{"id":9342,"date":"2009-11-20T15:18:33","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T19:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=9342"},"modified":"2009-11-23T10:47:50","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T14:47:50","slug":"wit-life-57-teleworking-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/20\/wit-life-57-teleworking-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #57: Teleworking in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLi<\/strong><\/em><\/a>fe<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/<\/em>Interpreter\/<\/em>Writer Stacy Smith<\/a><\/strong> (Kumamoto-ken, 20<\/strong><\/em>00-03)<\/strong>.\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been <\/em>watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends togeth<\/em>e<\/em>r <\/em>w<\/em>ith h<\/em>er own<\/em> <\/span><\/span>obser<\/em>vat<\/em>ions.\"wlb4\"<\/em><\/p>\n

My only time traveling one-on-one as an interpreter for the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program<\/a> was a year ago with a female entrepreneur from Hokkaido named Yuri Tazawa.\u00a0 No one epitomizes the “Yes We Can” spirit more than Yuri, so it was appropriate that we were able to\u00a0celebrate Obama’s victory together while in DC.\u00a0 She began a company in a town called Kitami 11 years ago after being raised in Nara, going to university in Tokyo, and starting a family. \u00a0You might wonder what kind of business\u00a0one could have being located so far away from a metropolis,\u00a0but Yuri\u00a0heads a\u00a0company called Y’s Staff (taking the Y from her name as well as\u00a0being a homonym with “wise”).<\/p>\n

Y’s has\u00a0offices in both Hokkaido and Nara, but its\u00a0actual structure\u00a0is virtual.\u00a0 Through her company,\u00a0Yuri is a promoter of teleworking.\u00a0 This concept is often confused with telemarketing, but is essentially the idea of doing work in a place other than\u00a0a fixed office.\u00a0 This could be your home, the local Starbucks or any other location.\u00a0 Yuri also advocates employing the underutilized Japanese female work force, many of whom are not active due to having to relocate for their husbands’ jobs or having to take care of older family members\/kids.\u00a0 Teleworking provides a flexible\u00a0arrangement that would allow them to work for as long or\u00a0short as they want regardless of where they are.<\/p>\n

Employees in Yuri’s company are scattered all over the country as well as abroad.\u00a0\u00a0Yuri’s background is in IT,\u00a0and\u00a0Y’s\u00a0takes projects ranging from translation\/editing to web page creation.\u00a0 When she receives a request, she shares this information with all her employees\u00a0via the company\u00a0network.\u00a0 Those that are interested in collaborating on that particular project respond, and a team is\u00a0thereby created.\u00a0 Next the work is divided\u00a0so that the assignment can be efficiently carried out.\u00a0\u00a0To use a\u00a0translation project as an example,\u00a0it could potentially be shared among translators living in\u00a0Okinawa, Kumamoto, Tokyo and\u00a0Canada who use tools such as email (Yuri has created the patented\u00a0unique mail system that they use) and Skype to communicate.\u00a0 As long as team members can constantly be in touch, it is not their locations\u00a0that matter but the actual work that is done.<\/p>\n

The other day Yuri\u00a0proudly informed me that her company had received an “incentive award” or “encouragement prize” from the Work Life Balance Promotion Committee<\/a>.\u00a0 Although work life balance is not\u00a0the first thing most people associate\u00a0with Japan, this group is trying to change this.\u00a0 The above picture shows\u00a0Yuri receiving her award from the committee, and I think it is\u00a0amazing for a small company in Hokkaido to receive this well-deserved recognition.\u00a0 Yuri\u00a0also recently contributed an article<\/a> to Nikkei Net regarding teleworking, and it brings up some interesting points.<\/p>\n

In her piece, she highlights the fact that teleworking is a\u00a0useful \"telework\"solution to the country’s current economic woes.\u00a0 In this image on the left, the center oval\u00a0represents telework and the\u00a0outlying ovals\u00a0depict the various measures it can help implement.\u00a0 Starting with the top\u00a0green one and going clockwise\u00a0the ovals\u00a0read: reduced birth rate, aging of the population,\u00a0community revitalization, improvement of work-life balance, employment, small\u00a0business support and labor shortage.\u00a0 Following this diagram Yuri goes on to explain in detail how teleworking can be a source\u00a0of improvement in\u00a0each of these areas.<\/p>\n

For example, population decline due to a decreasing birth rate is plaguing Japan, but if both women and men knew that flexible work styles were\u00a0an option they might be more willing to consider having a family.\u00a0\u00a0Women are conflicted about having children as it often means pausing or even concluding their careers, and men are unable to take time off to help raise their children.\u00a0 Incorporating ideas such as flextime, shorter hours\u00a0and allowing workers to do their jobs in places other than the office would go a long way in making people feel less anxious about how their personal choices will affect their\u00a0employment situations.<\/p>\n

The article also discusses the Action Plan to Double the Teleworking Population<\/a> proposed two and a half years ago by four of Japan’s governmental ministries, and its goal\u00a0is to\u00a0have 20% of the working population teleworking by 2010.\u00a0 As of 2008 this number stood at 15%, so this is a realistic target.\u00a0 However, Yuri acknowledge that having companies that are receptive to this way of working is a key factor that will make or break\u00a0achievement of this goal.\u00a0 Currently it is only major companies such as automakers and financial firms that support teleworking, causing people to think that they have to live in large cities where these companies are located in order to take advantage of this working style.\u00a0 This completely\u00a0defeats the purpose of the concept.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0Yuri\u00a0often travels to Tokyo\u00a0and other areas of Japan on business, without teleworking she would not be able to be based in a place as remote as Hokkaido.\u00a0 As she would often say to me, “I created my company to be able to live somewhere with as much natural beauty as Kitami.”\u00a0 She opted for this environment to raise her three daughters, and thanks to telework she doesn’t feel like she should have to choose between quality of life and employment.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Japan’s teleworking situation and Yuri’s promotion efforts, check out her (Japanese) blog at: http:\/\/telework.blog123.jp\/<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/Interpreter\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. My only time traveling one-on-one as an interpreter for the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program was a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,30,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-2qG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9342"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9478,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9342\/revisions\/9478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}