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Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

519 points by l31g 6y ago

onetimemanytime 6y ago
Covid might actually result in permanent changes. Sucks for a lot of commercial real estate companies. WeWork is probably 100% done
- reustle 6y ago
  Here in Tokyo, I actually feel the opposite. WeWorks are quite busy again, but then again we didn't get hit as hard as the west. If I were a company with 100 employees, I'd get 50~ hotdesk spaces at my local coworking space chain and let employees come in up to 3 days a week whenever they feel like it.
  - sirn 6y ago
    And that's quite surprising to hear. I also live in Tokyo, but given how packed Chuo line/Shinjuku station in the morning for the past few weeks, it feels like everyone has already gone back to their regular office hours routine. :(
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      It certainly feels like that huh? I’m thankfully still working from home, but we haven’t had a permanent work from home announcement yet.
      - sirn 6y ago
        Many people from our company prefers working from home as well, so I'm waiting to see how our HR reacts (we already have a 3 days WFH policy in place, but many people now kinda wish they could do permanent). However a large enterprise I'm working with already asked everyone to go back to office, in addition to never issuing WFH for their non-Tokyo office in the first place, which is kinda shame, because I wish they would be adopting with the "new normal", but instead they just go back to normal...
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    In the sense its cheaper to outsource than having your own permanent offices? That's possible but major companies would probably have them meet/come at existing offices on alternate days.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Commercial leases also tend to be fairly long-term. So a lot of companies are in the situation where they want to use their existing space in a way that's appropriate for the current situation. Which may be different from what they'd do if they were starting from a clean slate.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Employees HATE hot desking - you'd also have to disinfect / clean much more rigorously similar to hospital standards.
    - asah 6y ago
      There are other reasons to dislike hot desking but COVID doesn't seem to be one of them: surface transmission is low risk, disinfecting a desk is easy and can be done by staff overnight, ...
      - C1sc0cat 6y ago
        OH yes but it would have to be done properly between uses and regular office cleaning would now have to be more rigours and costly than it is now. Probably closer to how a low risk hospital ward is cleaned than the perfunctory wipe - you might also have to use those sealed keyboards designed so they can be cleaned.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Sucks for the worker who now has to bear the cost of providing office space and internet connections and your local network. Also longer term a lot of housing stock will become les desirable and new residential housing will become bigger and more expensive. Oh and H&S inspections will now have to be included
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    I would happily provide that cost since I pay for all of that anyway to work from home. Dragging my arse into an open office during a pandemic has killed my motivation completely. I've gone from hard working to doing just enough not to get fired while I look for another job.
  - adwww 6y ago
    On the other hand, it's probably boosted the value of more remote homes in otherwise desireable areas that have previously suffered for local employment opportunities. In the UK that might include beautiful countryside in places like Wales and Cornwall, or larger houses available in the North. Assuming the internet is fast enough!
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I have never heard of a health and safety inspection for a home office. I'm quite sure mine would fail in multiple counts. But, yes, a small urban apartment is not going to be great for working from home. Especially without coffeeshops etc. open. Longer term, people who WFH indefinitely will either need to move to larger places or they'll want a co-working space that either they or their company pays for.
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Its the law in the UK and from what others have said the USA as well
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Pretty much everyone I work with in the US worked from home at least some of the time even before this. I'd place a sizable bet that not one of them has ever had an OSHA inspector come to check out their home workplace.
- CubsFan1060 6y ago
  I also wonder the impact it'll have on retail and lunch places. A lot of small restaurants popped up around places with a lot of office workers. If those office workers are all WFH now, the previously desirable restaurant locations will become semi-worthless. On top of that, my guess is that WFH people will go out for lunch less often, so those restaurants won't just relocate to more residential areas, they (and their jobs), will just disappear.
  - zrail 6y ago
    The restaurant owners who really want to make it work will hustle into delivery out of more affordable commercial kitchen space. If WFH sticks I won’t be surprised to see more commercial kitchens opening closer to residential areas.
    - __s 6y ago
      This could be nice. Often observed restaurants struggling around residential areas. WFH could help support more heterogeneous zoning, which would also reduce needing to own a car or use public transit
  - jfoster 6y ago
    Would it be those ones that suffer? If some existing companies depart a central area, isn't it more likely that others would replace them in that area, rather than a geographically uniform reduction in occupancy?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    OTOH, isn't it pretty customary for any large office (let's say 1k+) to have a cafeteria, with presumably most employees eating there? Some of these will not want to cook lunch in the middle of work, and at least order takeout instead.
    - fzzzy 6y ago
      Yes, this is quite likely, but this is a titanic shift in the real estate market. Previously, you wanted a flashy storefront to attract customers so you put your kitchen in a fancy area. Now, you just need a kitchen on a back alley where delivery drivers can easily pull in to pick up their orders. I actually think it might cause a more efficient use of space overall. Lots of strip malls and even regular malls around the country are going to be converted into housing. If almost everybody does almost everything through delivery, there's no need to spend the money on prime real estate and extensive signage, which is very expensive.
- ajross 6y ago
