世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into personel systems, in particular in this report, in how salaries are calculated.

Demographics

On the 30th of April 2007 JR Tokai Express Research questioned 330 members of their online monitor panel employed in either private or public enterprises. 67.3% were female, 15.2% in their twenties, 42.1% in their thirties, 31.2% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

My salary is performance based with a horrendously complex evaluation system that changes almost every year. I’m just coming up to setting my targets for this year, which, as with the two 6-monthly reviews of progress towards these set goals, consists largely of horse-trading and inventing ratings so you don’t look either too good or too bad, and of course being foreign I don’t quite fit into the system, so more pointless tweaking takes place to make allowances. They have a box for TOEIC score, so instead I put down my Kanji Kentei targets, but “write like a Japanese middle-school student” is hardly a major achievement from a Japanese perspective! An ex-colleague had the right idea – he just refused to fill in any form that wasn’t in English.

Survey results

Q1: Is your salary based on performance or length of service? (Sample size=330)

Performance	38.8%
Length of service	41.8%
Don’t know	13.3%
Not currently working in industry	2.4%
Other	3.6%

Q2: In which industry do you work? (Sample size=266)

	Length of service N=138	Performance N=128
Manufacturing	17	38
Central or local government, or other public body	49	5
Education	16	5
Health, welfare	3	1
Finance, insurance	5	7
Distribution, service	25	45
Construction, real estate	6	6
Utilites, broadcast	13	13
Other	4	8

Q3: In which field do you work? (Sample size=266)

	Length of service N=138	Performance N=128
Sales	12	22
Research	14	6
Clerical	59	23
Management	12	26
Shop work	2	6
Specialist	36	41
Other	3	4

Q4: In the future, how would you like your salary assessed? (Sample size=330)

By performance	46.1%
By length of service	23.3%
Other	5.1%
Don’t know	25.5%