Opinion

Get a Life!

By CHRISTINE CUNANAN-NOMURA

"Japanese companies are losing their competitiveness against Asian corporations," a Japanese personnel manager recently lamented in private. "We're finding it hard to maintain our creativity and energy. Many employees are not working as hard as they used to."

I was hardly surprised to hear this. In fact I had long wondered how the average Japanese salaryman could continue working so hard under conditions so discouraging for a First World country.

"There is no incentive to work efficiently," said one such salaryman. "What's the use? Even if I finish my work quickly I still won't be able to leave the office early. And if I complete my work earlier than others, my boss will just hand me the work of a slower colleague to finish."

"I hate baseball yet I'm forced to attend the company games on weekends," said another salaryman. "This is seen as proof of one's loyalty and managerial ability. If I don't show up, my colleagues will think I don't fit in well with the company."

Foreigners are often aghast at the extent to which companies dominate the lives of their employees. When are employees able to develop themselves as human beings rather than workhorses? How can people be motivated if they are forced to devote their whole lives to their jobs?

Some people defend this system by describing it as "the Japanese way," implying that foreigners have no right to criticize Japan's personnel management practices.

However I believe that in spite of cultural differences, the basic needs and motivations of people as human beings are the same.

We all laugh, cry and get angry over the same things regardless of nationality. Why should we have different basic needs because of skin color?

Obviously, we don't.

All human beings need opportunities for personal growth independent of their companies. They need to pursue outside interests, meet friends and family, take holidays or simply have time to themselves for reflection. Without these opportunities they simply stop growing as persons and eventually as employees. They become machines ― and machines are never real assets to either the company or to society.

In other countries, many employees are prized not only for their specialized skills but also for their varied experiences and knowledge of a larger world. In fact companies encourage employees to develop a full and varied private life knowing that happy individuals with balanced lives and close-knit families usually make good employees, and that employees with outside interests can make better decisions based on a larger knowledge base.

So my advice to the worried personnel manager was this: "Give your employees enough time to get a life! Many of them will become recharged and they will bring this energy with them to work. People should not be treated like machines. They need to grow and find meaning in life other than working for the company."

Shukan ST: April 18, 1997

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