  > WeWork is probably 100% done WeWork specifically was failing anyway, but it strikes me that in a world where permanent workplaces are deemphasized and workers are inherently more mobile, the market for a broker of temporary spaces is probably larger, not smaller.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    For at least some who want to live in a city and are WFH full-time, it will make more sense to rent a co-working space than to move to a bigger apartment with a dedicated office.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      And I think there's a currently underserved niche of single/DINK people who would enjoy the freedom of remote work but don't want to spend the working day socially isolated.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        I'm not sure how underserved it is. I suspect that a lot of people just don't want to pay for a co-working space out of their own pockets and would normally content themselves with going to coffeeshops, etc. to get out of their apartments. Added: And people can make do with situations for a limited length of time whether working from their kitchen table or suffering through a 90 minute commute that aren't necessarily sustainable long-term.
        asdff 6y ago
        Maybe there is some in between? Personally, I like the idea of the cafe as a local work space I can walk to from my apartment, but would love it if there was some guarantee of having a desk and niceties like a monitor or print/copy/fax/ship. I would pay some membership dues for a coop space like this.
  - buboard 6y ago
    people dont want to pay 2 rents for no reason though, unless the rents are very cheap, so they won't be able to price these things high anymore. probably
- asdff 6y ago
  Wework was a parasite, it was done whenever landlords figured out they can just deal directly with the tenant and both would save an expense. However, there might be promise for a sort of coop remote work environment, not necessarily tied to your company, but shared by your neighbors. For instance, I would love to have a work station in the neighborhood, in walking distance to my apartment. I only need a desk, a monitor, decent internet connection, but things like having a more secure shipping address and print/copy/fax/package dropoff would be great perks. I would gladly pay a membership fee for a small, hyperlocal, neighborhood-based incarnation of wework, where I would be guaranteed to have a desk whenever I choose to walk the block or two and get some work done. Basically, the local cafe, but I always have a seat, a monitor, and basic fedex functions.
dcow 6y ago
Is productivity going up, or are workers more happy, or both?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Costs, which can very easily be measured, probably went down. A company like Fujitsu already has offices in nearly every time zone. The average meeting there already has people who are joining remotely. Teams already have to coordinate and managers already have to manage on the other side of the world. Letting people join their daily standup WebEx from home instead of whatever office they usually go to doesn't really have much impact on that workflow (especially since ~20% of the company already does that on any given Friday). What WFH it does have is an immediate and direct impact on is cost. If you're in management and you see that cost reduction in the numbers, productivity appears unaffected, morale appears unaffected (and some people even say it's improved) can you justify to your superiors not continuing to give people the option to WFH where possible?
- murgindrag 6y ago
  I think it depends on the company and on the team. In my company, my productivity skyrocketed, while that of my work colleagues crashed. It largely correlated with things like tech literacy and being open to change. Where I work, there are a few people with who invested in nice WFH setups, work-life integration, and all the things needed to make this work, who found productivity going up. And then there is the majority of people who stubbornly still refuse to even use a headset or learn to use tech, and are just waiting for the office to reopen. Outside my company, it's not quite the same split, but most people are dipping their toes in rather than diving headfirst.
  - CubsFan1060 6y ago
    I'm curious, what all do you include when you think about a "nice WFH setup"? For me it's largely a defined space, a nice desk, a nice chair, and a nice monitor. Anything else on your list?
    - 6y ago
zkid18 6y ago
Wow, that huge for Japan I believe. I live at Kichijoji and it takes me 1 hour to get to work in Akasaka. I love my place and somehow get used to this routine, but honestly I wish I could rent a place in Japanese countryside.
- azuriten 6y ago
  If I could somehow guarantee a remote-work job for the foreesable future I'd love to move back and live somewhere more countryside but still with decent links to Tokyo such as the Shonan area or even somewhere a bit more east of Kichijoji like Hachioji or Ome.
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    I think this is the key thing. 75% of our family's problems would be solved if we could untangle ourselves from the burden of having to live in job-driven-metro areas close to the office. Mortgages would no longer be a problem, neither would school districts, neither would crushing commutes. Neither would childcare, since we'd have enough room in the house for help.
    - gmantg 6y ago
      Good for you, not so good for your employer. Expensive mortgages is a big stick that motivates people to work.
- kubatyszko 6y ago
  You can actually get a house for free in some areas, mostly central Japan. Many cities are becoming deserted and houses are left alone, governments offer incentives to take them over. Might come with a catch such as committing to maintenance of farming.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    The main catch is that the "free" houses are usually in complete disrepair and require a lot of non-free work to make them livable. Building a new house in Japan is surprisingly affordable, but getting one built to Western standards (say, effective insulation and an expected lifespan of more than 20 years) is not. And I'm not even being facetious here: Japanese building codes assume that wooden houses last for 20 and concrete ones for thirty, then they get torn down and rebuilt by the next land owner.
saos 6y ago
Thats really good. I wonder how UK companies will respond.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  They largely won't unless forced to. Management in the UK by and large sucks.
  - reallydontask 6y ago
    > Management in the UK by and large sucks. I don't necessarily disagree but I have to say that it's miles worse in Spain. I might've been lucky but I've only had a bad boss and even he treated me far better than the best bosses some of my friends in Spain had treated them, so clearly YMMV. (obviously anecdotal evidence)
  - dyadic 6y ago
    I wouldn't count on it. The aversion to WFH always seemed to be the risk, but now they've already been forced into it and mostly handled it quite well, the unknown isn't unknown any more.
    - reallydontask 6y ago
      > The aversion to WFH always seemed to be the risk I always thought it was the loss of perceived control A little bit idiotic, if you ask me, as people can and do little in the office too if they are so inclined but there you go
  - Accacin 6y ago
    I always wonder how people come up with these statements, is it just anecdotal? To add my own, my company was shifting to working remotely for the development team gradually, but now our CEO has been impressed with how well we adapted to working from home and has told us that our office will not be open until September at the earliest.
    - 6y ago
john4534243 6y ago
Even software service companies have started to go full remote. WFH is the future.
- dtech 6y ago
  "Even"? softare dev is one of the easiests things to do remotely
  - achow 6y ago
