A10ASIA| THE STRAITS TIMES | MONDAY, JULY 24, 2017 |Japan’s efforts
to reform work
culture see results

Ms Naoko
Oikawa, amanager withmarketingcompany
Willgate, worked
reduced hours
while she tookcare of her
newborn child.
ST PHOTO:WALTER SIM

Flexi-work, shorter hours among initiatives offered by govt and firms
Walter Sim
Japan Correspondent
In Tokyo
Japan’s largest advertising firm
Dentsu will soon go to court over
the Christmas Day 2015 suicide of ayoung employee who had been
overworked and bullied.
The karoshi case is now a causecelebre epitomising the deeprooted culture of workplace malpractice in Japan, while galvanising
a fledgling movement to promote
progressive practices at work.
Several companies have taken
the lead in offering a four-day work
week, with employees clocking thestandard 40 hours a week over four
10-hour days instead of fiveeight-hour days.

Other arrangements to allow
shorter work hours, tele-commuting and flexi-work are now more
popular as companies strive to upkeep employee morale and prevent
talent attrition, with the job market
at its tightest in decades.
The government has also stepped
up: It wants public servants toknock off on time on Wednesdays
and Fridays, while the Premium Friday scheme urges firms to let theirstaff leave work at 3pm on the last
Friday of the month.
Many firms have long been offering variants of the incentive, including Fast Retailing – parent company of fashion store Uniqlo – andtech firms Cybozu and SignalTalk.
IBM Japan has offered reduced
hours since 2004. Employees may
choose to work either 60 per centor 80 per cent of the standard
40-hour workweek, with theirsalaries pro-rated accordingly.
Company spokesman Kazuhiko
Suyama said this was to support thecareer and skills development ofprized employees. Dozens of staff
have chosen to work shorter hours
in order to tend to their children or
elderly parents, while three people
with disabilities are also on board
the scheme.
Marketing company Willgate alsooffers reduced work hours, which
manager Naoko Oikawa, 38, said ensured her career development neednot be put on hold while she tookcare of her newborn son.
Software firm SignalTalk has various schemes including teleworking. Spokesman Mie Unno told The
Straits Times the initiatives havehelped to retain talent, including
someone who wanted to quit totake care of his elderly parents.
“At first there was concern theschemes will lead to a reduction in
our business output,” she said. “Butit places trust in our professional
employees, and they value theself-management system.”
The government hopes to encourage a better work-life balancethrough Premium Friday, which
also urges workers to loosen theirpurse strings to drive consumption.
Mr Riki Ohtake of the Ministry ofEconomy, Trade and Industry thatruns the programme told The
Straits Times that early signs havebeen encouraging, and the initiative is not just a flash in the pan.
In the five campaigns since theFebruary launch, the number of par-ticipating firms has grown almost
four times from 136 to 537, involving
an estimated 710,000 employees. Although the firms include big names
such as Nissan and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, most are small
and medium-sized enterprises.
Department stores like Daimaru
and Takashimaya have seen a spikein earnings on Premium Friday,
and the number of retailers offering
discounts or promotions has risen
60 per cent to nearly 7,500.
Mr Ohtake noted the operationaldifficulties expressed by some industries. But he said: “We would
like to convey the philosophy behind Premium Friday so that suchcompanies, too, can take up reasonable measures.”waltsim@sph.com.sg

Pushing healthierwork-life balance
NATIONWIDE

Premium Friday
Companies are urged to let
their employees knock off at
3pm on the last Friday ofeach month, in a campaignthat began in February. Hopefully, the early dismissal
would also give workers timeto go shopping and contribute to the economy.
So far, more than 530 firms
nationwide are taking part.
No Overtime Day
The central government is attempting to take the lead byadvising public servants toknock off on time on Wednesdays and Fridays, though thisserves more as a guideline
than a hard-and-fast rule.
Day of Telework
The Olympic Games will
open in Tokyo on July 24,
2020, and the central government has earmarked thisdate as the Day of Telework
in Japan. Only about 16 percent of companies with morethan 100 employees have introduced such a system.
IN TOKYO

