世論 What Japan Thinks

The first question one might have is what is diversity; the immediate thing that springs to my mind, at least, is having an anti-discrimination policy at work covering race, creed, gender and sexual orientation. However, in this survey into diversity management by goo Research only one and a half (“foreign” rather than “race”) of these groups appear.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 21st of June 2010 930 members of the goo Research monitor group employed in companies with more than 50 employees completed a private internet-base questionnaire. The sex and age splits were not reported, but 23.3% worked in manufacturing, 14.9% in service, food or drink, 10.5% for local or national government, 9.8% in retail, 9.5% in information or distribution, 6.8% in construction or real estate, 5.6% in finance, 4.3% in distribution, 1.6% in farming, fisheries, forestry, mining, or utilities, and 13.7% in other industry. 16.3% worked for companies with between 50 and 99 employees, 30.1% with 100 to 499 employees, 11.0% with 500 to 999 employees, 19.9% with 1,000 to 4,999 employees, and 22.7% in companies with 5,000 or more employees.

The company I work for does just about everything in Q1. I’m not sure about a specific older person employment scheme, whatever that might be, but we do actively hire staff in mid-career, not just new graduates. We’re extremely active recently in foreigner employment, and I’m surprised that our managing director’s recent writings on the matter have barely hit the Japanese newspapers and blogs, let alone the English-language sphere.

It’s interesting that diversity management here seems to be more about diverse employment patterns for existing staff, trying to allow for working styles other than the 9 to 5 10, work before family. As mentioned above, our company has generous paternity leave on offer, but even this year when two guys’ wives gave birth the guys took one day off for the birth and another for when she came out of hospital before returning to the same old 9 to 10 (pm of course) regardless of necessity.

Research results

Q1: Which of the following systems has your employer introduced? (Sample size=930, multiple answer)

Child birth, child rearing leave system	73.1%
Care-giving leave system	60.0%
Re-employment system	59.5%
Using contract employees, dispatch employees, etc	57.3%
Appointment of female managers	49.6%
Employment of the disabled	48.6%
Employment of older staff	40.0%
Shorter working hours system	37.4%
Birthday holiday, “refresh” holiday, other holiday systems	32.7%
Flexitime system	30.0%
Employment of foreigners	29.4%
Internal vacancy advertising system	18.6%
Work from home system	7.7%
Other	0.1%
None of the above	9.6%

There was also a chart comparing the above results for Japanese-owned and foreign-owned companies; foreign-owned were higher in every respect except for employing older people, and the two biggest differences were for female promotion (25 percentage points higher) and flexitime systems (33 percentage points higher).

Q2: What problems are there with introducing diversity management? (Sample size=930, multiple answer)

How to think about diversity is not known to all	38.2%
Employees’ awareness, understanding of diversity is low	37.8%
Difficult to make a fair evaluation system with varied types of employment	35.8%
There’s a difference in awareness between management and employees	24.1%
Difficult to understand how best to proceed	20.0%
Cannot smoothly communicate due to varied values	14.6%
Management track jobs are male, ordinary jobs are female, etc, so it’s difficult to get the understanding of those on the usual track	13.4%
Expensive to introduce a new system	10.7%
Other	1.0%
No particular problem points	17.1%

Q3: What successes has there been from introducing diversity management? (Sample size=930, multiple answer)

Employee motivation increased	25.9%
Superior staff got promoted	25.2%
Staff turnover decreased	23.9%
Reduced costs	21.3%
Corporate image improved	15.0%
Became able to respond to the needs of diversified customers	11.1%
Strengthened competitive edge	7.4%
Creativity, innovation improved	7.4%
Performance improved	3.4%
Other	10.7%

Q4: How will the importance of diversity management change at your place of work be in the future? (Sample size=930)

	Much greater	Greater	Less	Much less
All	11.3%	76.8%	10.1%	1.8%
50 to 99 employees N=152	4.6%	73.0%	19.1%	3.3%
100 to 499 employees N=280	6.4%	79.6%	11.1%	2.9%
500 to 999 employees N=102	5.9%	78.4%	12.7%	3.0%
1,000 to 4,999 employees N=185	14.1%	78.9%	6.5%	0.5%
5,000 or more employees N=211	22.7%	73.0%	4.3%	0.0%

Q5: How has the funding of diversity management changed at your place of work from last year to this year? (Sample size=930)

	Increased	Not changed	Decreased
All	22.9%	71.1%	6.0%
50 to 99 employees N=152	14.5%	75.0%	10.5%
100 to 499 employees N=280	17.5%	75.0%	7.5%
500 to 999 employees N=102	14.7%	78.4%	6.9%
1,000 to 4,999 employees N=185	28.6%	68.1%	3.2%
5,000 or more employees N=211	35.1%	62.1%	2.8%