve target sales.

Komuro tries to convince companies that it is more cost effective to implement a work-life balance than lay off employees amid the current economic downturn. As companies fire employees or reduce salaries, the remaining employees, especially talented ones, start losing their motivation to work and consider finding new jobs. If companies hire new staff, they have to invest time and money in the newcomers. Therefore, downsizing does not always lead to effective cost reduction. While some companies are still reluctant to adopt the idea of work-life balance, the government is more eager to promote it. Fueling the governments concern is increased health care spending and a future shortage of taxpayers to pay for the pension system as Japans population ages. Komuro, who is also a member of several government panels on labor issues, says, The government is finally starting to see women as important taxpayers for the pension fund and wants them to return to work after maternity and child-care leave as soon as possible. Komuro claims that, at the individual level, the majority of men, who are in their 30s, single and have no siblings, need a work-life balance because they will be expected to take care of their baby-boom generation parents and grandparents in the future. But she says that men in their 30s are resisting a work-life balance more than any other generation. They still think working long hours is the normal thing to do for their companies. They even feel more comfortable staying in the office than being at home. In addition, they dont acquire any new skills. Very few young men read to gain knowledge anymore. While major media report that college students are becoming more conservative about employment, Komuro, who has been teaching students presentation skills at free seminars, says, Actually, I think the younger generation is making rational decisions on employment with an eye to having some balance in their lives. Although some company executives call those students immature (about working), talented students know what is most important about work-life balance. Komuro has been raising a 2-year-old son with her husband since the launch of her company. She is confident her son will find the best job in the best way for him to find the right balance between work and life.

For more information, visit: www.work-life-b.com

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Government launches task force to improve work-life balance Kyodo News The government launched a task force Monday to work out measures to improve the work-life balance among Japanese as part of its efforts to motivate both male and female workers and to fortify the workforce in a rapidly aging society. The panel, set up under the government's Council for Gender Equality, will explore ways for individuals to balance their work and personal life, including family needs, community activities and self-improvement. The group is scheduled to compile an interim report in June. The task force, headed by Hiroki Sato, professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, includes representatives from both management and labor organizations -- the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) and the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo). After the panel's inaugural meeting, Sato told reporters that by introducing measures for a better work-life balance, companies could boost the productivity of their employees because they will try to finish work in a limited time and will work efficiently. "Firms have been taking measures to overcome restrictions connected to environmental concerns and scarcity of natural resources. Likewise, they should address restrictions on employees' working hours from now on," he said. The government has been looking into policies to enhance the work-life balance mainly from the viewpoint of helping working mothers. But the newly set up panel will widen the scope to promote the idea regardless of age and sex. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070307b4.html Statistics on work- life balance in Japan 41.2 percent: The ratio of women who support the idea that husbands should work outside their homes and women should stay at home 49.7 percent: The ratio of men who support the same idea 38 percent: The percentage of women who have continued working after giving birth to their first child 60 minutes: The amount of time men with children aged 5 or younger spend daily on housework, child-rearing, nursing of old or sick family members and shopping 23.5 percent: The percentage of businesses that offer counseling and other mental health services for their workers Source: The Cabinet Office

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 What's the right work-life balance? The Japanese government and concerned organizations search for the right answers By TOMOKO OTAKE Staff writer Campaigning for "work-life balance" is all the rage in Japan. Alarmed by the declining birthrate and a looming labor shortage, the Japanese government is pumping money into child-care services so women can keep working full-time after giving birth. It is also urging men to take child-care leave and asking companies to cut overtime so employees of both sexes will not get too exhausted to raise children or nurse sick parents. The minister of population and gender-equality issues, Yoko Kamikawa, is even asking businesses to appoint CWOs, or Chief Work-life-balance Officers, to make "WLB" a top priority. The government took things even further when it signed the Work Life Balance Chapter in December. Among the 14 numerical goals set (albeit without any penalties for companies that don't meet such goals) are halving the percentage of workers putting in more than 60 hours per week to 5.4 percent by 2017 and doubling the percentage of telecommuting workers to 20 percent by 2010. Still, despite the promotion of family-friendly policies that should make more people's lives easier, workers themselves seem pessimistic about the chance of these changes actually happening. According to a survey of 1,080 businesspeople in mostly nonmanagerial positions taken jointly by the Web site goo Research and online technology news site CNET Japan in February, 45.3 percent of the respondents answered "No" when asked if they thought WLB would take root in Japan, saying working overtime is part of their job. And this was despite almost all of those surveyed having acknowledged the necessity for WLB in their lives. Why are they so pessimistic? Comments made recently at two symposiums in Tokyo suggest that people are often more at the mercy of prevailing cultures than of changes in policies. A March 21 symposium cohosted by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and the Japan Women's University, titled "Creating a Second Chance for Women Helping Mothers Get Back to Work," focused on reintroducing to the workforce women who have left their jobs to have children. At the gathering, Margot J. Carrington, principal officer at the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, pointed to "systemic barriers" afflicting women, such as the lack of labor mobility, people who develop skills that are firm-specific rather than portable, and the reluctance of companies to invest in women. "Unfortunately, I think there are some obstacles that are very systemic and very significant that will