Holding two jobs, Mr Ryuta Nakamura says, has not only let him earn more money but also pursue diverse interests and grow his networks in two different fields. ST PHOTO: WALTER SIM

IT developer and ginseng farmer – at the same time
For four days a week – from Tuesday to Friday – Mr Ryuta Nakamura
joins the ranks of salaried employees and works as a software developer for IT company Cybozu.
The other three days of the week,
he toils the fields in front of hishome as a ginseng farmer for agricultural firm NK Agri Corporation.
Holding two jobs, Mr Nakamura,
53, told The Straits Times, has notA screengrab
from a video
taken by a robot
underwater
showing thelower part ofa control rod
drive inside
reactor No. 3at Fukushima.
PHOTO: AGENCEFRANCE-PRESSE

only let him earn more money but
also pursue diverse interests.
“IT and agriculture are entirelydifferent, and my two roles makefor a very refreshing breath of fresh
air,” said Mr Nakamura, a father of
two children aged 24 and 21.
Such a scheme was in the spotlight in Japan recently, when majordelivery firm Sagawa Express began wooing potential employeeswith a four-day work week amid alabour crunch, while also allowing
them to take on a second job.
Mr Nakamura said the arrangement has allowed him to grow his
networks in two very different industries, which may lead tocross-industry collaboration. But a
downside is that he needed to manage the expectations of two different sets of bosses, he quipped.

Mr Nakamura, who used to workfor tech conglomerates NEC andMicrosoft, now also takes part in dialogue sessions with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as Japan grapples
with the bigger question of how todeal with issues like entrenchedovertime.
Cybozu was launched in 1997,
and has offered employees the freedom to choose how they work

since 2007 – an option which thecompany acknowledges is still“quite unusual” in Japan.
“Work-life balance may be thecatchword, but there really does
not need to be a cleavage between
work and life,” said Mr Nakamura.
“So long as you enjoy what you do,
it will not seem like work.”

Jisa Biz, which means timedifference in Japanese, wasrecently launched to urge
companies to implement
measures such as flexi-timearrangements.
It also targets Tokyo’s infamous overcrowded commuter trains during the morning
rush hour, with an eye towards alleviating the situation by the 2020 Olympics.
About 260 firms and municipalities are on board.
AT COMPANY LEVEL

More companies, such as Uniqlo and Sagawa Express, areembracing the four-day workweek. Employees clock four
10-hour days instead of thestandard five eight-hour days.
They are also typically allowed to take up a second job.
Walter Sim

Walter SimFukushima images likely to be of melted nuclear fuelTOKYO • New images captured in

the past few days show what is likely
to be melted nuclear fuel from one ofJapan’s wrecked Fukushima reactors, a potential milestone in thecleanup of one of the worst atomic
disasters in history.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco),
Japan’s biggest utility, has released
images of mounds of black rock andsand-like substances at the bottomof the No. 3 reactor containment
vessel at Fukushima, which is likely
to contain melted fuel, said Tepco

official Takahiro Kimoto.
A survey had found black icicles
hanging from above the pressure
vessel, which was “highly likely” tocontain melted fuel. Mr Kimoto
noted it would take time to confirm
if this debris contains melted fuel.
“The pictures that we have gained
will assist us in devising a plan for removing the melted fuel,” he said.
If confirmed, the pictures would
be the first discovery of the fuel that
melted during the triple-reactor accident at Fukushima six years ago.

Removing the fuel is one of themost important steps in a cleanupthat may take as long as 40 years.
The pictures were taken by aToshiba-designed, 30cm-long robot
the firm sent to explore the inside of
the reactor for the first time. The robot, which can swim in the flooded
unit, was tasked with surveying thedamage and finding the location of
corium – a mixture of the atomic
fuel rods and other structural materials that forms after a meltdown.
Due to the high radioactivity lev-els inside the reactor, only speciallydesigned robots can probe the unit.
Tepco is pinning its efforts on technology not yet invented to get themelted fuel out of the reactors.
“If some of these fragments canbe brought out of the reactor andstudied, it would allow nuclear engineers and scientists to better model
what happened during the accident,” said Professor M. V. Ramanaof the Liu Institute for Global Issues
at the University of British Columbia. BLOOMBERG