"No More Remote Work? 'I'll Quit'...Japanese Companies Increasing Office Attendance Face Growing Pushback"

The Share of Remote Workers Has Dropped by More Than Half in Five Years
Announcement of Abolishment Met With "I Will Resign" Backlash

The trend of reducing remote work, which had spread since COVID-19, is now gaining traction among Japanese companies. As some companies decrease remote work and strengthen attendance requirements, there have also been cases where employees have pushed back in protest.

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Japanese Companies Reducing Remote Work...Expanding In-office Attendance to Boost Employee Communication

According to the Asahi Shimbun on August 26, IT company LY Corporation made it mandatory for employees in certain divisions to come to the office once a week or once a month since April last year. From May this year, the company has further increased the requirement to three days a week.

Like many other companies, LY Corporation permitted remote work after the COVID-19 outbreak. However, until April last year, it did not enforce mandatory office attendance.

The company explained that expanding in-office attendance is intended to "foster solidarity among employees through daily conversations and enable faster decision making."

Similarly, global consulting firm Accenture effectively abolished remote work starting last June.

In addition, telecommunications company KDDI encouraged employees to come into the office after relocating its headquarters to a new building and increasing the available workspaces last July.

Snack manufacturer Calbee also started guiding all employees to work in the office after securing individual workspaces for everyone in May last year.

A survey conducted last month by the Japan Productivity Center targeting 1,100 people working for companies and organizations found that only 14.5% were working outside the company, including at home. This is less than half of the 31.5% recorded in May 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An HR manager at one company stated, "Remote work has the advantage of allowing time to be used more efficiently and enables quicker decision making." However, he also pointed out, "It increases the burden on middle managers when checking on work progress or monitoring the status of junior staff."

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Employee Pushback Over Remote Work Ban..."Productivity Issues May Be Due to Management or Rules"

There have also been cases of controversy as employees protested when companies abolished remote work.

Masatoshi Kumagai, CEO and founder of total IT company GMO Internet Group, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on July 14 that the company would completely abolish the group-wide encouragement of remote work, saying, "Remote work is a negative in many aspects, such as communication and training."

He further claimed that the number of PC keystrokes per hour by employees conspicuously decreased after allowing remote work, leading to controversy both inside and outside the company. As the controversy grew, he later explained, "I am not denying the remote work arrangement itself."

The Asahi Shimbun also reported a remark from an employee at LY Corporation, who said, "There was significant pushback among employees over the sudden policy change within the company. Some colleagues even decided to resign."

Professor Hiroki Sato of the University of Tokyo pointed out, "While remote work has become widespread, there are many cases where companies have not established appropriate management systems or rules to support it." He added, "There is a tendency to mistakenly view productivity problems, which actually stem from insufficient rules, as issues inherent to remote work itself."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.