    "Even" because the comment is about software service companies (as opposed to software product ones). In service companies keeping or accounting time (so that clients can be billed) is a thing. When working from home, keeping account of time spent may be a challenge. As long as one is in office, even though they may not be clacking away on a keyboard (but goofing away) they can be billed without any guilt and if the service company is really questioned or audited, they can show employee swipe in and out time. For WFH employees one cannot, also just tracking login maynot cover full story (Ex. tele calls would not be accounted for).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
alistairSH 6y ago
Can Japanese residents comment on how this works WRT office space in the home? Do people typically have space in their homes to have a proper home office setup? My wife and I are both WFH right now, and we had to buy a second desk and chair and repurpose what was previously our 2nd bedroom. The 3rd bedroom has always been a home office. If we lived in a downtown apartment, I'm not sure what we'd do, as we're both in management and spend the majority of the day teleconferencing.
- reustle 6y ago
  Very unlikely that people have enough space. I'm here in Tokyo and video chatting with many clients' staff members. Most seem to work at their dinner table (for those that have one) and also often from their bed.
- tkgally 6y ago
  Japan resident here. Home floor areas tend to be smaller than in North America, at least, but discussions I’ve seen in the Japanese press about WFH issues since corona have not emphasized that point as much as they have childcare, work-life balance, exercise, etc. People I know personally who are working from home haven’t been complaining about space, though I’m sure it’s a problem for some people.
- kubatyszko 6y ago
  Very ironic fact from the past (and an interesting explanation WHY kitchen areas are REALLY well lit in many (older) Japanese homes. After the war, Japanese USED TO work from home, since there was no other way, and that common area was usually the only one away from bedrooms etc. Then, after the infrastructure starting to recover, buildings coming up, offices etc. Culturally, ALL employees were required to return to their offices. This development also had side effects in making "focused communities" (business of certain kind concentrated around certain area), which made housing expensive and many employees having to live far away - 2hour commute in packed train is nothing unusual, and I've met people who actually don't mind since this is their time between home and work when they can kick back, read a book and "relax".
  - 6y ago
poma88 6y ago
Finally someone had the brains to do it! Beautiful.. if they pay for the use of space and resources at home
runawaybottle 6y ago
I’d love to see companies convert ‘Unlimited vacation time at your discretion’ over to ‘Unlimited remote at your discretion’.
- xtracto 6y ago
  "Unlimited vacation" is a deception. Real perks are to have 15 or 20 days of vacations, increasing with seniority at the company, and forced vacations (i.e., the company forces you to take the vacations every year). It is also good for the company health (ensure that no 1 person missing has a large impact).
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Sure, I’ve heard that and can believe it. I think one of the side effects of the term is that it kind of gets rid of the shame and social gymnastics around taking time off. Believe it or not, many people for many years had to come up with some sort of excuse to work remote (have to pick up the kids, waiting for plumber/delivery, etc), so normalizing remote, even nominally, would be a good step forward. Of course a global pandemic helps move the agenda too.
  - wontonzealot 6y ago
    "Unlimited vacation" is a deception. I see this being repeated over and over but I can't help but think that it's become a way to discourage giving employees time off from a company's perspective. I've successfully taken 30+ days off in an unlimited vacation environment (not consecutively) and not been reprimanded in any way because I was able to operate responsibly. Before I left for any length of vacation, I made sure that projects were delivered and successfully launched weeks before hand and I created documentation and trained others on continuing work processes (the lack of my presences should not have ANY impact). "Unlimited vacation" should be a work perk that is attractive. Often times I find that it's the managers who don't believe employees should be given time off or the company decides to just implement unlimited vacation without any process in place to revoke the privilege or guidelines as to what a responsible policy looks like. It's easy to say something doesn't work when there was never any intention or effort to make it work. Just my 2 cents.
snarfy 6y ago
Any Japanese care to chime in on how WFH is accepted culturally? When I worked for a Japanese tech company I was surprised by how old school they were. Landlines, business cards, reams of paper, week long meetings about policies, and this was a software company. WFH was forbidden unless it was an emergency.
- artsyca 6y ago
  I live in Japan and at first everyone was against it, now everyone is for it and a whole new industry is cropping up. HP is early to the market with their solutions and Fujitsu must also be sensing the opportunity. The reason the tides are changing is that there is a social consciousness aspect to it now whereas before it would've been viewed differently.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Ah, office theatre.
- lnsru 6y ago
  Add fax machines and it will be perfect picture of current situation in Germany.
  - zeeZ 6y ago
    Naturally. You can't do business in Japan without a fax machine.
    - lnsru 6y ago
      Seriously!? I thought, Germany was unique with this fax machine thing.
      - asdff 6y ago
        A surprising amount of American personal business is still dependent on a fax machine. Especially in dealings with government, if you can't physically hand it in, it may need to be faxed. Always a terrifying feeling when you send a document containing all your personal identifying information to the fax nether, hopefully you dialed correctly.
cdavid 6y ago
I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that begets a culture of inefficiency that boggles the mind. Few people know that Japan has a labor productivity lower than Italy, for example. To give a concrete example, you will have companies where people will make sure to start meetings at 7 pm to make sure they can maximize "残業" (overtime). The labor ministry is trying to curb on companies that expect more than 80 hours of overtime per month. On top of it, if you live in one of the big city (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka), 3 hours of commute per day is not atypical. And then you have the practice of 飲み会 ("business dinners" where people drink, abuse toward women common, etc.), which also takes time. Finally, Japanese companies rely a lot on paper and 判子 (hanko) and other seals systems. My wife sometimes has to go the desk of a colleague dozens of times a day to get some paperwork. IT systems are antiquated. And yet, Japan has one of the most educated workforce in the world. Especially women are often relegated to menial work. Internet is fast everywhere. It is the true steam punk country ! Coronavirus and WFH change this. Seeing large companies like fujitsu publicly taking a stance is highly significant in a country like Japan where executives are often extremely risk adverse.
