Japan in bid to fight scourge of overtime - but it's hard work

From the Rocky theme to cash handouts and early "Premium Friday" finishes, more and more companies in workaholic Japan are getting creative with ways of getting employees out of the door early.

The government launched its Premium Friday campaign to encourage companies to let workers out a few hours early on the last Friday of the month so that they can spend money on shopping and leisure to help boost the economy.

The initiative is among moves by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration to reduce working hours, after the suicide of an employee at advertising agency Dentsu - ruled "death by overwork" - cast a harsh spotlight on Japan Inc's deep-rooted problem of excessive overtime.

"Excessive working hours have become a big problem," said Etsuko Tsugihara, CEO of public relations firm Sunny Side Up.

"We were thinking of ways to improve our own working environment when the government came up with Premium Friday, and we thought it was a good idea."

As an added incentive, she said, Sunny Side Up would hand employees a once-off ¥3,200 (R360) cash payment as they headed out at about 3pm while the company stood to benefit from a productivity rise.

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"In creative industries like ours, inspiration won't come just from staying in the office for a long time. But take some time off, breathe new air and see new things and the ideas will come, and you'll be refreshed when you come back on Monday."

Beyond easing the personal toll on workers, the government has the economy in mind.

As the labour pool shrinks along with the population, it wants companies to reduce hours to encourage more women to work and get fathers more involved in bringing up children. Increased leisure time should also mean more time between the sheets to boost the birth rate.

Some employers are already taking up the call. Channelling their inner Rocky, workers at the headquarters of Mitsui Home hear the trumpets of Gonna Fly Now playing over office speakers every day at 6pm as a signal that they can leave. Saint-Works Corporation, which specialises in IT system development for the nursing-care industry, has a no-overtime day once a month.

Transgressors must wear a purple "cape of shame" with gold stars.

Others, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, are simply turning off the lights by about 8pm to make people leave.

Leasing company Orix plans to offer up to ¥50,000 for employees who use five vacation days in a row.

Still, these examples are by far the exception in a culture where workers are judged by the amount of "face time" they put in and feel pressure not to leave before the bosses.

SMBC Nikko Securities estimated not more than 6.5% of workers would participate in Premium Friday.

A government white paper released in October showed that almost a quarter of companies had employees who had worked more than 80 hours of overtime in a month - its threshold for risk of "karoshi", or death by overwork.

To plug loopholes in labour laws, the government last week submitted a proposal to limit overtime to 720 hours a year, or 60 hours a month, to a work-reform committee.

Truly bidding sayonara to overtime "requires a fairly drastic overhaul", said Yoko Ishikura, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and an expert on workstyle reforms.

Japanese offices are still employing too many generalists with ill-defined roles, making it hard to measure their work output and so encouraging unproductive time sitting at desks, while an inflexible job market exacerbated the problem, she said.

"We're very efficient in factories but when it comes to white collar, productivity is very low. What we're interested in is productivity improvement and innovation, and long work hours do not help either."

Still, some are apprehensive about changing too much, too quickly.

At a meeting last week of the government's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Suntory Holdings CEO Takeshi Niinami expressed concern that less overtime could hit workers in the form of lower pay - and reduce consumer spending.

Sadayuki Sakakibara, chairman of the Japan Business Federation corporate lobby, said he was in principle in favour of setting limits on work hours but the global competitiveness of Japanese companies could be at risk if limits were too strict.

However, Yoshie Komuro, founder and head of the consultancy Work-Life Balance, noted that Japan Inc had already been losing its global edge recently. It had to change its mindset to improve performance and attract top talent.

"Japan thinks long working hours are a tool that it can use to win, but the reality is they're the reason it's been losing."  - Reuters