Yahoo Tells Japan Employees They Can Work Anywhere, Commute By Plane When Necessary (japantimes.co.jp) 19
Yahoo Japan is telling its 8,000 employees they can work anywhere in the country -- and even be flown into work when the job requires it -- bucking the trend of companies looking to return workers to offices in the third year of the coronavirus pandemic. The Japan Times reports: The program takes effect April 1 and allows employees to commute by plane, which wasn't previously an option, the company said in a statement Wednesday. While Yahoo is best known for its internet portal in Japan, it's a unit of SoftBank Group's Z Holdings, which also owns the Line messaging app and PayPay mobile payments service. Ninety percent of the company's employees are now working remotely, according to President Kentaro Kawabe, who tweeted that an overwhelming majority of them said their performance has held steady or improved at home. "So we're allowing Yahoo employees to live anywhere in Japan. This doesn't mean we're denying the benefits of the office -- you'll be able to fly in when needed," he added.
Yahoo is setting a commuting budget of $1,300 per month per worker and lifting its previous daily cap. In-person communication will still be encouraged as the initiative is also aimed at bolstering morale and well-being, with social gatherings to be subsidized by [$44] per employee a month. The company has had an "office anywhere" remote work system in place since 2014, however it had capped the number of work-from-home days before the virus took hold to five days a month.
Yahoo is setting a commuting budget of $1,300 per month per worker and lifting its previous daily cap. In-person communication will still be encouraged as the initiative is also aimed at bolstering morale and well-being, with social gatherings to be subsidized by [$44] per employee a month. The company has had an "office anywhere" remote work system in place since 2014, however it had capped the number of work-from-home days before the virus took hold to five days a month.
It's available but... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sounds like USA. :P
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Not as bad as Japan, but the U.S.A. is probably in the middle if we put something such as Germany or the Netherlands on one end, and Japan on the otherr.
The difference is however that the U.S.A. has some of the world's most permissive dismissal laws, where companies can terminate employment without any particular reason simply because they want to, and Japan has some of the least permissive where for a company to terminate employ, it must show actual malice, not even an employee not pulling his weight finan
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In Japan you can fire anyone with a month's notice.
That is absolutely not true, where did you get this from? — https://knowledge.leglobal.org... [leglobal.org]
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That is absolutely not true, where did you get this from?
I mean, there is still an argument to be had for whether they're lying or not. However, I think it's pretty obvious they're speaking from first hand experience given they mention said first hand experience.
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The user made a claim to the law being changed, so he could at least proffer a legal text.
Lying or not lying is hardly the issue, I do not lend much credence to unsourced anecdotes on the internet. Indeed, it could be an outright lie; it could also be misunderstanding something or drawing a wrong conclusion from a single case.
There is nothing I can find on the internet about this and Japanese employment law remains essentially the least permissive in regards to termination in the world. — It is notori
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Regarding the forced transfers, I found many things about Japanese fiction strange to understand until I became aware of the fact that apparently more than half of Japanese marriages are sexless, even more of course after sufficient childbirths, and that apparently the Japanese more so consider romantic love something for teenagers than anything.
Apparently the transfers, semi-arranged marriages, sexlessness, and extramarital affairs are not considered much of a problem because marriage is more so treated as
Re: It's available but... (Score:2)
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What does that have to do with whether the majority of marriages are sexless in Japan? — In fact, I would argue that it goes in favor of what I said, that people in Japan far more seek sex outside of marriage because they aren't necessarily attracted to their spouses.
Apart from that, methinks people gain a very mistaken idea from Japanse culture because Japan exports a lot of subcultural media, but that is obviously not more reflective of the average Japanese condition than, say, Magic: The Gathering
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That's certainly true of some companies, but not all and times are changing.
Progress tends to be a long time coming in Japan, but when it comes it's rapid. It seems like several big employers are moving to this kind of hybrid work now, and I expect that will become much more common. According to TFA, Yahoo has been doing this for a couple of years anyway so it's just a decision to carry on as is, meaning that if it wasn't genuine I think we would know by now.
Surprised he said fly in though, Japan has an exc
Could've been good (Score:2)
First they help the environment by getting all those commuters off the roads. Then they turn around cackling and put those commuters onto airplanes, so that every commute can pollute as much as a year of driving and we have a worse situation than we started with.
It's one thing if the employees are never expected to come in. Or if an employee chooses a ridiculously long commute. But in this case the company is encouraging and subsidizing it to the tune of $1300 a month. That's not really something to applaud
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It depends how often you need to come in...
We have a similar setup (from long before the pandemic)... 99% of work is remote and you can be based anywhere, but once or twice a year there might be a (national or even regional) team gathering or a client visit etc. When this happens the company foots the bill, which might include flights especially for the regional meetings.
Most of the team gatherings are not "come to the office and work" type either, they will be centered around an industry conference or othe
Communting by Air (Score:2)
The large corporation I work for permits commuting by air. This is specifically because one of the founders wanted to fly his plane to work so it was encoded in the company rules.
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In Japan it's usually faster to take the train, although sometimes you can get really cheap air fares if you are willing to fly at 1 AM. Overnight busses are cheap and popular too, and you get your own cabin with bed.
The travel budget would only just cover a bus or normal train, plus basic hotel. For a high speed train ticket, depending on the distance, the ticket would probably be the entire budget. Still, you can potentially save far more than that by not commuting every day.
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I've been on the Shinkansen many times. It's faster than the plane because you just get your ticket, get on and after and hour or two you are at your destination. With a plane you end up wasting and 1-3 hours at the airport before getting on and 30 minutes to an hour getting off. So even for a long Shinkansen trip, sat 4-5 hours, it's nicer than a plane and similar in total elapsed time.
The East-West commuter trains are not nearly as fast though which makes visiting cities on the West coast less convenient.
What's in a name (Score:2)