How to take Control Back from Union to Management in Japan

Birth of a Union isn’t a new thing in any Japanese firm. The employer has to deal with Union Problems since the Labor Laws of Japan are more employee-friendly and it is hard for any employer to terminate staff/firing employees unnecessarily.

Here you can read on the Rules for Terminating Staff in Japan.

Hence, we have shared a few tips by which the management of the firm can take back the control not quickly but soon. 

1. Bargain in a good manner.
2. The management shouldn’t meet for the union demands quickly just to avoid conflict in the firm.
3. The HR team or management team should propose their level of agreement after reviewing the demands of Union. Practicing this frequently will help to gain the control back at some extent.
4. Hiring an HRC Agency will help to create employee-satisfaction environment with the proper functioning of the firm.

You can read here more on How to Choose the Right HR Consultants?

TMT serves a new perspective, practices and readable content to solve performance, staffing, and union problems in Japan. We believe in creating a union-free environment because it is the company that provides job, salary and retirement benefits and manages the business, not a union.

What is the Cost of Firing Employees in Japan?

Firing employees is a usual practice and can be surfaced due to various reasons in any firm. However, the code and conducts of the country can demonstrate how much a firm has to bear if they fire an employee.

The Japan Labor Laws are more employee-friendly as compared to any employers. Hence, we have discussed here what a firm has to pay if they terminate any employee in Japan.

Reasons for firing employees in Japan

The valid reasons for which an employer can dismiss an employee from the firm. 

• If an employee lacks the ability to work.
•  If an employee founds to be accused of the official breach, theft, or leaking company’s useful information. Also, if an employee violates the firm’s rules and regulations. 
• If an employer declares the layoff. 
• If an employee resigns with a mutual agreement.

Cost of Firing Employees/Terminating Staff in Japan

Since the Japan labor laws are more favorable towards employees. An employer has to compensate the employee for the termination.

• In case of Resignation: An employer has to provide the lump sum amount of minimum three to maximum six months.
• The employer has to compensate the employee with a notice of 30 days or equivalent pay of it in case if reason matches with the first, second and third point.

The Benefits of Hiring Human Resource Consultant in Japan

Every business needs optimization at some point whether it is small or big. The cost of hiring a Human Resource Consultant is almost similar to a maintenance cost for any firm. Now, if you are feeling doubted whether one should hire an HRC, we have listed a few advantages for you.

The working principles of Human Resource Consultant are same as that of the HR team. All they do it is optimize the task Human Resource team works on. The benefits any HRC could potentially provide to the firm are listed below;

Recruitment

Recruitment is a major duty which can affect the performance and production of the firm. Employees are the driving force of the organizations and hence it is always necessary to hire qualified and smart employees.

HRC neither conduct interviews nor advertise for your hiring running in the present. But they could help to channelize the process, the judgments of the hiring team to find the deserving and potential employees for the firm.

Resource Planning

Well planned resources in any firm help to fuel and drive the organization longer. HR team usually takes care of it but the well-planned tips can optimize it to the fullest. And here’s where human resource consulting benefits.

Re-distribution of resources to different fields of industry in order to sustain the firm is what HRC strategize towards.

Brings a Healthy Environment

Taking care of the environment is also one of the tasks which consultants handle. But if the consultant could feel that they could modify and optimize it for more. They will consider it too in their plan.

A healthy environment promotes employee motivation which is obviously helpful for the firm in every manner.

Trace lagging in Rules of Employment

A consultant will analyze the rules a firm has, alter, suggest, modify or change them if they are the reason behind the lags of the company. Changes are necessary to drive the firm and this what a consultant focuses on.

They make sure to untie the knots which are holding the firm back whether if it's their personnel policies, termination rules, compensation rules, or anything else.

Managing Employee Relations

Any organizations who have a large base of employees may face the issues regarding employee relations. It could be hard to make each one of the employees understand and to tell them to be in harmony. HR Consultants manages the employee relations by solving the complaints filed and to plan well in order to avoid such scenarios in the future.

Such practices not only get benefits to manage employee relations but also improves employee engagement and productivity. Employees want to get listen and HRC provides the opportunity to them.

