Empowered JAPAN Webinar Report

Empowered JAPAN Executive Steering Committee was established in 2018, “To realize a world where everyone canwork and learn, from anywhere, at anytime.” To promote the true value of workstyle innovation including telework, the committee
has been coordinating symposiums in both Tokyo and regional cities. And in collaboration with various local governments,
Microsoft, and partners, the committee has been serving as an advisor to provide telework training for both corporate andindividuals. In response to the spread of infection of corona virus (COVID-19) and the government announcement on February 25,2020, which included the request to citizens to telework, the steering committee made the decision to launch a series of freewebinars starting from March 17, 2020, to provide practical information for individuals and organizations across the nation, totelework and/or practice online education.

Category：Mindset and Communication
Date：April, 15, 2020
Speaker：Akashi Yamazaki
Human Resource Development
Consultant
Visiting Professor, Seikei University,
Faculty of Management

Time to change our workstyle!
Tips of work restructuring and employee training
to maximize teleworking
In response to the government’s request to work from home as a measure to stop the spreadof COVID-19, many companies have introduced or expanded teleworking as an alternative.

Visiting Researcher,However, many companies have started teleworking with minimum rules and an ICT environment

Japan Telework Association

as a provisional measure, and as a result, there are many cases in which only partial employees
have been remotely working, or teleworking is not practically utilized and is ineffective resulting
in work delays. At this seminar, Ms. Yamazaki explained the points from the aspect of work styleand the reformation of employees' awareness for companies that have provisionally started
teleworking but have not been able to effectively utilize it, or given up on teleworking.
First of all, "teleworking (mainly working from home) is effective as a preventative measure forthe spread of COVID-19, however, it is not perfect," said Ms. Yamazaki. "Manufacturing andMs. Yamazaki has been in charge of
projected-based sales training as theservice industries, which cannot be managed remotely, require other means to implement safety
and continue business," he added. If a company cannot effectively utilize teleworking, it will leadteam leader of Solution Sales

to the decline of productivity as the current situation may last longer. In order to avoid this,Development Team of Fuji Xerox. After

reviewing work operations and educating employees to change their awareness are essential, heleading the planning and execution ofexplained. From these two perspectives, let us take a look at how to review work operations andcompany-wide human development

the minimum things we should do as an emergency response.

strategy as a group leader within humanresource department, she became theproject leader of company-widereformation project to drivecommunication and workstyleinnovation. Ms. Yamazaki then became aself-employed consultant to support thecorporate reformation throughcommunication and human resource
development. Author of many related
books such as “Workstyle Reformation
Practical Guidebook for a Company
Transformation (Nikkei BP).”Ms. Yamazaki listed three items that companies should review: work operations, document andinformation management, and communication.

Empowered JAPAN Webinar Report
First, to review work operations, break down tasks of a department into large, medium, and small categories, roughly visualize them, andthen remove unnecessary tasks. After that, visualize the details of required tasks, standardize and optimize to eliminate
overwork/wasteful/irregularity of tasks, and eliminate the reliance of employees (i.e. one cannot work without others). Also, there are somecases that are innovative in different ways from the original ways. Adopting telework after reviewing work operations is an effective way to
do so.
On the other hand, in the case of an emergency response like COVID-19, it is important to "stop finding reasons why you cannot do, andinstead, start changing rules that can be done right now, and making an effort to increase tasks that can be done at home." ( Ms. Yamazaki)
Specifically, after roughly visualizing tasks, it is recommended to look for tasks that can be done at home, and obtain minimum required
tools/preparation, educate employees for adopting telework. "When reviewing work operations, it works better if top managemen t takes
the lead, and lets the section and/or group managers conduct a review in small units." (Ms. Yamazaki)
Second, to review information management, declutter the office by eliminating unnecessary paper and electronic documents, and go
paperless and paper stockless by digitalizing paper documents. After that, to maintain a management system, establish adocument/information management system that thoroughly enforces a procedure to create, organize, save, and discard according to thelife cycle of documents.
On the other hand, in the case of an emergency, "it is important to establish rules to organize individually, digitalize, eliminate the sealing
system for internal documents, and the minimum document management, because it is difficult to organize all at once," said Ms. Yamazaki.
To start the process, each employee should organize what they can, digitalize documents/information in order of importance and level ofurgency, upload them to the server, and enable accessing from home. Also, eliminate the sealing system for internal documents as much as
possible, and replace with electronic sealing or approval email. "For document information management, it is important to est ablish rules
for naming documents, discarding information brought outside from the office, etc., and thoroughly follow the min imum operational rules
for safe, efficient, and effective networking." (Ms. Yamazaki)
Third, to review communication, there are two points: "change the report/contact/consultation methods, and quantity/quality/m ethod ofmeetings." (Ms. Yamazaki) In the case of emergency response, it is recommended to thoroughly follow the "report/contact/consultation"
rules (i.e. reporting start and end of work at home), prepare an ICT environment (i.e. enable reading company notifications f rom thecompany website), and have a daily online meeting.
For a fundamental solution, Ms. Yamazaki advised to maintain communication, which can be neglected, by proactively approachingothers, talk one-on-one, etc., and for improving meetings, he suggests to improve the efficiency of regular meetings, prepare and sharemeeting materials in advance, and advise the facilitator to encourage everyone to speak.
In addition to reviewing work operations, educating employees to change
their awareness and behavior is essential. Ms. Yamazaki recommended providing
training to all employees in order to fix the concept of teleworking throughout
the company, and utilize e-learning service/system that can record training
history. First, to educate management and supervisor personnel, focus onchanging their way of thinking, for example, sharing objectives, respecting
diversity, etc., and instruct practical methods to manage and facilitate meetings.
Then, to educate general employees, it is effective to prepare their mind forindependence and responsibility, and instruct practical methods for selfmanagement, communications, securing information, etc.
Ms. Yamazaki also said, "it is important to follow-up and provide additional training after a certain period of time, and to re-enforce therules annually, in order to establish employee education, and also, clarify a department in charge of educating employees and revie wing
work operations" in order to habituate training.
Finally, Ms. Yamazaki said, "start with what you can according to your company’s situation." Regardless of whether or not adopting
telework, it seems important to continuously review work operations and train employees for improving productivity as Ms. Yamazaki said,"conduct fundamental reviews regardless of the emergency response."