Published By: Sougata Dutta

Cross-Cultural Management: Japanese Culture And Workplace Practices

A cultural amalgamation in workplace

Cross-culture is an idea to recognise the differences among corporate people of various backgrounds. Cross-cultural management is the process to combine them. It is pretty much valuable because of the process of globalization. Japan's workforce has created a void left by the aging citizens for the last few decades. It increased the opportunity for people from foreign, to settle in Japan. This is providing an exciting number of over three lakhs respectable jobs in 14 different industries.

There are some aspects by which someone can differentiate between Japanese work culture and the Western workforce. Following are some important points that are deeply inhabited by almost every Japanese working citizen.

Long shifts and working hours

Japan is the prime example of a long working hours work culture. The word 'Karoshi' means 'death by overwork', is a much-known reason for deaths in Japan. This specific word is not only widely spread among citizens but is legally recognised by law and enforcement. A quarter of Japan's total workforce logs 80 overtime hours and according to the survey of Japan's Health Ministry, an extra 12% touches the 100 hours mark in 30 days. The new Labour Law of 2019 has been implemented to put a permanent stop to the issues.

The Seniority System

The term 'enkou-joetsu’', is a system widely spread in Japanese work culture and society at large. It defines the interrelation between two-persons depending upon their seniority. New employees are usually hired for a basic wage and pay increases based on someone's years of experience and not merit. This hugely discourages the Japanese workforce from sticking to one job and not exploring options.

The 'Nomikai'

There are a lot of pros to Japanese work culture like the strong sense of teamwork, Company-sponsored travel and others. The 'nomikai' culture has some mixed reactions among employees. It simply means 'drinking party'. Japanese work culture has a lot of work events that mainly focus on drinking after office hours with colleagues. Some agree with the idea of a healthy correlation between colleagues however, the 'nomikai' culture is not widely accepted among professionals due to various reasons.

Despite these growing concerns in Japanese work culture, the system is under continuous scrutiny by the Government. Recently in Japan's annual economic policy guidelines, a four-day working week has been proposed to increase productivity and healthy work-life balance.