Daijob Global Recruiting Co., Ltd. | An Investigation into the Japanese workplace in the 2nd half of 2014

REPORT2015/06/04

The Awareness of "Diversity", "Working Women" and "Hiring Foreigners"

An Investigation into the Japanese workplace in the 2nd half of 2014

Daijob has undertaken an investigation into awareness of issues surrounding a "diverse working environment", "women in the workplace" and "hiring foreigners".
Those questioned included regular Japanese workers and Japanese/English bilingual users of Daijob.com, to highlight the differences in awareness arising from their respective working environments.

■Investigation Subjects

A．Regular workers：Japanese, Between 20-49 years old, Male, 1,000 people（Internet survey)
English level：None (54％), Minimum Level (25％), Daily Conversation (12％), Business Level (8％）

B．Bilingual Users：Japanese/Non-Japanese, Between 20-49 years old, Male and Female, 151 people (Survey on Daijob.com)
Japanese/English both at least business level.

◆Forming a diverse working environment

Q.Did your most recent workplace encourage a diverse work environment? If so, how? (Multiple answers OK)

When asked about the measures taken in their most recent workplace to create a "diverse working environment", the most common response among our bilingual users was a "reduced schedule/flexitime", while the vast majority of regular workers said "nothing in particular". A far higher ratio of bilingual workers answered "active hiring of foreigners" and "reduced schedule/flex time" than regular workers. It would appear that the workplaces of bilinguals are more actively introducing policies designed to create a diverse working environment. This is potentially due to the fact that a workforce that contains people of various nationalities requires flexibility in order to integrate such people.

◆Working women

Q.What do you think should be done to encourage more women to work? (Multiple answers OK)

When asked, "What do you think should be done to encourage more women to work?", our bilingual users showed more awareness than regular workers of the issue of giving women a fair playing field, suggesting that "talented people should be given opportunities regardless of gender", "reduced schedules/flexitime should be introduced", "Japan's society should get closer to other countries" and "people should look up to more female role models".
Conversely, the highest response among regular workers was "I don't know". This is perhaps an indication of not having worked in an environment that is trying to encourage the participation of women in the workplace.

◆Hiring foreigners

Q.What do you think about encouraging the hire of foreigners? (Multiple answers OK)

In the same way as when asked about encouraging women to work, our bilingual users gave many positive answers when asked about hiring foreigners, including "companies should keep good people regardless of nationality", "foreigners would stimulate Japanese workers", "hiring foreigners would deepen understanding of different cultures", and "hiring foreigners would improve the company's ability to communicate overseas". On the contrary, regular workers often answered more negatively, suggesting that "trouble would increase due to differences in culture", and "the language barrier would weaken communication".

Although a "diverse working environment", "working women" and "hiring foreigners" are very much buzzwords, it would appear that the working environment someone has experienced has a large effect on their awareness of these issues. Regular workers that have not experienced studying overseas or other cultures and have continuously worked in a Japanese environment often replied that they don't know how how these issues can be dealt with, implying a lack of awareness.

For a more detailed report, click here (Japanese only) → 「ダイバーシティ」「女性の活躍」「外国人採用」に意識のギャップ

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