2017 Vol.4

Crucial Points in Work Style Reform in the White-Collar Workplace Compared with the Blue-Collar Workplace

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Work style reform has attracted significant public attention in recent years. Such reform follows two main directions: (1) making working hours more appropriate through productivity improvements and (2) allowing greater flexibility in work styles. In Japan, productivity in the whitecollar sector, which accounts for 70 percent of all employers, is considered to be particularly low, and productivity improvements in this sector are therefore essential for work style reform to be effective. Although many companies have begun efforts toward work style reform and productivity improvements, some of these companies and their employees are not experiencing positive results. One reason is that companies’ current efforts do not sufficiently take into account the characteristics of the white-collar work style. One characteristic of white-collar work is that, compared with blue-collar work, it requires workers to perform tasks in more diverse and autonomous ways. In reforming the white-collar work style, it is important that, based on such characteristics, companies not only induce employees to improve their time management at their discretion, but also have them experience small successes in shared, non-specialized tasks relevant to all departments, such as devising new ways to conduct meetings or prepare documents. Also, in allowing more flexible work styles, it is effective to test new ways of working, including telecommuting, in some divisions and then implement them company-wide after examining the test results.