Overtime in Japan
Ahh, excessive overtime, and especially the dreaded euphemistic-named “service overtime”, or unpaid overtime in proper English, is perhaps the biggest culture shock to foreign office workers when they come to Japan. We all have our pet theories about why, but this recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by CNET Japan into overtime and work efficiency perhaps answers some questions.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 24th of February 2008 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor panel employed as businesspeople completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 68.2% were male, 24.5% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 25,3% aged fifty or older.
My employer is one of the rare companies that has embraced Work-Life Balance as a slogan at least. However, some recent news that I don’t think I should mention has revealed that they are about to take a very bold, perhaps even unique in Japanese large companies, step to address one issue regarding this balance. We shall see how it all pans out…
The title of the survey implies that there was some questions regarding how people view the effectiveness of overtime; outside crunch times there is a general perception amongst foreigners that the Japanese spin out an 8 hour working day over 12 or more hours, so I’d have loved to have seen the outcome of questions regarding that issue. Sadly, the original Japanese article did not report this aspect.
Research results
First, a few questions that were not reported in full. When questioned regarding the work-life balance, most almost everyone thought it needed to be considered, with the more popular opinions of why it is important to consider being that work efficiency would be raised and that industry’s thinking that overtime is a fact of life can be reformed. However, over 90% thought overtime is necessary for business survival. About two in five of the sample did overtime four or five times a week, which does seem a bit low to me.
34.8% of the sample had a “No overtime day” system in place, and 40.2% of that group had it strictly enforced. However, around four in five found they couldn’t always finish their day’s work on these no overtime days.
Q1: From a personal perspective, why do you think overtime isn’t reduced? (Sample size=766, multiple answer)
If you can’t finish your work in regular time, it is best to do overtime 63.7% You feel guilty if just you leave early while others stay behind 46.6% In business overtime is the way things are done 41.9% Because overtime pay supports part of your living expenses, it’s tough if you don’t do overtime 35.9% No overtime is an impossible goal 34.1% Overtime is good for the company 11.6% Other 5.4% Q2: From the employer’s perspective, why do you think overtime isn’t reduced? (Sample size=1,025, multiple answer)
Employees doing overtime is the way things are done 47.6% Because the business environment is tough, we wouldn’t be competitive if we only worked regular hours 45.1% We won’t reduce overtime 42.2% The company needs overtime to be done, and the employees understand this 35.0% In Japan overtime pay supports part of one’s living expenses, so employees also want to do overtime 18.9% Other 7.3% When asked what they should do themselves in order to reduce overtime, 49.0% said regulating concentration time and break time, and 43.6% said producing daily schedules of work.
Q3: To improve work efficiency, what sort of tools are in use, what sort of things are done? (Sample size=1,080, multiple answer)
Nothing in particular 65.8% Use groupware for schedule, document management 20.8% Put information to work using company intranet, blogs, SNS, etc 9.4% Mail sent to work address can be viewed from home PC, mobile phone, etc 8.0% Intranet schedule can be viewed from home PC, mobile phone, etc 5.6% CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or other sales tool used to manage data 3.3% Other 1.5% Q4: Do you think work-life balance will take root? (Sample size=1,080)
Will take root 21.2% Won’t take root 45.3% Don’t know 33.5%
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Shari said,
March 21, 2008 @ 11:44
I’m one of those people who does not “believe” but *knows” the Japanese routinely stretch out 4-8 hours of work into 10-12 hour days. I worked in an office for 12 years and say it happen repeatedly, particularly with salesmen. Sometimes that was done by leaving the office to visit customers and spending some time doing “tachiyomi” in convenience stores and at others, it was spent either screwing around in the office or taking (considerably) more work of some small task than was necessary. The inefficiency I witnessed so that the illusion of “working hard” could be played out for the boss’s benefit was staggering at times. It was only rivaled by the stunning lack of computer knowledge and how people wasted time painstakingly doing a terrible job because they didn’t have even basic Microsoft Word and Excel skills so they did things like try to make flyers or lay out documents using multiple spaces and pre-set tabs rather than style sheets or custom settings. Everything takes a lot longer when you don’t know what you’re doing.
That’s not to say that it was always this way in all companies all the time or even in my company with all workers, but it was clear that a lot of what was happening in terms of overtime was either extreme incompetence forcing more time or putting on a show for the boss.
Fredrik said,
March 24, 2008 @ 10:03
It is a basic fact that the quantity of what you achieve is NOT linearly proportional to how many hours you work. Working too long hours just means that you get sloppier and more inefficient (hence wasting your own precious time).
In Europe we are talking about reducing working time from the original 8 hours (and I think they did it in France). THAT is they way to go because another basic fact is : we only have one life and that life is not worth wasting on working our entire days. Please wake up and join the 21:th century, Japan…
Turner said,
March 24, 2008 @ 10:53
Agreed. The fact that I’m taking time to write this comment at work is testament to that fact.
Isabell said,
March 25, 2008 @ 18:41
Well, somebody has to read the 80 Million daily newspapers sold in Japan… and they are most definitely not housewives
I also heard from Professors here in Japan that Japanese need 5 hours for a task westerners would need 3 hours.. and that there is a lot of coffee drinking in between.