- zkid18 6y ago
  I wouldn't interpret 飲み会 in that way. Yes people drink there but I wouldn't claim that women abuse is somehow common there. From my experience Japanese are quite polite even if there are drunk. Disclaimer: Gaijin, working in Japanese company
  - cdavid 6y ago
    I have seen behavior that would be guaranteed to get a sexual harassment suit in the US in pretty much every company I worked at, big and small, public and private. That starts to date now but I have been at karaoke parties where some guys would be naked w/ a sock on their dick dancing. I also had to several times make sure women would get back safely because some colleagues clearly tried to get them to miss their last train and go to a love hotel. Japan is a country where still today politicians can say that women after 40 are useless because cannot procreate. For the very few public sexual harassment affairs, the common defense of the perpetrator is to claim the woman was looking for it. It is victim blaming all the way down.
thesumofall 6y ago
Not commenting on this specific case here, but I believe we currently see the pendulum swinging from one extreme (WFH only at a very exclusive subset of companies) to the other extreme ("WFH first" policies) I'm convinced the true winners will be those companies that find a smart mix of both worlds. This includes recognizing that both concepts have their strengths (e.g., people are a lot more disciplined about meetings in a remote context) and weaknesses (e.g., a further breakdown of the separation between work and live). WFH needs more than just giving people the green light to work from home on selected days. It also, for example, needs a radical rethink of office infrastructure (most offices are not designed for 10 people sitting side-by-side and being on the phone most of the day), management culture, and shared best practices how to approach non-transactional work (e.g., how to tackle complex topics with people who do not know each other remotely?)
- buboard 6y ago
  There is no middle ground -- WFH is self-reinforcing trend, because offices are much less useful when they are half-empty and all processes have go online. As soon as some coworkers move, others follow. If people start working 2-3 days at home ... they start to think about moving somewhere better. I wonder what is the endgame of this rearrangement? Perhaps nomadism will become common? But in that case, cities will lose even more cohesion than they ve lost so far. If we take away the work factor, the question "where do i/my family live" becomes much more open-ended. Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I tend to agree in that coming in only one or two days a week gives you some greater flexibility in where you live, but only some. For a lot of people whose companies are in expensive urban areas, WFH a few days per week means they need more housing than they might otherwise need but they can't move somewhere that's cheaper/preferable. And while teams can coordinate time in the office, the more people are mostly remote the less value there is in others coming in. >Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move? They like the environment more? I work with someone who just ditched their downtown city apartment and bought a place on the coast of Maine.
njerschow 6y ago
Hey, you should add your company here: remote.lifeshack.io !
williesleg 6y ago
Yeah, I was one of the first abandoning the cesspool of san francisco and their mad shitters. Been telecommuting from Colorado for a while, it's great!
SenHeng 6y ago
Another side often missing in these dicussions is that Japan's tax laws are relatively sane and are the same through all states. You will not be taxed differently just because you're living in a different state or are living between states. There are some issues regarding where your residence tax should be paid to but those are minor compared to what I've read on here about crossing state lines in the US.
helen___keller 6y ago
Considering how Japanese companies are famously conservative, I can't help but wonder if Fujitsu executives were faced with undeniable evidence that productivity increased during the pandemic WFH
ericmcer 6y ago
The one big downside I have noticed from WFH is that any efficiency I introduce in my own work becomes reclaimed time. If I can crank through a days work in 4 hours in the morning I can reasonably take it easy in the afternoon. This is great but it has created some stress around things like code reviews and impromptu mentoring etc. If I am sitting in the office I may as well spend 20 minutes on a code review trying to figure out a cleaner solution, but at home its harder to do it. There is just a general feeling of racing towards that 'done' status which represents a good amount of completed work for the day. Before it was just 9-5 and a thorough code review was a welcome use of that time.
- freehunter 6y ago
  I’ve been working from home for six years and I consider that the biggest upside actually. I don’t have to waste time pretending to work just because it’s “work hours”. A lot of times good enough really is good enough and my reward for getting my work done early is I get to reclaim my time. It typically balances out with the times I’m still working past 5 or 6pm for things that really do matter. The most common complaint about WFH is actually the opposite, that the work day is never really done because you don’t have to shut down your computer and drive home like you would in an office. WFH has allowed me to reclaim hours that would have been spent poorly (just doing work for the sake of filling time) and lets me choose how that time should be used. If I got my work done and everyone agrees the work is done, there is no reason to keep working. We only do it in the office because our manager and coworkers are watching us.
- josh_carterPDX 6y ago
  I think it's even more difficult when you factor in kids at home. We've had to deal with that at our home which means our ability to get work done has been cut in half. It also puts a lot of burden on co-workers. The biggest issue with this has been people without kids wondering why coworkers WITH kids aren't getting as much done.
  - bbojan 6y ago
    But once the situation with the coronavirus is over, the kids will be in school/daycare, so this won't be an issue.
georgex7 6y ago
All companies remote work policies: remote.lifeshack.io
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
But if software engineers can work from home, they surely can work from Mumbai?
- alkonaut 6y ago
  If they speak japanese and are happy to adjust their working day to the japanese timezone I can't see why not.
mleonhard 6y ago
> The company also said the programme would allow staff to choose where they worked, whether that was from home, a major corporate hub or a satellite office. Culture cannot change quickly. I expect only a few Fujitsu employees will work from home. Most will continue to waste countless hours sitting at a desk to "demonstrate commitment to the company." It won't matter that the desk is in a satellite office. Male managers will require their female subordinates to work from the same satellite office with them. Only determined top leadership can change a Japanese company's time-wasting sexist culture. I doubt Fujitsu will succeed before the pandemic ends.

