Tag: business | RocketNews24

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84 Percent of Women Don’t Want to See Nipples at the Office, World’s Least Surprising Survey Says

3 days ago by Mike
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With summer fast approaching and people shedding layers to stay cool, every businessman faces a decision of vast importance: what type of undershirt to wear beneath your white button-up.

Men, if you’ve never given this any thought before, consider this fair warning: A Nikka Spa! survey of 100 female office workers confirms that your choice of undershirt could have grave and far-reaching consequences and the wrong choice might even get you accused of sexual harassment.

May 18, 2013 by John Stuart Translations
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On May 1, market researcher Risk Monster released the results of its first ever “Companies the Japanese Can be Globally Proud Of” survey. Conducted February 25 to 27, the survey received valid responses from 1,000 men and women between the ages of 20 and 69. A total of 200 companies with annual sales of at least 250 billion yen and a minimum of 5,000 employees were targeted by the survey.

Coming in at number one was…
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How Your Lazy Coworker is Like a Can of Vegetable Juice

May 10, 2013 by Casey Baseel
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Despite Japan’s famously strong work ethic, even offices here have some employees who coast through the day, oblivious to their more industrious coworkers who exasperatedly wonder how their paychecks remain so similar when their levels of dedication are anything but.

Economist Taiichi Kogure touches on some of these points in his latest work, The Mindset of People Who Will Always Have Low Salaries, which hit bookshelves in Japan last month. Inspired by the book, Livedoor News posted the following editorial analogy based on Kogure’s concepts, titled “Your Salary Isn’t Determined by Your Efforts or Value.” Read More

How to Succeed at Japanese Business Using Beer

Apr 30, 2013 by Casey Baseel
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There are a lot of counterintuitive things about working in a Japanese company. When you come in the door, you always say, “Good morning,” even if you’ve been at a conference all day and it’s 4 p.m.. Office romances are accepted, if not expected and encouraged.

And one of the best ways to put yourself on the fast track to promotion is by getting blotto with the boss. Read More

Japanese Fashion Chain UNIQLO Introduces Worldwide Equal Pay System Across Its Stores

Apr 25, 2013 by Andrew Miller
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Tadashi Yanai, chairman and director of Fast Retailing and the main force behind the expansion of Japanese clothes retailer UNIQLO, has recently made public his intentions to introduce a worldwide universal wage system for shop managers and high ranking employees. This would effectively mean that regardless of the country in which a worker is employed, while working for UNIQLO they would receive the same amount of pay. Yanai believes that regardless of a country’s political and social circumstances, an equal amount of work deserves an equal wage.

Apr 21, 2013 by Oona McGee
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In Japan, husbands often hand over their pay packets to their wives, who are the chief financial controllers for the household. Husbands then receive a fraction of their pay in the form of a monthly allowance, which has to cover costs such as cell phone charges, lunches and all-important networking and relations-building nomikai, or work drinking parties.

According to a survey by Shinsei Bank, the average office worker receives an allowance of 39,600 yen (US$398) a month. But when the average cost for attending a drinking party is 2,860 yen ($28.75), and one lunch is an average of 510 yen ($5.13) a day, many workers are now choosing to skip out on after work drinks. What they don’t realise is that this attempt to save some yen is actually jeopardising their careers.

Apr 19, 2013 by Jessica
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A new service is gaining popularity among Chinese gamers. For the small fee of 15 yuan an hour (about US$2.40), you can play your favorite online game with a beautiful woman. Strait News reports that male game fans are calling it “good news.” Read More

Free Gifts and Cheap Coffee No Help as McDonald’s Japan Troubles Continue

Apr 18, 2013 by John Stuart Translations
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The collapse of McDonald’s Japan continued as the company recorded declining year-over-year sales for the 12th consecutive month at the end of March. The situation is dismal, as whatever the company does seems to end in failure.

Its 100-yen menu (about one US dollar) and free giveaways no longer impress customers who have grown accustomed to deflationary pricing. Its “Food in 60 seconds or next burger free” campaign, which the company initiated in January as a measure to help revive fortunes, also failed to deliver. And there doesn’t appear to be any light at the end of the tunnel. Its most recent venture, free gum and other “unique”gifts to purchasers of breakfast sets, has been roundly criticized on the Internet as being a “hackneyed idea.”
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Why You’d Be Lucky to have Dragon Ball’s Frieza as a Boss

Apr 16, 2013 by Master Blaster
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“Dragon Ball villain Frieza is the ideal executive.”

This phrase has been increasingly repeated across the internet by those who have taken a second look at the alleged “tyrant” and discovered that he, like many other business leaders, may have been misrepresented.

Compiling experts Naver Matome did what they do best and gathered some compelling evidence to support what more and more people are realizing: Frieza is an excellent example of corporate leadership.

Apr 9, 2013 by Jessica
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April marks the beginning of a new fiscal year in Japan, bringing with it the season for job hunting. Of course, that means interviews. NicoNico News wondered what interview questions might be lying in wait for the unsuspecting, so they sent out a questionnaire to 1000 businesspeople to hear what questions had stumped them in the past. Here are some of the best, from the truly bizarre to the especially thought-provoking. Read More

Six Things I Learned at Tokyo’s “Food and Bev Expo”

Apr 5, 2013 by Jessica
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This week, a major food and drink expo was held in Tokyo’s Odaiba area called The World Food and Beverage Great Expo 2013. It’s actually a combination of six different events, including a dessert and wine fair. With hundreds of exhibitors from Japan and abroad showing off their latest and tastiest concoctions, we decided to check it out and see how many free samples we could gobble up. Here’s what we learned. Read More

Girly Noodles: Is Japan Witnessing the Start of a Female-Oriented Instant Noodle Revolution?

