Cabinet Secretariat Awards for Work Reform

As each year goes by the Labour Standards Bureau is getting stricter and stricter on Companies around attendance tracking. As such there is not any additional news, but the Labour Standards Bureaus themselves are trying to be model employers and ensure that they are leaders in how this can be managed. Hence when there is information that is newsworthy then I will be sure to pass it on.

The Work Reform project from the Cabinet Secretariat is a current initiative that is being promoted. Last year the Cabinet Secretariat, as part of the work reform initiative they have been aiming to promote better Work Life Balance for the Public Servants. Among the workplaces where initiatives were taken to improve efficiency and the working environment, those that were particularly ingenious received awards.

Accordingly I would like to share with you the example of the Tajimi Labor Standards Bureau:What was commended was how the morning meeting now focused on the sharing of information across the whole organization, individuals recorded To Do lists and Time Schedules, work was visualized in addition to staff and managers creating documentation together, promoting efforts to improve efficiency and reform working awareness.

What follows is the communication from the Cabinet Secretariat:

Morning Meetings:
After each team holds their morning meeting, at the commencement of the working day, Management then holds a meeting to share the day’s work schedules.
Work Visualisation:
Placing of a detailed schedule (an excel spreadsheet of the To Do List and Time Schedule) in a new shared folder to ensure information can be shared horizontally. This allowed for the sharing of appointments and work schedules in real time, enabling the elimination of unnecessary work and the ability to coordinate the need for changes in direction across the entire organization.
Concurrent Practices:
Working on reforming how to proceed with work, such as switching partly to a method (concurrent style) where staff and managers work together to create materials together using a collaborative editing practice.

The results were really surprising!
Such initiatives led to a reduction in overtime from April to October to 123 hours (79% decrease from the same period the previous year) and an increase in the average
number of days of annual leave taken to 14.25 days/person (an increase of 1.25 days.)

On our part there it was a bit of a novelty that such small initiatives can have such an impact on reducing overtime in one office.
When I think back to all the times I have had to negotiate with multiple Labor Standards Bureaus and the times that will come going forwards I will certainly look to say “We will be considering the Tajimi Labor Standards Bureaus initiatives!”

Consequently I have decided to share this!

For those who are interested in reading about the initiatives the Cabinet Secretariat are encouraging for the Public Servants please see the below.
https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/gaiyou/jimu/jinjikyoku/files/h28_zentai.pdf (Japanese only)
In addition there are annual award announcements due later this month.

Thank you.