Japanese companies are also returning to work after lifting telecommuting, which has been going on for four years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Monday that Amazon Japan, Amazon’s Japanese subsidiary, will be required to come to work five days a week starting in January next year. The move is aimed at keeping pace with Amazon’s decision to completely eliminate telecommuting from January next year and go to work.
Mercari, a used and specialized commerce company, has also been encouraging people to come to work two days a week since July. In addition to setting up a team’s work place to promote exchanges between employees beyond departments and roles, Mercari has also added personal workspaces.
Nissin Food Holdings, a food company, raised the upper limit of its attendance rate from 40% to 60% since late last year for employees working outside of factories and research institutes.
The government is also abolishing telecommuting allowances. Suntory Holdings, a liquor and beverage company, also abolished in April the 200 yen daily telecommuting allowance introduced in 2021. In line with the policy of emphasizing face-to-face communication, the company has switched to a work-based method since May last year.
The reason why Japanese companies are switching to work is that they believe that employees have a great advantage of communicating while working together in the office.
However, there are objections that telecommuting will become one of the various ways to work. According to Japan’s Productivity Headquarters, the rate of Japanese companies working from home stood at 16.3 percent in July this year, up 1.5 percentage points from the January survey. Fujifilm and other companies are operating a combination of telecommuting and commuting to work, setting standards for telecommuting once or twice a week. “It is essential to improve productivity to properly classify working methods according to work content,” said Makoto Sakuma, chief researcher at Nisei Basic Research Institute, a private Japanese think tank.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
