As a male employee in Japan, you can't really leave the office at around, say, 3 p.m. to pick up your kids and still expect your boss to grade you favorably.

Placing your job over your family is exactly the reason the birth rate is in decline. Perhaps that guy didn't get the memo: we are supposed to work to support our families but the family comes first, not the job. To hell with getting graded by the boss at work. The child and the child's safety are the #1 priority

@Muniqui Dawud Muhammad

I agree with you, but the problem is everybody is replaceable. If you cannot do the job as requested, they will replace you with somebody that can. That is why compare to developing nations, most families in Japan or in the west have no kids, one kids, or two at the most. Regardless, you still need need a job to pay your bills and survive.

sfjp330,

Putting the cart before the horse?

Globally excellent firms are family friendly. Other companies may gain short term competitive advantage through archaic karoushi-inducing practices, but will lose in the long run to those whose employees are happier and healthier.

"the constant parental surveillance that is normal in many other countries."

Huh? What about "latchkey kids" in the west? The level of "parental surveillance" is far more "constant" in Japan than in my country.

Heck, as a female employee in Japan, you can't really leave the office, at around, say, 3pm to pick up your kids and still expect your boss to grade you favorably.

SenseNotSoCommonOct. 03, 2014 - 07:08AM JST Globally excellent firms are family friendly. Other companies may gain short term competitive advantage through archaic karoushi-inducing practices, but will lose in the long run to those whose employees are happier and healthier.

Then tell me how many top 100 companies in Japan believes in what you write?

I think the subtext of what the good professor is saying here reads something like: 'Japanese people are unique'

That same ol' chestnut.

I might add though, there aren't many places in the west where you can just up sticks from your job at 3pm. Certainly none I've ever worked in.

lol, you can't even leave at 7 pm to just go home.

I was once asked by an annoying Japanese colleague, "What IS IT that you do at home leaving so early at 7 pm ?", in such a tone that I was imagining he was implying "you lowlife have nothing even slightly more important than staying in office". I said that I have kids. He then did the famous head tilt and looked as if he was going to say "your wife should take care of them", but I'm glad he didn't, because I was ready to make a scene with the idiot.

So our "good" professor thinks that badly needed access to daycare for working people in Japan is either impossible or unnecessary because "that's not how things are done in Japan."

it would be unrealistic for Japan to adopt the constant parental surveillance that is normal in many other countries.

And hence the problem. Japan being able to even consider a move towards a more positive work-life balance is "unrealistic". Japan, specifically the male-dominated J-Inc, has no one to blame but themselves for the issues it faces. No sympathy whatsoever.

sfjp330,

Here's an example:

Nomura Securities sets targets for the number of male employees taking childcare leave and for the use of its benefit programs such as special work hours during child-rearing years, among other themes. As a result of these initiatives, we were certified with the Kurumin logo as part of the Act for Measures to Support the Development of the Next Generation again in fiscal 2012, following similar recognition in 2007 and 2009.

http://www.nomuraholdings.com/csr/citizenship/employee/support.html

I guess I was VERY lucky... As a single mother, working for a foreign Embassy, I was told by my boss that if ever there was the slightest problem with my (then) six-year-old, to bring him to the Embassy...

Tim_FoxOct. 03, 2014 - 08:36AM JST So our "good" professor thinks that badly needed access to daycare for working people in Japan is either impossible or unnecessary because "that's not how things are done in Japan."

... no, he's pointing out that Japanese companies are inflexible and outdated. Daycare wouldn't solve this problem, because day care staff mostly also have families and children. Our daycare runs until 6pm, and I still have to leave the office at 5:30pm sharp to get there on time on the days when I'm picking up the kids.

.. and true as Bob every time I start towards the door I end up with some co-worker asking me for a couple of minutes (but it is never really a couple of minutes) to solve some problem that they should have asked about 4 hours ago or saved until tomorrow.

The good Professor has made a valid point.

