HRM IN JAPAN: THE LAND OF RISING SUN

QUICK FACTS

Area: about 378,000 sq. Km.

Population: over 127 million people.

Language: Japanese spoken by 99% of population.

Religion: Buddhism and Shinto.

Longest overall life expectancy rate in the world.

NATIONAL CULTURE

masculine

High power distance

indebtedness

absence of horizontal social groupings

observance of social status

harmony

high uncertainty avoidance

HRM AND OTHER EMPLOYEE RELATED VALUES AND PRACTICES

Enterprise-based trade unions, cooperative relationship between employees and company, avoidance of open conflict

Emotional and dependent relation between company and employees

The Japanese are experts at the "soft S's" of management: staff, skills, and style.

Ringi method: collective decision making

Implicit discrete performance appraisal

Teamwork: multi-skill work teams, team appraisal and reward

nenko: life-time (or long-term) employment for regular core employees

process-oriented

discrimination against women

employee-oriented leadership style

Kaizen- continuous improvement

Kanban or just-in-time production

Four pillars of Japanese HRM

Long term employment

Seniority based promotion and compensation

Company-driven employee training programs

Trade/labor unionism

STAFFING IN JAPAN

People are hired out of school.

Retention of loyal employees.

Performance appraisal once or twice a year.

Informal monitoring of progress

Decision making capability, long term success is evaluated.

Promotion are based on seniority, merit and educational background.

At times of economic slow down,

Companies dismiss part time or seasonal employees

Instead of being laid off, permanent employees are transferred to organisational units that are in need of additional help.

TRAINING

Invest heavily on training and development of their employees.

On the job training: job rotation /multitasking.

Occupational skills are valued over firm-specific skills

Support employees to improve technical skills and to acquire qualifications.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Objective- ensure employee is functioning in harmony with the group.

Appraisal is semi formal.

Manager act as senior family member, harmony is maintained.

Personal and profesional related issued are discussed openly.

Tangible reward is semi annual bonus.

Failure result in job rotation, decrease payor less important job.

Manager frequently send this info. to personnel dept.

Serves as input to calculate bonus, salary increment,

review employee’s job rotation assignment and to

identify any special skills required by employees.

COMPENSATION

Seniority based wage system.

Two features

1. Pay increases according to the length of service.

2. Wages are not set separately for individual jobs.

Basic salary is determined according to job related qualifications and competence ranks within each job categories.

Pay raises applying to the basic salary (periodic pay raises) are given every year in April.

Labour and management engage in wage negotiations (shunto) every spring.

There are two type of wage system

1. Age linked wage system

2. Job ability work system

SOCIAL SECURITY

First Asian country to establish a comprehensive social insurance system.

It has two major programs old age, survivor and disability insurance.

Two main health insurance program

1. Compulsory employees health insurance plan

2. National health insurance plan

INDUSTRIAL RELATION

Collective bargaining process – “ shunto” or “spring wage negotiation”.

Union structure 3 levels- enterprise level, industrial level and national level.

Management gives high priorities to union demands

No law is required for union recognition

Mutually binding labour binding contracts

If strike, duration is only for few hours

Less role of government

Workers participation is compuls0ry.

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

The aging population has clear implications for corporate HR practice.

Increasing ‘Suicides’ due to overwork. In the fiscal year ending in March 2010, the Japanese government found about 100 ‘karoshi’ deaths. It also ruled that 63 suicides were caused by overwork.

ARIGATO

GOZAIMASU