prevent (women from returning to work), in spite of a lot of people willing and wanting to make that happen," Carrington said. At another recent conference, "Family and Work Finding Policies for Supporting Family and Work in a Mature Economy," Naoki Atsumi, research fellow at the Economic Research Center at Fujitsu Research Institute, touched on fixed ideas of gender roles men as breadwinners and women as homemakers as an obstacle, even among women. He cited his own experience of joining the ranks of the 0.5 percent of male workers who take child-care leave when he raised his child with his working wife. "While taking the leave last year, I took my son to the park in the middle of the day," Atsumi said at the March 26 symposium cosponsored by the Japan Foundation and the German political foundation Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. "Mothers who had been chatting there stopped talking as we approached. They gave me a look of, 'The poor guy must be out of work. . . . Or has his wife left him?' " Atsumi noted that what really keeps people, particularly men, from taking child-care leave is something intangible, a "kuki (atmosphere)" or psychological barrier against using such leave. Is there a way out of the conundrum? In the United States, which effectively lags behind all other developed nations in family/work protection policies with no guarantees for paid child-care leave for fathers and no laws setting maximum working hours some forward-thinking companies have started taking action. Connie Dato English, director of alumni career services at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, told the U.S. Embassy symposium that some companies are exploring the idea of "returnship," in which mothers who have taken time out from work, just like interns trying to ease themselves into a profession, can try out their compatibility with employers on a short-term basis, while proving themselves to the corporate world. "If you think about it, it's a low-risk way for the company to engage this person," said English, a re-entrant herself. "It's low risk for the re-entrant, and low-risk to the re-entrant's family as well." On the other hand, in many workplaces, there are not only people who are dying to get back into work, but also people who can't seem to get enough of the office even when they are not productive. To change the minds of die-hard workaholics who make their coworkers feel guilty for pursuing WLB, Fujitsu Research Institute's Atsumi suggested an approach that targets "problem individuals" in companies and tries to change them one by one. One such individual at a client company of Atsumi's was a high-performing yet inflexible manager who would treat his subordinates' time as his own and expect them to work as long as he did. "He told me, 'What about work-work balance? That makes me more excited. Ha ha ha!' " Atsumi recalled. (The comment is a pun "work work" sounds similar to waku waku, which means "to feel excited" in Japanese.) "He took pride in his self-destructive style of working, saying he would die happily at work."

So rather than lecturing him about WLB, Atsumi acted deferential, flattering the man's dedication to his work. Then Atsumi enlisted the help of the manager's elderly boss, the chairman of the company, whom he asked to take the workaholic out for drinks. "I had the chairman tell him, 'You are so valuable to our company, we want you to work for us as long as possible. To raise the sustainability of our company, I want you to work as sustainably as possible, taking good care of yourself,' " Atsumi said. "He finally slowed down after that." Ultimately, the choice of when, and how much, to work should rest with individuals. Likewise, how and to what degree an employee wants to value nonwork aspects of their life be it bringing up children, walking their dogs or going on that round-the-world fantasy trek is something each of us should be able to decide for ourselves and not have the government or academics dictate. The fuzziness of WLB as a concept as well as the difficulty of defining the right balance may explain why a half of survey respondents reacted negatively to it. But a society in which fulltime employees typically take only half of their allotted paid holidays (46.6 percent in a 2007 labor ministry survey) and 99.5 percent of fathers don't use the paternity leave that the government supports is not a healthy society by any measure. Hopefully something, whether it's either new institutional policies or a grassroots change in expectations of what a working culture should be, will bring about a better balance of work and life in a country that badly needs it. Carol Fishman Cohen, a keynote speaker at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and the Japan Women's University symposium "Creating a Second Chance for Women Helping Mothers Get Back to Work" is a mother of four and author of the book "Back on the Career Track." She suggests seven steps for how mothers can "relaunch" their careers: * Decide if you really want to get back to work * Learn confidence * Assess your career options, including where and how to work and at what pay * Update your professional and job-search skills using various connections such as past colleagues, college classmates and groups you have worked with as volunteers * Network and market yourself, including updating your wardrobe * Channel family support * Figure out how to handle the job (or find another more appropriate one if you can't) Source: www.irelaunch.com; "Back on the Career Track" (Business Plus; 320 pp.)