Work-life balance in the Japanese workplace
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It may seem strange to an outsider that the buzzword “Work-life balance” has become popular in Japanese industry, but with many Japanese seemingly holding colleagues more dear than their family, industry has realised that for the benefit of their employees’ mental health and well-being, promoting spending less time at work is important. With this in mind, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc looking at this very topic of work-life balance. Apparently the term was coined in the 1990s in Europe or the USA.
Demographics
Between the 17th and 19th of January 2007 330 people employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.3% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 38.2% in their thirties, 34.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their firties, and 2.1% in their sixties.
I personally hold unions mainly responsible for issues regarding work-life balance. A recent survey from the union I have to join (well, technically I need not, but I think I’m not eligible for any overtime or flexible working hours if I did opt out) and pay 6,000 yen a month dues for (and don’t start me on how the union shop prominently sells cancer-in-a-pack to employees, not even stopping sales or turning off the fag machines for No Smoking Day) showed that overall job satisfaction was directly related to overtime hours worked, with the break-even point being 30 to 40 hours per month, if one can really describe having only half the staff dissatisfied as “break-even”. All we get from the union are messages about let’s not overwork, and pie-in-the-sky for Japan ideas like suggestions to plan all your goals at the start of the day and go home once you achieve them, and no later. If they really wanted to fix anything, they’d instruct members to work-to-rule, 40 hours overtime max per month. Oh, and the overtime figures at our office are fake anyway – there’s an extra 15 hours hidden in the counting, and they are calculated on self-reporting, not on ID card check-in and check-out at the main gate. Business trips are also recorded as 8:30 to 17:00 regardless of whether you end up getting the last shinkansen home or not.
Ah yes, we have a survey to do.
Research results
Out of the original sample, 260 were currently employed in either the public or private sector. I personally am a bit worried that their monitor pool has over 20% registered with the wrong employment type, and I wonder what these 70 people are doing instead. Nonetheless, let us proceed with these 260 people, who were asked the following questions.
Q1: Have you heard the term “work-life balance”? (Sample size=260)
Yes (to SQ1) 49.6% No 50.4% Q1SQ1: How well do you know about “work-life balance”? (Sample size=129)
Know it well 9.3% Know a bit about it 67.4% Don’t know much about it 22.5% Don’t know anything at all 0.8% Combining the two tables, we get the following.
Q1SQ1A: How well do you know about “work-life balance”? (Sample size=260)
Know it well 4.6% Know a bit about it 33.5% Don’t know much about it 11.2% Just heard the term 0.4% Never heard of it 50.4% Q1SQ2: Has a “work-life balance” system been introduced at your place of work? (Sample size=129)
Has been introduced 23.5% Hasn’t been introduced 68.7% Don’t know 8.1%
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I’m not at all surprised by the survey results.
Japanese workplace rank amongst the worst compared with the G7.
Japanese government, organizations and society has to get rid of the hyprocracy and shrewd tactics, while empowering the people against workplace miseries.
http://pawahara.blogspot.com/
I work for a learning and development company here in Tokyo and we recently held interviews with managers from a large Japanese/British manufacturer. I was appalled by the lack of awareness of work-life balance. One interviewee asked us “Who is Work-Life Alex?” This is something that needs to be made a priority by senior management to make it stick!