Japanese work environment

The Japanese work environment is a culture in which teamwork is prized. Workers have a group mentality that looks to superiors before making decisions. Long hours are expected, as are after-hours drinks. Japanese workers are more formally dressed than Americans, and their office interactions are also formal.

In Japan, work-life balance tilts strongly toward work. Many employees become sick, and some die from health complications or die by suicide due to the pressure of proving their worth and loyalty to supervisors. In 2016, a survey of 10,000 Japanese workers found they worked at least eighty hours of overtime a month. Half said they did not take paid vacations.

Background

As an island nation, Japanese culture was relatively isolated in the past. As the Japanese encountered other cultures of the Asian mainland, such as China, they selectively assimilated ideas and values while remaining apart. Among these were religious and philosophical ideas, including Buddhism, writing systems, and ideas about urban design. Social interactions and communities were largely ruled by a clan structure, with individuals specializing in certain skills held in high regard in the royal courts. Later, the emergence of large cities divided the ruling class from the farmers, whose output supported the lavish urban existences of those in power.

Trade with Europeans began during the sixteenth century. Jesuit missionaries, who arrived not long after the Portuguese and Spanish sailors, encouraged trade as they attempted to convert Japanese people to Christianity. Leadership at first welcomed the missionaries but, several years later, completely suppressed Christianity and closed off Japan from almost all outside contact.

A strict class structure was firmly in place by the late seventeenth century, with the samurai or warrior class demanding obedience from farmers, artisans, and merchants. This approach extended even to the family, with all members expected to be obedient to the male head of the household. The status of women was particularly low, and this attitude continued well into the twentieth century.

The nineteenth century was marked by the efforts of foreign powers to open Japan to trade. While the Dutch were welcome trade partners, the Russian envoy, who arrived in 1804, was turned away. The Russians responded by volleying attacks over the next three years. Later, the Japanese policy became inconsistent, with some ships from England and elsewhere being permitted to trade while others were rebuffed. A widespread famine during the 1830s led many peasants and city dwellers alike to revolt against the ruling class, and this pressure from within, combined with pressure from foreign nations, continued to force a decision on opening to trade. Two centuries of seclusion began to end with the arrival of a squadron of US warships in 1853, though several decades of competing interests delayed wide-scale trade.

Delegations of Japanese government officials visited the United States and Europe to explore their industrial might and take ideas home. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Japan began to industrialize in the European and American style, and Western culture, including literature, science, and visual arts, began to influence the masses. Western attire gradually replaced traditional garments, such as the kimono, in public settings.

World War II left Japan’s economy in tatters. The nation struggled to rebuild and relied on a plan developed by an American banker, Joseph Dodge, to create a new economy. Japan benefited from the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950; Japanese goods were in high demand, and outside interests were keen to invest in industry. Japan’s economy expanded rapidly over the next few decades. The nation developed industrial production facilities and cultivated both the domestic and foreign markets. Trade was enormously important because the island nation had few natural resources for industry, such as fossil fuels, and insufficient arable land to feed its population.

During the 1950s, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida prioritized rebuilding the economy. He worked with major corporations, who agreed to offer lifelong job security to workers who remained loyal. The economy grew at an impressive pace, but by the mid-1960s, the toll it took on workers began to show.

Overview

The traditional respect for authority figures continues to influence Japan’s workforce. Attire is formal, and Japanese workers do not call one another by first names at work. Such familiarity is regarded as rude.

A hallmark of business and government agencies alike is to make decisions by consensus. A decision is discussed and debated through the leadership ranks of an organization until an agreement is reached, and a decision is made. While to Westerners, consensus means to make a decision, to the Japanese, an important factor is defining the question. They work to determine if a decision needs to be made and what it is about. Only when this has been determined do they move on to making a decision, a process they call the action stage. Top management chooses who will make the decision, an assignment arrived at through all the stages leading up to the action stage.

Many Japanese workers are expected to adhere to a work style called ho-ren-so. This is a mnemonic device combining the first syllables of three verbs: houkoku, meaning “report;” renraku, or “contact;” and soudan, meaning “consult.” This means that workers must inform their supervisors about everything they do. Supervisors must approve large and small actions alike, and all problems should be reported to supervisors before any actions are taken.

