This presentation discuss the japanese way of managing their people. It discusses the various hr activities in japan alongwith some of its major issues and challenges.

1. HRMIN JAPAN:
THE LANDOF RISINGSUN

2. QUICK FACTS
 Area: about 378,000 sq. Km.
 Population: over 127 million
people.
 Language:Japanese spoken by
99% of population.
 Religion: Buddhism and Shinto.
 Longest overall life expectancy
rate in the world.

3. NATIONALCULTURE
 masculine
 High power distance
 indebtedness
 absence of horizontal
social groupings
 observance of social
status
 harmony
 high uncertainty
avoidance

4. HRMANDOTHEREMPLOYEERELATED
VALUESANDPRACTICES
 Enterprise-based trade unions, cooperative relationship
between employees and company, avoidance of open conflict
 Emotional and dependent relation between company and
employees
 The Japanese are experts at the "soft S's" of management:
staff, skills, and style.
 Ringi method: collective decision making
 Implicit discrete performance appraisal
 Teamwork: multi-skill work teams, team appraisal and reward

5.  nenko: life-time (or long-term) employment for regular
core employees
 process-oriented
 discrimination against women
 employee-oriented leadership style
 Kaizen- continuous improvement
 Kanban or just-in-time production

6. FourpillarsofJapaneseHRM
 Long term employment
 Seniority based promotion and compensation
 Company-driven employee training programs
 Trade/labor unionism

7. STAFFING IN JAPAN
 People are hired out of school.
 Retention of loyal employees.
 Performance appraisal once or twice a year.
 Informal monitoring of progress
 Decision making capability, long term success is
evaluated.
 Promotion are based on seniority, merit and
educational background.

8. At times of economic slow down,
 Companies dismiss part time or seasonal
employees
 Instead of being laid off, permanent employees
are transferred to organisational units that are
in need of additional help.

9. TRAINING
 Invest heavily on training and development of
their employees.
 On the job training: job rotation /multitasking.
 Occupational skills are valued over firm-
specific skills
 Support employees to improve technical
skills and to acquire qualifications.

10. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
 Objective- ensure employee is functioning in
harmony with the group.
 Appraisal is semi formal.
 Manager act as senior family member,
harmony is maintained.
 Personal and profesional related issued are
discussed openly.
 Tangible reward is semi annual bonus.

11.  Failure result in job rotation, decrease payor less
important job.
 Manager frequently send this info. to personnel
dept.
 Serves as input to calculate bonus, salary
increment,
 review employee’s job rotation assignment and to
identify any special skills required by employees.

12. COMPENSATION
 Seniority based wage system.
Two features
1. Pay increases according to the length of service.
2. Wages are not set separately for individual jobs.
 Basic salary is determined according to job
related qualifications and competence ranks
within each job categories.
 Pay raises applying to the basic salary (periodic
pay raises) are given every year in April.

13.  Labour and management engage in wage
negotiations (shunto) every spring.
 There are two type of wage system
1. Age linked wage system
2. Job ability work system

14. SOCIAL SECURITY
 First Asian country to establish a
comprehensive social insurance system.
 It has two major programs old age, survivor
and disability insurance.
 Two main health insurance program
1. Compulsory employees health insurance
plan
2. National health insurance plan

15. INDUSTRIAL RELATION
 Collective bargaining process – “ shunto” or
“spring wage negotiation”.
 Union structure 3 levels- enterprise level,
industrial level and national level.
 Management gives high priorities to union
demands
 No law is required for union recognition

16.  Mutually binding labour binding contracts
 If strike, duration is only for few hours
 Less role of government
 Workers participation is compuls0ry.

17. ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
 The aging population has clear
implications for corporate HR
practice.
 Increasing ‘Suicides’ due to
overwork. In the fiscal year
ending in March 2010, the
Japanese government found
about 100 ‘karoshi’ deaths. It
also ruled that 63 suicides were
caused by overwork.

18. ARIGATO
GOZAIMASU