@SenseNotSoCommon

Do you think Nomura cares about the wellbeing of the mothers of their kids? Last year, Nomura Securities, the Japanese investment banking giant, really know how to tick off women. According to the New York Post, Nomura has asked George Comfort & Sons, the owners of Nomura’s sparkling new offices at Worldwide Plaza, in New York, to install fewer women’s toilets on on some stories of the building. While the city’s plumbing code requires “water closets, lavatories” as well as showers or bathtubs, to be equally divided between the sexes, Nomura requested differently.

Glad I work for Americans and still get to live in Japan... 8-430. That's it.

Good point, but who was watching the girl's baby sister in this particular case? Just curious how people find a way to look after their infants, but let little girls roam free. The professor is right in that parents don't have to watch their kids 24-7, but they need to make sure that somebody (trustworthy) does. In my case, I have work and my wife is currently int he hospital, but we make sure in advance that there is someone to pick up our kid and watch her every single day.

I decided to say "Screw it!" to my old working habits (starting work early in morning, going home late, entertaining clients until 4am and on weekends, apologizing for other idiots' mistakes, getting ulcers...) shortly after my first son was born about 20 years ago and have been self-employed ever since. When I was a kid, I was taught "I don't HAVE to do anything except pay taxes and die."

Japanese Labour Laws are hopeless. @SenseNotSoCommon your Nomura example is just a rosy picture, in reality it doesn't exists, I learned my friends working in Nomura that they need to bring their own drinking water bottles everyday. Its not only Nomura more or less all Japanese company are same. If you see work culture in Japanese firms you will laugh to death. One of my Japanese friend's family don't want to send their child to Japanese school they want their kid learn English. Why? Many of us know the answer to this.

Japan is digging its own grave on so many fronts, like many here I have ideas that would make things better or at least to try, BUT I have long since given a %$# because the locals for the most part don't care or its shoganai, their lives, their LOSSES!

Me I just keep looking for ways to be happier, like FT above, been working for myself since 1995, SCREW working for a J-company, that's a way to takes MANY years off your life. I would never go back to working for a regular company in Japan the vast majority of it is at best dreary as hell, soul sucking, life destroying experience!

If Japanese don't care why should anyone else, just look out for yourself, loved ones, friends

Sorry to say but I work for a big aerospace company and if Anything happens family related all I have to do is mention I have to go no questions asked! My company is very understanding and the dont mind if anything they ask if their is anything they can do as you are rushing out!

Reckless - my magic words are "email it to me and I'll look at it at home.". 90% of the time "urgent" issues mysteriously become less urgent when the person has to make the effort to email me.

In my experience, the staff who ask me questions as I am on my way out are mainly workers trying to make themselves look busy or important. I sometimes get these questions when I leave my office (in a Japanese company) at 6:00pm and go home to my family. But the questions hardly ever require me to do anything or say anything that couldn't wait until the next mornings. The real problem in Japanese companies like mine is that real work seldom happens because it has been replaced by a whole series of irrelevant procedures and superfluous paperwork. The need to look busy and the need to appear diligent at all times are the things that stop people leaving early, not urgent hard work that honestly requires 14 hours a day stuck at a desk. People waste all day in meetings and staring at Excel sheets, then decide they are too busy to go home on time, and they do this on a daily basis. The prof. is right though; this is not a mindset that will change anytime soon. It's not even work coming before family, it's the façade of work coming before family, which is even sadder in a way. I just ask staff "can't this wait until tomorrow?" if they try and grab me when I leave, and 99 times out of 100 it can wait until tomorrow or never even needed to be asked.

well I work to live, not live to work as so many people here seem to be doing.

@Reckless

@Frungy "every time I start towards the door I end up with some co-worker asking me for a couple of minutes (but it is never really a couple of minutes) to solve some problem that they should have asked about 4 hours ago or saved until tomorrow."

I had this problem too when I first started at a JP company, but within a few weeks they understood that they would be ignored by me on the way out. I guess that is one of the perks of getting older, I don't feel the need to entertain fools.

Unfortunately I can only give you one thumbs up.

@Frungy

Reckless - my magic words are "email it to me and I'll look at it at home.". 90% of the time "urgent" issues mysteriously become less urgent when the person has to make the effort to email me.

Kudos.