519 points by l31g 6y ago

Covid might actually result in permanent changes. Sucks for a lot of commercial real estate companies. WeWork is probably 100% done

reustle 6y ago
Here in Tokyo, I actually feel the opposite. WeWorks are quite busy again, but then again we didn't get hit as hard as the west. If I were a company with 100 employees, I'd get 50~ hotdesk spaces at my local coworking space chain and let employees come in up to 3 days a week whenever they feel like it.
- sirn 6y ago
  And that's quite surprising to hear. I also live in Tokyo, but given how packed Chuo line/Shinjuku station in the morning for the past few weeks, it feels like everyone has already gone back to their regular office hours routine. :(
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    It certainly feels like that huh? I’m thankfully still working from home, but we haven’t had a permanent work from home announcement yet.
    - sirn 6y ago
      Many people from our company prefers working from home as well, so I'm waiting to see how our HR reacts (we already have a 3 days WFH policy in place, but many people now kinda wish they could do permanent). However a large enterprise I'm working with already asked everyone to go back to office, in addition to never issuing WFH for their non-Tokyo office in the first place, which is kinda shame, because I wish they would be adopting with the "new normal", but instead they just go back to normal...
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  In the sense its cheaper to outsource than having your own permanent offices? That's possible but major companies would probably have them meet/come at existing offices on alternate days.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Commercial leases also tend to be fairly long-term. So a lot of companies are in the situation where they want to use their existing space in a way that's appropriate for the current situation. Which may be different from what they'd do if they were starting from a clean slate.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Employees HATE hot desking - you'd also have to disinfect / clean much more rigorously similar to hospital standards.
  - asah 6y ago
    There are other reasons to dislike hot desking but COVID doesn't seem to be one of them: surface transmission is low risk, disinfecting a desk is easy and can be done by staff overnight, ...
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      OH yes but it would have to be done properly between uses and regular office cleaning would now have to be more rigours and costly than it is now. Probably closer to how a low risk hospital ward is cleaned than the perfunctory wipe - you might also have to use those sealed keyboards designed so they can be cleaned.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Sucks for the worker who now has to bear the cost of providing office space and internet connections and your local network. Also longer term a lot of housing stock will become les desirable and new residential housing will become bigger and more expensive. Oh and H&S inspections will now have to be included
- noir_lord 6y ago
  I would happily provide that cost since I pay for all of that anyway to work from home. Dragging my arse into an open office during a pandemic has killed my motivation completely. I've gone from hard working to doing just enough not to get fired while I look for another job.
- adwww 6y ago
  On the other hand, it's probably boosted the value of more remote homes in otherwise desireable areas that have previously suffered for local employment opportunities. In the UK that might include beautiful countryside in places like Wales and Cornwall, or larger houses available in the North. Assuming the internet is fast enough!
- ghaff 6y ago
  I have never heard of a health and safety inspection for a home office. I'm quite sure mine would fail in multiple counts. But, yes, a small urban apartment is not going to be great for working from home. Especially without coffeeshops etc. open. Longer term, people who WFH indefinitely will either need to move to larger places or they'll want a co-working space that either they or their company pays for.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Its the law in the UK and from what others have said the USA as well
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Pretty much everyone I work with in the US worked from home at least some of the time even before this. I'd place a sizable bet that not one of them has ever had an OSHA inspector come to check out their home workplace.
CubsFan1060 6y ago
I also wonder the impact it'll have on retail and lunch places. A lot of small restaurants popped up around places with a lot of office workers. If those office workers are all WFH now, the previously desirable restaurant locations will become semi-worthless. On top of that, my guess is that WFH people will go out for lunch less often, so those restaurants won't just relocate to more residential areas, they (and their jobs), will just disappear.
- zrail 6y ago
  The restaurant owners who really want to make it work will hustle into delivery out of more affordable commercial kitchen space. If WFH sticks I won’t be surprised to see more commercial kitchens opening closer to residential areas.
  - __s 6y ago
    This could be nice. Often observed restaurants struggling around residential areas. WFH could help support more heterogeneous zoning, which would also reduce needing to own a car or use public transit
- jfoster 6y ago
  Would it be those ones that suffer? If some existing companies depart a central area, isn't it more likely that others would replace them in that area, rather than a geographically uniform reduction in occupancy?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  OTOH, isn't it pretty customary for any large office (let's say 1k+) to have a cafeteria, with presumably most employees eating there? Some of these will not want to cook lunch in the middle of work, and at least order takeout instead.
  - fzzzy 6y ago
    Yes, this is quite likely, but this is a titanic shift in the real estate market. Previously, you wanted a flashy storefront to attract customers so you put your kitchen in a fancy area. Now, you just need a kitchen on a back alley where delivery drivers can easily pull in to pick up their orders. I actually think it might cause a more efficient use of space overall. Lots of strip malls and even regular malls around the country are going to be converted into housing. If almost everybody does almost everything through delivery, there's no need to spend the money on prime real estate and extensive signage, which is very expensive.
ajross 6y ago
> WeWork is probably 100% done WeWork specifically was failing anyway, but it strikes me that in a world where permanent workplaces are deemphasized and workers are inherently more mobile, the market for a broker of temporary spaces is probably larger, not smaller.
- ghaff 6y ago
  For at least some who want to live in a city and are WFH full-time, it will make more sense to rent a co-working space than to move to a bigger apartment with a dedicated office.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    And I think there's a currently underserved niche of single/DINK people who would enjoy the freedom of remote work but don't want to spend the working day socially isolated.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I'm not sure how underserved it is. I suspect that a lot of people just don't want to pay for a co-working space out of their own pockets and would normally content themselves with going to coffeeshops, etc. to get out of their apartments. Added: And people can make do with situations for a limited length of time whether working from their kitchen table or suffering through a 90 minute commute that aren't necessarily sustainable long-term.
      - asdff 6y ago
        Maybe there is some in between? Personally, I like the idea of the cafe as a local work space I can walk to from my apartment, but would love it if there was some guarantee of having a desk and niceties like a monitor or print/copy/fax/ship. I would pay some membership dues for a coop space like this.
- buboard 6y ago
  people dont want to pay 2 rents for no reason though, unless the rents are very cheap, so they won't be able to price these things high anymore. probably
asdff 6y ago
Wework was a parasite, it was done whenever landlords figured out they can just deal directly with the tenant and both would save an expense. However, there might be promise for a sort of coop remote work environment, not necessarily tied to your company, but shared by your neighbors. For instance, I would love to have a work station in the neighborhood, in walking distance to my apartment. I only need a desk, a monitor, decent internet connection, but things like having a more secure shipping address and print/copy/fax/package dropoff would be great perks. I would gladly pay a membership fee for a small, hyperlocal, neighborhood-based incarnation of wework, where I would be guaranteed to have a desk whenever I choose to walk the block or two and get some work done. Basically, the local cafe, but I always have a seat, a monitor, and basic fedex functions.

