from Hacker News

Fujitsu announces permanent work-from-home plan

by l31g on 7/6/20, 10:14 AM with 274 comments

• by cdavid on 7/6/20, 2:47 PM

  I am quite bearish about the impact of WFH, especially for software engineers, but if there is one country where I think the coronavirus can have a huge positive effect for the economy, it is Japan.

  Japanese companies are generally extremely inefficient. Outside of a few powerhouses, partially thanks to a protected and large domestic market, Japanese labor practices are antiquated. There is a culture of overwork that begets a culture of inefficiency that boggles the mind. Few people know that Japan has a labor productivity lower than Italy, for example.

  To give a concrete example, you will have companies where people will make sure to start meetings at 7 pm to make sure they can maximize "残業" (overtime). The labor ministry is trying to curb on companies that expect more than 80 hours of overtime per month. On top of it, if you live in one of the big city (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka), 3 hours of commute per day is not atypical. And then you have the practice of 飲み会 ("business dinners" where people drink, abuse toward women common, etc.), which also takes time.

  Finally, Japanese companies rely a lot on paper and 判子 (hanko) and other seals systems. My wife sometimes has to go the desk of a colleague dozens of times a day to get some paperwork. IT systems are antiquated. And yet, Japan has one of the most educated workforce in the world. Especially women are often relegated to menial work. Internet is fast everywhere. It is the true steam punk country !

  Coronavirus and WFH change this. Seeing large companies like fujitsu publicly taking a stance is highly significant in a country like Japan where executives are often extremely risk adverse.

• by snarfy on 7/6/20, 1:56 PM

  Any Japanese care to chime in on how WFH is accepted culturally? When I worked for a Japanese tech company I was surprised by how old school they were. Landlines, business cards, reams of paper, week long meetings about policies, and this was a software company. WFH was forbidden unless it was an emergency.

• by alistairSH on 7/6/20, 12:53 PM

  Can Japanese residents comment on how this works WRT office space in the home? Do people typically have space in their homes to have a proper home office setup?

  My wife and I are both WFH right now, and we had to buy a second desk and chair and repurpose what was previously our 2nd bedroom. The 3rd bedroom has always been a home office. If we lived in a downtown apartment, I'm not sure what we'd do, as we're both in management and spend the majority of the day teleconferencing.

• by ericmcer on 7/6/20, 6:02 PM

  The one big downside I have noticed from WFH is that any efficiency I introduce in my own work becomes reclaimed time. If I can crank through a days work in 4 hours in the morning I can reasonably take it easy in the afternoon. This is great but it has created some stress around things like code reviews and impromptu mentoring etc.

  If I am sitting in the office I may as well spend 20 minutes on a code review trying to figure out a cleaner solution, but at home its harder to do it. There is just a general feeling of racing towards that 'done' status which represents a good amount of completed work for the day. Before it was just 9-5 and a thorough code review was a welcome use of that time.

• by thesumofall on 7/6/20, 4:04 PM

  Not commenting on this specific case here, but I believe we currently see the pendulum swinging from one extreme (WFH only at a very exclusive subset of companies) to the other extreme ("WFH first" policies)

  I'm convinced the true winners will be those companies that find a smart mix of both worlds. This includes recognizing that both concepts have their strengths (e.g., people are a lot more disciplined about meetings in a remote context) and weaknesses (e.g., a further breakdown of the separation between work and live). WFH needs more than just giving people the green light to work from home on selected days. It also, for example, needs a radical rethink of office infrastructure (most offices are not designed for 10 people sitting side-by-side and being on the phone most of the day), management culture, and shared best practices how to approach non-transactional work (e.g., how to tackle complex topics with people who do not know each other remotely?)

• by zkid18 on 7/6/20, 12:07 PM

  Wow, that huge for Japan I believe. I live at Kichijoji and it takes me 1 hour to get to work in Akasaka. I love my place and somehow get used to this routine, but honestly I wish I could rent a place in Japanese countryside.

• by runawaybottle on 7/6/20, 1:13 PM

  I’d love to see companies convert ‘Unlimited vacation time at your discretion’ over to ‘Unlimited remote at your discretion’.

• by helen___keller on 7/6/20, 4:48 PM

  Considering how Japanese companies are famously conservative, I can't help but wonder if Fujitsu executives were faced with undeniable evidence that productivity increased during the pandemic WFH

• by poma88 on 7/6/20, 1:10 PM

  Finally someone had the brains to do it! Beautiful.. if they pay for the use of space and resources at home

• by SenHeng on 7/6/20, 4:40 PM

  Another side often missing in these dicussions is that Japan's tax laws are relatively sane and are the same through all states. You will not be taxed differently just because you're living in a different state or are living between states.

  There are some issues regarding where your residence tax should be paid to but those are minor compared to what I've read on here about crossing state lines in the US.

• by mleonhard on 7/8/20, 5:03 AM

  > The company also said the programme would allow staff to choose where they worked, whether that was from home, a major corporate hub or a satellite office.

  Culture cannot change quickly. I expect only a few Fujitsu employees will work from home. Most will continue to waste countless hours sitting at a desk to "demonstrate commitment to the company." It won't matter that the desk is in a satellite office. Male managers will require their female subordinates to work from the same satellite office with them. Only determined top leadership can change a Japanese company's time-wasting sexist culture. I doubt Fujitsu will succeed before the pandemic ends.

• by AlexTWithBeard on 7/6/20, 6:19 PM

  But if software engineers can work from home, they surely can work from Mumbai?

• by dcow on 7/6/20, 11:49 AM

  Is productivity going up, or are workers more happy, or both?

• by john4534243 on 7/6/20, 12:50 PM

  Even software service companies have started to go full remote. WFH is the future.

• by saos on 7/6/20, 12:18 PM

  Thats really good. I wonder how UK companies will respond.

• by georgex7 on 7/6/20, 6:08 PM

  All companies remote work policies: remote.lifeshack.io

• by onetimemanytime on 7/6/20, 11:40 AM

  Covid might actually result in permanent changes. Sucks for a lot of commercial real estate companies. WeWork is probably 100% done

• by njerschow on 7/6/20, 4:18 PM

  Hey, you should add your company here: remote.lifeshack.io !