I had customers/agents from Europe ring me up at 5 everyday at one job. (Seriously, I wondered if they knew about time zones) I told them, and my Japanese boss, that I don't do overtime unless it's an emergency. It was that simple. Being efficient and making yourself hard to replace helps your case though.

@hampton

Well said!

It seems to me less that the professor is stating a preference than he is making a point. For all we know he's actually for increased supervision but is pointing out that with Japan being the way it is what's ideal will never happen.

Now, where I think he is wrong is that while constant "parental" supervision is impossible, constant ADULT supervision is far less so, and in fact I don't really know any place where one or both parents can be constantly there (or do the parents attend school with the kids as well?). Japan is and has been for a LONG time sorely in need of better daycare services and after school programs for kids whose parents MUST work (and I mean that, especially with the economy the way it's going, they have NO choice!). If the government is truly serious about raising employment levels, raising employment of women (on top of just general levels), and providing more incentive for couples to have more children, they would require certain-sized companies to have day care facilities on premises or nearby that are free for the families of staff, and that are paid for by company and/or subsidized by government (including staff pay), give more benefits to families, and also employ adults to better supervise kids heading too and from school or in parks or spots where they hang out afterwards. Instead, at least in my town, the government has cut family tax breaks in favor of tax breaks for businesses or because they've overspent on public works projects, cut all money that went to hiring crossing cards and people to wait along school routes (relying now solely on volunteers), cut back on police (less patrols), and according to my friend who has two small children there are next to no places for daycare. Said friend and his family also have to move to the neighbouring city before year's end because the housing block they live in, which is family housing, lost all family subsidies (not the entire rent, but covered some of it if there were children there) from the government from April because they sold it to a private owner (who jacked up rent two times. I'm just happy that he's now asking people to stay because they are ALL moving out!).

The old attitudes are not going to change, and Japan Inc. will only admit they should have when the country's system has already completely collapsed (to cries of, "How could we have known?", etc.).

Please no, if my husband was home by 3pm every afternoon it would be a nightmare. I am happy he is home as late as he is! He works out the house, I work in it and we rarely bother each other.

My university job is heavenly. My latest finish is 4.40. We have one meeting a year, lasting about twenty minutes.

I'm a lucky bloke and feel very sorry for the average salaryman. : )

I wish more smaller businesses would flourish and hire people, with a more balanced work - life view for their employees. There is too much control by large corporations in people's lives (although not limited to these).

sounds like you people stuck in terrible jobs... I have never seen the whole "lets stay super late" in fact all companies I worked for are actively encouraging not to stay past 6:30 in the office unless u really have something urgent to do

My previous J-company had a "go home on time day" every wednesday, where you had to be out of there by 6:45 (regular hours were til 6). Of course, this just made people work even later the other days. I didn't mind working late before my kid was born, since it meant overtime pay, but some people worked late and only put down like 1 hour of overtime because their boss was a dick and wanted to keep his team's "kousuu" down. The fact that I was able to go home at 6 almost every day after my kid was born shows how needless the overtime was, but somehow the uppers truly believe that people need to work late and don't seem to mind shelling out overtime pay to people that are doing no useful work at all.

At my current company overtime is included in the salary up to 2 hours, so there is no incentive to stay late (of course some people still do though).

Huh? What about "latchkey kids" in the west? The level of "parental surveillance" is far more "constant" in Japan than in my country.

I don't know about other countries, but the school division I work for will not let kindergartners get off the bus unless a designated adult is at the stop waiting for them. There is hardly a week that goes by where at least one bus returns to the school with a child because there was no one there to greet them at the bus stop. While we do have "walkers", they're restricted to houses within 1/4 mile of the school. Anyone beyond that distance must be bussed.

@hampton

In my experience, the staff who ask me questions as I am on my way out are mainly workers trying to make themselves look busy or important. I sometimes get these questions when I leave my office (in a Japanese company) at 6:00pm and go home to my family.

You're not going to believe this, but there's a middle-aged woman at my g/f's company who does this every day. She'll sit on her behind and do nothing all day, only to actually start working at 5-6pm and hang around till 9-10ish. Why? To claim overtime. Every. Single. Day. What's worse - she's a single mother living with her parents...