dcow 6y ago

Is productivity going up, or are workers more happy, or both?

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Costs, which can very easily be measured, probably went down. A company like Fujitsu already has offices in nearly every time zone. The average meeting there already has people who are joining remotely. Teams already have to coordinate and managers already have to manage on the other side of the world. Letting people join their daily standup WebEx from home instead of whatever office they usually go to doesn't really have much impact on that workflow (especially since ~20% of the company already does that on any given Friday). What WFH it does have is an immediate and direct impact on is cost. If you're in management and you see that cost reduction in the numbers, productivity appears unaffected, morale appears unaffected (and some people even say it's improved) can you justify to your superiors not continuing to give people the option to WFH where possible?
murgindrag 6y ago
I think it depends on the company and on the team. In my company, my productivity skyrocketed, while that of my work colleagues crashed. It largely correlated with things like tech literacy and being open to change. Where I work, there are a few people with who invested in nice WFH setups, work-life integration, and all the things needed to make this work, who found productivity going up. And then there is the majority of people who stubbornly still refuse to even use a headset or learn to use tech, and are just waiting for the office to reopen. Outside my company, it's not quite the same split, but most people are dipping their toes in rather than diving headfirst.
- CubsFan1060 6y ago
  I'm curious, what all do you include when you think about a "nice WFH setup"? For me it's largely a defined space, a nice desk, a nice chair, and a nice monitor. Anything else on your list?
  - 6y ago

zkid18 6y ago

Wow, that huge for Japan I believe. I live at Kichijoji and it takes me 1 hour to get to work in Akasaka. I love my place and somehow get used to this routine, but honestly I wish I could rent a place in Japanese countryside.

azuriten 6y ago
If I could somehow guarantee a remote-work job for the foreesable future I'd love to move back and live somewhere more countryside but still with decent links to Tokyo such as the Shonan area or even somewhere a bit more east of Kichijoji like Hachioji or Ome.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  I think this is the key thing. 75% of our family's problems would be solved if we could untangle ourselves from the burden of having to live in job-driven-metro areas close to the office. Mortgages would no longer be a problem, neither would school districts, neither would crushing commutes. Neither would childcare, since we'd have enough room in the house for help.
  - gmantg 6y ago
    Good for you, not so good for your employer. Expensive mortgages is a big stick that motivates people to work.
kubatyszko 6y ago
You can actually get a house for free in some areas, mostly central Japan. Many cities are becoming deserted and houses are left alone, governments offer incentives to take them over. Might come with a catch such as committing to maintenance of farming.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  The main catch is that the "free" houses are usually in complete disrepair and require a lot of non-free work to make them livable. Building a new house in Japan is surprisingly affordable, but getting one built to Western standards (say, effective insulation and an expected lifespan of more than 20 years) is not. And I'm not even being facetious here: Japanese building codes assume that wooden houses last for 20 and concrete ones for thirty, then they get torn down and rebuilt by the next land owner.

saos 6y ago

Thats really good. I wonder how UK companies will respond.

noir_lord 6y ago
They largely won't unless forced to. Management in the UK by and large sucks.
- reallydontask 6y ago
  > Management in the UK by and large sucks. I don't necessarily disagree but I have to say that it's miles worse in Spain. I might've been lucky but I've only had a bad boss and even he treated me far better than the best bosses some of my friends in Spain had treated them, so clearly YMMV. (obviously anecdotal evidence)
- dyadic 6y ago
  I wouldn't count on it. The aversion to WFH always seemed to be the risk, but now they've already been forced into it and mostly handled it quite well, the unknown isn't unknown any more.
  - reallydontask 6y ago
    > The aversion to WFH always seemed to be the risk I always thought it was the loss of perceived control A little bit idiotic, if you ask me, as people can and do little in the office too if they are so inclined but there you go
- Accacin 6y ago
  I always wonder how people come up with these statements, is it just anecdotal? To add my own, my company was shifting to working remotely for the development team gradually, but now our CEO has been impressed with how well we adapted to working from home and has told us that our office will not be open until September at the earliest.
  - 6y ago

john4534243 6y ago

Even software service companies have started to go full remote. WFH is the future.

