Japan Firms and More Transparency: Updated Nov. 4, 2024.

More Japan firms seek to keep new hires by allaying assignment fears

Article Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241027/p2g/00m/0bu/008000c

Ideas:

Today's new Japanese workers is a new breed of workers who are not going to accept just any job especially with the tight labor market giving them many more options to choose from.

Younger workers, globally too, want to know what the company has to offer and just what they are going to be doing in a company in the future.

Sometimes a company will use the excuse, such as " we can't give you the exact information just yet, until we see all of the new recruits." That excuse doesn't work anymore as younger workers are more savoy and want to know as much as possible about what they are going to do or they won't take a job with a company that is too unsure about where they will put a new worker.

Most likely, as the services sector usually pays less than high tech companies and maybe other large companies companies too, they might be having difficulty hiring talented young workers who maybe don't want to work in the services sector.

Even though the services sector has much smaller profit margins, they need to find ways to give as much information young workers to improve their chances of getting the best talent as possible in Japan.

Another option, like what Japanese convenience stores have done is hire young foreign graduates to work in their companies, as the Japanese convenience stores, as some articles have suggested now have  up to 80,000 foreign staff working for them, and most of them are foreign university students working to make ends meet.

In years past, as the economy was much better, maybe young Japanese workers were not that concerned about their future, as they knew a company would take care of them with life-time employment, but those days are long gone in Japan.

Probably, these days, and globally too, most workers are not going to stay with one company their entire adult working life, but will more around to a few companies, even in Japan.

The idea of just sitting at a company for 40 plus years probably doesn't appeal to many young Japanese workers these days, as the want to experience many different things in their lives and not just with one company.

Sompo maybe has the resources available to offer young workers around 30 different types of jobs, but maybe some companies don't have the resources, such as small and mid-size companies, meaning they might be losing out on the best talent available in Japan.

Not all companies maybe can be as transparent as Sompo, as maybe they don't know just yet, until they see how many new recruits they will have and what kind of real talent they are getting for the company.

In Japan its a buyers market, meaning Japanese workers have many options to choose from and companies need to be as transparent as possible to get the best talent as possible.

Maybe in the past, traditional Japanese companies could rely on their brand name and or reputation to get the best talent, but those days are long gone, as younger workers are looking for something different and not just a tried and true name brand company, that might not be interested in keeping up with times and or meeting the needs of young workers.

Panasonic is an example of name brand Japanese company that has figured out they need to have as much transparency as possible, having around 150 possible positions available is a good example of a large name brand companies doing what it needs to do to attract the best talent possible.

But, unfortunately, maybe some small and mid-size companies can't do what Panasonic can do and so they know they are not going to get the same talent as Panasonic can get, so they don't target the same young workers and look for other ways to get the best talent they can afford.

One option for companies in the services sector is to do what Japanese convenience stores are doing now, and that is to target foreign university students in Japan, to work for a service type company when they graduate, as articles have suggested there are up to 80,000 foreign students working for Japanese convenience stores now to help them their expenses.

As Japan has a so-called labor shortage that would do a long way to help many companies if they can hire foreign university graduates who are already living and working in Japan.

Have a nice day!