Japanese employees work long hours, frequently extending into the evening as they socialize with coworkers to strengthen ties and move up the ladder. Since most Japanese homes are very small, entertaining occurs in commercial settings. Most entertaining is related to business, typically involving workers sharing drinks and food over long evenings. White-collar jobs entail rigid hierarchies, and moving up the ladder means staying with a company or starting at the bottom of another company. Japanese workers also take few vacations.

A Japanese phenomenon called karoshi, or “death by overwork,” has been documented since the 1960s. It is regarded as the toll that loyalty to one’s employer takes on people. Many victims of karoshi die of heart failure or stroke; however, a large number die by suicide. Family life suffers, with some workers reporting seeing their spouses only on the weekends. Some companies and the federal government have tried to reduce the number of karoshi cases, with little success. Some efforts have included encouraging workers to go home earlier and offering breakfast at work.

Although the Japanese work environment saw efforts to improve in the twenty-first century, challenges remained due to the nature of work embedded in Japanese culture. In 2022, 2,968 people in Japan died by suicide attributed to karoshi. This was an increase from 1,935 in 2021. Many Japanese workers continued to work long hours and faced social pressure to prioritize work. The Japanese government has actively promoted reforms aimed at changing this work style. They have advocated for hybrid work arrangements, shorter hours, and increased access to mental healthcare. Some companies have adopted a four-day workweek in Japan. The commitment to work, however, was deeply ingrained in Japanese culture, and the work environment in Japan remained challenging. Japan’s aging and declining population was a complicating factor. 

Bibliography

Associated Press. “Japan Wants its Hardworking Citizens to Try a 4-Day Workweek.” CNBC, 31 Aug. 2024, www.cnbc.com/2024/08/31/japan-wants-its-hardworking-citizens-to-try-a-4-day-workweek.html. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

Demetriou, Danielle. "How the Japanese Are Putting an End to Extreme Work Weeks." BBC, 17 Jan. 2020, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200114-how-the-japanese-are-putting-an-end-to-death-from-overwork. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

Drucker, Peter F. "What We Can Learn from Japanese Management." Harvard Business Review, Mar. 1971, hbr.org/1971/03/what-we-can-learn-from-japanese-management. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

"Female Representation in the Japanese Workforce." Undokai, 12 July 2019, undokaiya.com/2019/07/female-representation-japan-workforce. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

"Japan Is Pushing a 4-Day Working Week — But its Workaholic Culture Makes it a Hard Sell." CNBC Africa, 23 Sept. 2024, www.cnbcafrica.com/2024/japan-is-pushing-a-4-day-working-week-but-its-workaholic-culture-makes-it-a-hard-sell. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

Smith, Noah. "Japan’s Labor Market Is Still Rigged Against Women." The Japan Times, 1 Oct. 2019, www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/10/01/commentary/japan-commentary/japans-labor-market-still-rigged-women. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

Timinsky, Samuel Joseph. The Overwork System: Media, Masculinity, and Consumer Culture in Postwar Japan. U of Wisconsin–Madison, 2020.

Merchant, Yasmin Sara. "5 Major Differences Between Japanese and American Workplaces." Business Insider, 5 Apr. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/differences-between-japanese-and-american-work-culture-2018-3?op=1. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020.

Warnock, Eleanor. "Japan by the Numbers: 'Karoshi.'" Tokyo Review, 12 Oct. 2017, www.tokyoreview.net/2017/10/japan-numbers-karoshi-overwork. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.

Weller, Chris. "Japan Is Facing a 'Death by Overwork' Problem—Here’s What It’s All About." Business Insider, 18 Oct. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/what-is-karoshi-japanese-word-for-death-by-overwork-2017-10. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020.

Yamaguchi, Mari. "Japan's Population Falls for a 15th Year with Record Low Births and Record High Deaths." AP News, 25 July 2024, apnews.com/article/japan-population-decline-births-foreign-5de77bda9305476d0baf020889094a60. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.