Right Utilization of Time

HRC optimizes almost all the possible evolving spaces which directly gives time to the management to look over their services, their future investments, tie-ups, and make plans to grow their firm without any sweat. It provides the right utilization of time by lowering the matters which needs to be sorted by experts only.

Staff Management

The period occurs in every firm when they need to make a decision on reducing the staff numbers and the reason found to be valid most of the times. It seems hard for the management to perform both the duties, terminating staff and analyzing the reasons at the same time.

Hence, HRC does it by either changing the policies or by compensating the employee as per whatever suits the situation.

TMT is in Corporate world since 1978

With the new perspective, TMT not only focusses on optimizing the structure of the firm but also make sure the employees feeling content and motivated. We resolve the performance issues, ROE (rules of employment), compensating Japanese employees, union problems, and staffing problems in Japan.

An organization must have willing employees and their reward can be compensation or bonuses to make the corporate operations succeed in this challenging marketplace.

You can contact us here and discuss your issues with us and we will be happy to hear from you.

"Work Rules in Japan"

The Work Rules or Working Rules lays the foundation of any firm. It is necessary for the company to design and alter Rules for future growth and development after a definite period of time. However, there are basic work rules required to drive a firm to the potential where it could grow further. Here, we have discussed major work rules in Japan which every firm must hold in order to drive the firm.

The Japan’s Labor law states that an employer must have 10 staff members along with him in order to draw rules before submitting to local Labor Standards Inspection Office.

The primary Rules of Employment or Work rules in Japan consist of;

·         Working hours

·         Permissible Leaves

·         Salary Settlement

·         Lunch and Other breaks during working hours

·         Working Shifts

·         Working Tenure or Contract, if any.

·         Dismissal/Termination Rules

·         Compensation & Benefits

·         Over-time Wages

·         Other Disciplinary Rules

What are the major Work Rules in Japan?

Technics in Management Transfer

There are various work rules exist in the workplace but some of them are major and essential ones to lay the foundation of the firm. These work rules are moderated by the HR team to keep the premises bind.

The major work rules or Rules of employment in Japan are discussed briefly here.

Work Rules in Japan

1. Working Hours

One of the major work rules is the setting of working hours for the employees. The office premises can be different and can be varied depending on the employees' work field. The break duration in his working premises and number of breaks are also settled in this phase. However, all of these measures have to be taken under consideration when it comes to major work rules.

2. Salary Settlement

Wages are the primary concern of the employees and it has to be set for the particular profile which also depends on employees' expertise. However, there are two methods of getting paid in Japan. Some firms allowed seniority-based pay system and some allow skill-based pay system.

Also in some cases after the mergers and acquisitions, the newly employed managers revise the wages distribution by violating the work rules which results in the salary reduction in Japan.

3. Disciplinary Regulations

These rules possess the types of acceptable attire for the premises, behaviors and other disciplinary regulations. In Japan, when an employee leaves before the boss it treated in a bad manner for the employee.

4. Permissible Leaves

The permissible leaves in the account of an employee have also to be discussed and can be considered as major work rules. The penalty would be there in the means of salary deduction for the violation. The work rules in Japan possesses three kinds of leaves for every employee

(i) Sick leave, 

(ii) Annual leave and 

(iii) Maternity leave.

5. Termination Rules

Firing employees/Terminating staff in Japan occurs mainly due to three reasons.

(i) Resignation: Mutual agreement of the employer and the employee.

(ii) Violation Dismissal: When an employee leaked the useful information or found to be accused of any theft.

(iii) As per the Japan Civil Code and Labor Law: Any employer can fire any employee freely if he lacks the ability to work or violates the firm's rules or found to be accused of any theft.

What does HR in Japan refer to?

HR in Japan stands for Human Resources in Japan. The human resources contain the criteria regarding the employment of the employee and other factors associated with an employee. More of that, it would be better to say it handles the tenure of the worker or employee in a firm. HR handles various fields from recruitment to termination of the employee.

The HR team has to take care of various fields which are enlisted below;

 1. Nature of Recruitment

The major task HR team contains is the recruitment of employees. The recruitment can be either contract based or lifetime employment. The contract-based hiring mainly occurs for three years of tenure and can be extended to the next three hours by the employer. The lifetime employment refers that the employer has to work until he doesn’t violate ROE of the firm or resign or reaches to the age of retirement.

