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Very similar to patio11's writeup. Note the same caveats apply, more or less: this is working at a big Japanese company, which is far from all of them.
by cfcef 11y ago
Very similar to patio11's writeup. Note the same caveats apply, more or less: this is working at a big Japanese company, which is far from all of them.
- logical42 11y agoLink to patio11's post? I'm curious..
- TulliusCicero 11y agohttp://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ Warning: it's very long.
- logical42 11y agoThanks!
- krick 11y agopatio11's one is way better written though.
- patio11 11y agoFWIW: I'd describe it as "traditionally managed" rather than "big." There exist many Japanese companies with, say, 50 employees. Some of them are managed like young American software companies. Many are not. This is not merely anecdata: the most obvious external evidence of traditional Japanese management is work hours by professional staff and that metric is inversely correlated with size of business when you average it across all firms in the country. Firms with 100 workers work longer days than salarymen at megacorps (again: on average). This is one reason they're seen as rather less desirable to work for.
- level3 11y agoI agree with this. Big companies in Japan do tend to be more established, and thus more likely to be "traditionally managed," so it's tempting to generalize to all big companies. As one of the anecdata at a company of around 70 people, almost everyone is on flex time, aside from specific departments like customer support. There is no pressure to work overtime, though many end up doing so in order to meet specific deadlines. In addition, everyone freely uses vacation and sick time. In fact, I have previously been told that I should use more of my vacation days. Edit: I should note that there are only a handful of people here who would meet the description of a typical salaryman.