Feb 2, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Instant noodles – also known as cup noodles and what this writer lived off during most of his university days – have been a food staple for the busy, cost-conscious and kitchenphobic since their inception back in 1958. Peel back the lid, pour in some hot water, wait a few minutes and you have a hot, filling, if not especially nutritious meal for about the cost of a cup of coffee.

But with the handy meals being something that many associate with students and lonely bachelors, many women shy away from instant noodles, regardless of the fact that they’re just as pressed for time as their male coworkers. And all stigmas and stereotypes aside, few women in their 20s and 30s would be especially happy about replacing their nutritious mid-day meal with a plastic cup of rehydrated noodles swimming in a salty broth.

Enter the girly noodle.

Jan 25, 2013 by Jessica
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Business meetings: is there any more frustrating part of cubicle life? Sure, they are a necessity for lots of reasons, but who hasn’t sat through some interminable meeting thinking how much more they could be getting accomplished back at their desk? There’s something about the meeting format that is just ripe for time-wasting, getting off track, arguments and pointless exercises.

Large corporations have to know how to reign that wastefulness in to be successful, so we took a look at how some of the biggest companies in the world keep their meetings fast and efficient. Read on for their rules to meet by. Read More

Study English, Get $11,000! Softbank to Offer Employees Cash Bonuses Based on English Ability

Jan 14, 2013 by Michelle
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“Why do I have to study English? I’m never going to use it… there’s no point,” whines at least one Japanese student in any given English class on a daily basis.

Now, thanks to one company’s clever new initiative, instead of the usual spiel about the benefits of English being an “international language,” teachers can tell their students that knuckling down and mastering the language could bag them 1 million yen.

Jan 10, 2013 by Jessica
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During an interview at his Kyoto headquarters this week, Nidec Corporation CEO Shigenobu Nagamori was quoted as saying, “Due to Japan’s strict labor laws, we cannot compete with enterprises in Korea and China.” He intends to lobby the government to relax labor regulations to allow for more flexible working conditions.

He additionally said that the government and the Bank of Japan need to weaken and maintain the yen to around a 90-100 yen to the dollar exchange rate in order for Japanese export companies to compete with booming exports from China and Korea. Read More

Japanese Strip Clubs Face Existential Crisis in the Era of Digital Porn

Jan 9, 2013 by Jessica
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In post-WWII Japan, American-style striptease clubs became a thriving part of the sex entertainment industry, but now they are facing a crisis. During the years of rapid economic growth mid-century, more than 200 of this particular type of strip revue club could be found in the metropolises and hot spring resorts of Japan, but with the end of the bubble era, the number began to fall and has kept on falling. Today, only about 20 remain. The decline is partly due to the easy availability of idol videos and internet porn, but there are also causes within the industry itself, as one reporter found out. Are Japan’s strip clubs doomed? Read More

Shoes for Shorties: Japan Develops Business Shoes for Men that Add an Extra 7cm

Jan 9, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Shorter businesswomen wishing to appear taller can experiment with vertical lines, fashion styles and, of course, pop on a pair of enormous high-heeled shoes in order to gain a few inches, but short of wearing platform shoes and styling their hair into ridiculous quiffs, the shorter male office worker is at something of a loss.

Although the average height of both males and females in Japan is on the rise due to increasingly western-style diets, Japan’s men are still a little on the short side. And that dents their confidence. Thankfully, though, a footwear designer in Japan has recently launched a special line of business shoes that, through a slightly elevated heel and a discreet inner-sole, reportedly add an extra 7 cm to any man’s total height.

Jan 5, 2013 by Karen Bremer Masuda
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In Japan, it’s said that 20% of a company’s employees are high performers, 60% are average, and 20% are near worthless. This 2-6-2 paradigm is a force of nature; it doesn’t matter if we are talking about the most elite company in Japan or the most insignificant one.

So explains Musashi Suga, business management consultant and representative of Suga Office in Yokohama. Suga specializes in human resource system design and came up with this ratio after analyzing in-depth, organizational changes in business management in the Japanese corporate workplace. Read More

The Top 10 Things Middle-Aged Japanese Men Say While Out Drinking That Make Their Coworkers Hate Them

Dec 1, 2012 by Karen Bremer Masuda
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After a hard day at work, many middle-aged Japanese salarymen love to go out for drinks at the local bar or izakaya. “But it’s no fun to go alone!” thinks the 45-year-old section chief. “Why not invite those young hotshots that entered the company earlier this year? Surely they’d love the chance to loosen neckties and enjoy some laid-back conversation with one of their seniors outside the workplace!”

Meanwhile, the young hotshots are thinking about how they can’t wait to go home and relax after another consecutive day of (unpaid) overtime—but oh wait, section chief wants to go out drinking again and turning his invitation down would show that I’m not a team player.

Such are the troubles of 20 and 30-year-old working men and women who are roped out to drinking with their middle-aged colleagues time and time again.

This generation gap was a popular enough topic for Nikkan Spa to conduct a survey of 200 20 and 30-year-old men and women as to what they found most irritating about drinking with their superiors in their 40s.

Nov 15, 2012 by Master Blaster
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Looking back at the violence that occurred in the anti-Japan protests in September, I’m still baffled at why those regular people got so crazy over a land dispute between two governments in some remote area. Maybe I’m the only one who lacks that patriotic spirit that compels one set fire to a factory over zoning issues.

Or perhaps like almost every world event in history, there are more complex – usually economic – factors at play beneath the surface. At least that’s what a group of Japanese writers and journalists claim. According to them, the stage was set for this explosion of anger years before it happened.