2. Payment System

There are two wage-based system exists in Japan. These are; (i) Skill based system, and (ii) Seniority based system.

Skill based system allows the employees to get paid as per their productivity and skills. Very few firms in Japan work on this base pay system.

While the wages determination gets finalized as per the seniority level of the employee in the seniority-based system. As the working tenure increases the wages will also increase.

3. Termination or firing employees in Japan

The laws and conduct in Japan are more employees friendly as compared to the employer or the firm. Hence, termination of an employee occurs only in three possible ways, if; (i) The employee lacks the skill to work, doesn’t obey the rules of the firm or the employer declared the layoffs and couldn’t afford to pay even after limiting the resources. (ii) The employee was found to be accused of a criminal offense or leaking firm’s confidential information. (iii) The employee resigns on his will in exchange for compensation in the form of three months salary.

4. Compensating Japanese employees

The idea of compensating Japanese employees comes forward after the dismissal or terminating staff in Japan. We have already discussed the ways by which an employee can be dismissed. However, the compensation will be taken into account irrespective of the cause of dismissal. The employer has to offer a notice period prior to three months and an average of six months or equivalent pay of it. This happens when the employee resigns after the mutual agreement between him and employer.

In other cases, like; (i) when employee bends the rules or lacks the ability to work, the employer declares the layoffs, and (ii) any employee violated the terms of employment or found accused of any criminal offense. The compensation will be either a notice of 30 days or equivalent pay for it.

The compensation amount gets finalized on the basis of livelihood and family members of the employer.

5. Management of ROE

The managing of ROE in Japan is also considered to be a role of Human resources. The team has to take care of wages distribution regarding over time and night-shifts, data related to leaves and other factors including pensions and retirement schemes.

6. Analyzing employee participation

The growth of a firm depends on the equal participation of employees and employer. The HR team also make sure to notice and heard the opinions of the employee if any issue comes in play. Later, the decision depends on a board member who deals with it after considering the viewpoint of every participant. 

Is It Easy to Firing Employees in Japan?

Japan, so popular for its job credibility. The laws and conducts of the country make the task valid for the employer to dismiss any of the individuals. However, there are certain ways in which the employer can terminate the employee from the industry. But these reasons should be either appropriate or shouldn’t violate the rules of employment in Japan. There are basically three ways in which the employer can dismiss or fire any employee in Japan.

The employer has to come up with a strong cause to dismiss any employee. Let’s go through the ways of firing an employee first. Here are three:

1.       Resignation

2.       Genuine termination

3.       Normal Dismissal

Ways to fire an employee

As discussed earlier, there are three ways in which an employer can fire the employee. The ways have been categorized as per the acts of employer and employee. Let’s discuss them in a brief.

Resignation: The firing includes the mutual agreement of an employer and an employee. The employer has to propose a notice so that the employee can resign voluntarily. Since it is hard to find a job in Japan, the employer has to pay the compensation of period three to six months on an average.

Compensation: The compromised lumpsum amount of a minimum three to an average six months has to be proposed by the employer. The amount will be compromised on the basis of living, family member, livelihood and other income sources of the employee.

Genuine Termination: The dismissal possesses any serious tampering or any criminal offense like theft or leaking any private information by the employee. Disobeying of the discipline can also lead to the Firing Employees in Japan.

Compensation: Even if the employee holds the offense true, the employer has to either serve 30 days prior notice or lump sum amount equivalent to it.

Normal Dismissal: The employer can suspend the agreement and can freely terminate the employee as per the rules and regulations stated in the Japan Civil Code and Labour Standards Law. If the employee doesn’t obey the employment guidelines of the employer or lacks the ability to work or the employer declares the layoff. The layoff occurs only if the employer couldn’t find a way to turn out the expenses even when limiting the use of resources.

Compensation: As similar to that of Genuine Termination.

How much it is easy to get fired?

The above discussion clearly states that Japan court system and laws are more favored to an employee as compared to an employer. When any of these three ways found to be true only when the termination would be possible. And even if the dismissal occurs, the compensation helps the employee to get over the sudden crisis.

Here the discussion ends. Hope it worked for your respective query. If interested to know more can either visit Salary Reduction in Japan or our website for more regarding the same concern.