dtech 6y ago
"Even"? softare dev is one of the easiests things to do remotely
- achow 6y ago
  "Even" because the comment is about software service companies (as opposed to software product ones). In service companies keeping or accounting time (so that clients can be billed) is a thing. When working from home, keeping account of time spent may be a challenge. As long as one is in office, even though they may not be clacking away on a keyboard (but goofing away) they can be billed without any guilt and if the service company is really questioned or audited, they can show employee swipe in and out time. For WFH employees one cannot, also just tracking login maynot cover full story (Ex. tele calls would not be accounted for).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

alistairSH 6y ago

Can Japanese residents comment on how this works WRT office space in the home? Do people typically have space in their homes to have a proper home office setup? My wife and I are both WFH right now, and we had to buy a second desk and chair and repurpose what was previously our 2nd bedroom. The 3rd bedroom has always been a home office. If we lived in a downtown apartment, I'm not sure what we'd do, as we're both in management and spend the majority of the day teleconferencing.

reustle 6y ago
Very unlikely that people have enough space. I'm here in Tokyo and video chatting with many clients' staff members. Most seem to work at their dinner table (for those that have one) and also often from their bed.
tkgally 6y ago
Japan resident here. Home floor areas tend to be smaller than in North America, at least, but discussions I’ve seen in the Japanese press about WFH issues since corona have not emphasized that point as much as they have childcare, work-life balance, exercise, etc. People I know personally who are working from home haven’t been complaining about space, though I’m sure it’s a problem for some people.
kubatyszko 6y ago
Very ironic fact from the past (and an interesting explanation WHY kitchen areas are REALLY well lit in many (older) Japanese homes. After the war, Japanese USED TO work from home, since there was no other way, and that common area was usually the only one away from bedrooms etc. Then, after the infrastructure starting to recover, buildings coming up, offices etc. Culturally, ALL employees were required to return to their offices. This development also had side effects in making "focused communities" (business of certain kind concentrated around certain area), which made housing expensive and many employees having to live far away - 2hour commute in packed train is nothing unusual, and I've met people who actually don't mind since this is their time between home and work when they can kick back, read a book and "relax".
- 6y ago

poma88 6y ago

Finally someone had the brains to do it! Beautiful.. if they pay for the use of space and resources at home

runawaybottle 6y ago

I’d love to see companies convert ‘Unlimited vacation time at your discretion’ over to ‘Unlimited remote at your discretion’.

xtracto 6y ago
"Unlimited vacation" is a deception. Real perks are to have 15 or 20 days of vacations, increasing with seniority at the company, and forced vacations (i.e., the company forces you to take the vacations every year). It is also good for the company health (ensure that no 1 person missing has a large impact).
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Sure, I’ve heard that and can believe it. I think one of the side effects of the term is that it kind of gets rid of the shame and social gymnastics around taking time off. Believe it or not, many people for many years had to come up with some sort of excuse to work remote (have to pick up the kids, waiting for plumber/delivery, etc), so normalizing remote, even nominally, would be a good step forward. Of course a global pandemic helps move the agenda too.
- wontonzealot 6y ago
  "Unlimited vacation" is a deception. I see this being repeated over and over but I can't help but think that it's become a way to discourage giving employees time off from a company's perspective. I've successfully taken 30+ days off in an unlimited vacation environment (not consecutively) and not been reprimanded in any way because I was able to operate responsibly. Before I left for any length of vacation, I made sure that projects were delivered and successfully launched weeks before hand and I created documentation and trained others on continuing work processes (the lack of my presences should not have ANY impact). "Unlimited vacation" should be a work perk that is attractive. Often times I find that it's the managers who don't believe employees should be given time off or the company decides to just implement unlimited vacation without any process in place to revoke the privilege or guidelines as to what a responsible policy looks like. It's easy to say something doesn't work when there was never any intention or effort to make it work. Just my 2 cents.

snarfy 6y ago

Any Japanese care to chime in on how WFH is accepted culturally? When I worked for a Japanese tech company I was surprised by how old school they were. Landlines, business cards, reams of paper, week long meetings about policies, and this was a software company. WFH was forbidden unless it was an emergency.

artsyca 6y ago
I live in Japan and at first everyone was against it, now everyone is for it and a whole new industry is cropping up. HP is early to the market with their solutions and Fujitsu must also be sensing the opportunity. The reason the tides are changing is that there is a social consciousness aspect to it now whereas before it would've been viewed differently.
xwdv 6y ago
Ah, office theatre.
lnsru 6y ago
Add fax machines and it will be perfect picture of current situation in Germany.
- zeeZ 6y ago
  Naturally. You can't do business in Japan without a fax machine.
  - lnsru 6y ago
    Seriously!? I thought, Germany was unique with this fax machine thing.
    - asdff 6y ago
      A surprising amount of American personal business is still dependent on a fax machine. Especially in dealings with government, if you can't physically hand it in, it may need to be faxed. Always a terrifying feeling when you send a document containing all your personal identifying information to the fax nether, hopefully you dialed correctly.

cdavid 6y ago

I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan. Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that begets a culture of inefficiency that boggles the mind. Few people know that Japan has a labor productivity lower than Italy, for example. To give a concrete example, you will have companies where people will make sure to start meetings at 7 pm to make sure they can maximize "残業" (overtime). The labor ministry is trying to curb on companies that expect more than 80 hours of overtime per month. On top of it, if you live in one of the big city (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka), 3 hours of commute per day is not atypical. And then you have the practice of 飲み会 ("business dinners" where people drink, abuse toward women common, etc.), which also takes time. Finally, Japanese companies rely a lot on paper and 判子 (hanko) and other seals systems. My wife sometimes has to go the desk of a colleague dozens of times a day to get some paperwork. IT systems are antiquated. And yet, Japan has one of the most educated workforce in the world. Especially women are often relegated to menial work. Internet is fast everywhere. It is the true steam punk country ! Coronavirus and WFH change this. Seeing large companies like fujitsu publicly taking a stance is highly significant in a country like Japan where executives are often extremely risk adverse.

