The Juggling Act, Part II: Moving Forward into Improved Work-Life Balance

In Part I of this article series we looked at employment policy changes currently taking place in Japan that, while benefiting the companies implementing them, are also having a positive impact on the work-life balance of their employees. Politicians and academics are in agreement that the issue of improving work-life balance needs to be given priority; the benefits of doing so are perceived as being too great for it to be ignored. Yet The Japan Times recently reported that many workers feel gloomy about the prospect of real change occurring. Why should this be, and more importantly, can anything be done to change it?

In December 2007, following a report commissioned by the Japanese government, ministers signed the Work Life Balance Charter. This document defined 14 targets that it believes companies should focus on in order to improve general working conditions, although it should be noted that these targets are merely recommendations - there are no penalties for failing to reach them. The charter includes issues such as reducing the number of employees working more than 60 hours a week by 50% and increasing the number of telecommuters. The government have also made improvements to the child care system in an effort to encourage more women to return to work and have stated that not only do they want more men to take advantage of their right to paternity leave (currently languishing at only 0.5% uptake), but also that more workers in general should take the full quota of their holiday entitlements, something that currently less than half of all employees do.

Such actions clearly reveal an enthusiasm for change, and to see this supported by regulation is encouraging. Yet it has been noted in the popular press recently that peoples’ attitudes toward work-life balance seem to be less than optimistic. In a recent Internet survey conducted by goo Research, 45% of respondents said they didn’t believe that work-life balance would ever really take off. This means that a high number of business people don’t believe that it is worth devoting any time or energy to, a sentiment that runs contrary to what the government in Japan is trying to achieve.

Another observation recently voiced is that obstacles to improving work-life balance come not in the form of government policy but in prevailing cultural attitudes about work and the roles of men and women in society. This view was based on feedback received from attendees of a work-life balance-related conference, but is supported by respondents of a recent opinion poll. In another survey, when questioned about gender roles, more than 49% of women said they believed that a woman’s place was at home. In the same goo Research survey, more than 60% of respondents believed that overtime was necessary to get the job done. This meant that on days designated as “no overtime” days by the company, people felt they were not able to complete their work. The opinion of some workers on this matter is that many companies tend to operate with fewer people than they really need. While this may be true in some organizations, as long as employees believe things such as “overtime is necessary for me to do my job well,” then real change will require much more than action by the government. It will need companies to be willing to implement change and individuals to see that these changes are ultimately benefiting them and take advantage of what is being offered.

Telecommuting is one approach to modifying working habits that has been earmarked as a future growth area by ministers. Certainly we have reached a point, as far as technology is concerned, where workers spending all or part of their working week at home may do so without causing much, if any, disruption to those left behind in the office. Remote access of company intranet systems, groupware, video conferencing and emails all mean that a group of people may work together efficiently and effectively without being in the same building. Telecommuting has become quite popular in Europe, with many people choosing to spend between one and three days working from home. Trust from managers is the main issue here, with many bosses likely to feel uneasy about what people are doing if they can’t see them. If the worker remains easily reachable and their work productivity at least remains the same, then this can surely be resolved over time.

Another approach could be to encourage job-sharing which in turn allows people to reduce the number of hours and days a week that they work, effectively turning a greater percentage of the workforce into part-time workers. This scheme has had great success in other countries, the Netherlands being one example. There it is not unusual for people, managers included, to work fewer hours – and days – a week. Part-time work everywhere suffers from a lower status than full-time, with workers often receiving less salary and poorer opportunities for career advancement. The Dutch believed that this was something that needed to be tackled before job-sharing became desirable. Now in the Netherlands part-time workers enjoy equal pay and the same access to promotion as those working full time. This in turn has raised the status – and take-up – of job sharing. Success was partly due to new employment regulations but was also attributable to the fact that those at the top were as keen to take it up as everyone else. And while many managers may be tempted to think that job-sharing could lead to reduced productivity, the opposite has been found to be true. In the productivity tables of developed countries, Japan occupies the 19th position while the Dutch are proving their system works by coming in at an admirable 10th place.

It is widely known that big changes do not occur overnight. For the Japanese government's policies to have lasting effect they need to be reinforced with greater education about work-life balance so that people are aware that the opportunity for them to improve their lives does exist. However, this must be matched by encouragement from managers and willingness among companies for business to be conducted in a new way.