zkid18 6y ago
I wouldn't interpret 飲み会 in that way. Yes people drink there but I wouldn't claim that women abuse is somehow common there. From my experience Japanese are quite polite even if there are drunk. Disclaimer: Gaijin, working in Japanese company
- cdavid 6y ago
  I have seen behavior that would be guaranteed to get a sexual harassment suit in the US in pretty much every company I worked at, big and small, public and private. That starts to date now but I have been at karaoke parties where some guys would be naked w/ a sock on their dick dancing. I also had to several times make sure women would get back safely because some colleagues clearly tried to get them to miss their last train and go to a love hotel. Japan is a country where still today politicians can say that women after 40 are useless because cannot procreate. For the very few public sexual harassment affairs, the common defense of the perpetrator is to claim the woman was looking for it. It is victim blaming all the way down.

thesumofall 6y ago

Not commenting on this specific case here, but I believe we currently see the pendulum swinging from one extreme (WFH only at a very exclusive subset of companies) to the other extreme ("WFH first" policies) I'm convinced the true winners will be those companies that find a smart mix of both worlds. This includes recognizing that both concepts have their strengths (e.g., people are a lot more disciplined about meetings in a remote context) and weaknesses (e.g., a further breakdown of the separation between work and live). WFH needs more than just giving people the green light to work from home on selected days. It also, for example, needs a radical rethink of office infrastructure (most offices are not designed for 10 people sitting side-by-side and being on the phone most of the day), management culture, and shared best practices how to approach non-transactional work (e.g., how to tackle complex topics with people who do not know each other remotely?)

buboard 6y ago
There is no middle ground -- WFH is self-reinforcing trend, because offices are much less useful when they are half-empty and all processes have go online. As soon as some coworkers move, others follow. If people start working 2-3 days at home ... they start to think about moving somewhere better. I wonder what is the endgame of this rearrangement? Perhaps nomadism will become common? But in that case, cities will lose even more cohesion than they ve lost so far. If we take away the work factor, the question "where do i/my family live" becomes much more open-ended. Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move?
- ghaff 6y ago
  I tend to agree in that coming in only one or two days a week gives you some greater flexibility in where you live, but only some. For a lot of people whose companies are in expensive urban areas, WFH a few days per week means they need more housing than they might otherwise need but they can't move somewhere that's cheaper/preferable. And while teams can coordinate time in the office, the more people are mostly remote the less value there is in others coming in. >Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move? They like the environment more? I work with someone who just ditched their downtown city apartment and bought a place on the coast of Maine.

njerschow 6y ago

Hey, you should add your company here: remote.lifeshack.io !

williesleg 6y ago

Yeah, I was one of the first abandoning the cesspool of san francisco and their mad shitters. Been telecommuting from Colorado for a while, it's great!

SenHeng 6y ago

Another side often missing in these dicussions is that Japan's tax laws are relatively sane and are the same through all states. You will not be taxed differently just because you're living in a different state or are living between states. There are some issues regarding where your residence tax should be paid to but those are minor compared to what I've read on here about crossing state lines in the US.

helen___keller 6y ago

Considering how Japanese companies are famously conservative, I can't help but wonder if Fujitsu executives were faced with undeniable evidence that productivity increased during the pandemic WFH

ericmcer 6y ago

The one big downside I have noticed from WFH is that any efficiency I introduce in my own work becomes reclaimed time. If I can crank through a days work in 4 hours in the morning I can reasonably take it easy in the afternoon. This is great but it has created some stress around things like code reviews and impromptu mentoring etc. If I am sitting in the office I may as well spend 20 minutes on a code review trying to figure out a cleaner solution, but at home its harder to do it. There is just a general feeling of racing towards that 'done' status which represents a good amount of completed work for the day. Before it was just 9-5 and a thorough code review was a welcome use of that time.

freehunter 6y ago
I’ve been working from home for six years and I consider that the biggest upside actually. I don’t have to waste time pretending to work just because it’s “work hours”. A lot of times good enough really is good enough and my reward for getting my work done early is I get to reclaim my time. It typically balances out with the times I’m still working past 5 or 6pm for things that really do matter. The most common complaint about WFH is actually the opposite, that the work day is never really done because you don’t have to shut down your computer and drive home like you would in an office. WFH has allowed me to reclaim hours that would have been spent poorly (just doing work for the sake of filling time) and lets me choose how that time should be used. If I got my work done and everyone agrees the work is done, there is no reason to keep working. We only do it in the office because our manager and coworkers are watching us.
josh_carterPDX 6y ago
I think it's even more difficult when you factor in kids at home. We've had to deal with that at our home which means our ability to get work done has been cut in half. It also puts a lot of burden on co-workers. The biggest issue with this has been people without kids wondering why coworkers WITH kids aren't getting as much done.
- bbojan 6y ago
  But once the situation with the coronavirus is over, the kids will be in school/daycare, so this won't be an issue.

georgex7 6y ago

All companies remote work policies: remote.lifeshack.io

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

But if software engineers can work from home, they surely can work from Mumbai?

alkonaut 6y ago
If they speak japanese and are happy to adjust their working day to the japanese timezone I can't see why not.

mleonhard 6y ago

> The company also said the programme would allow staff to choose where they worked, whether that was from home, a major corporate hub or a satellite office. Culture cannot change quickly. I expect only a few Fujitsu employees will work from home. Most will continue to waste countless hours sitting at a desk to "demonstrate commitment to the company." It won't matter that the desk is in a satellite office. Male managers will require their female subordinates to work from the same satellite office with them. Only determined top leadership can change a Japanese company's time-wasting sexist culture. I doubt Fujitsu will succeed before the pandemic ends.