The issues and prospect of contemporary human resource management
Reform of Japanese HRM and Telework
2003 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 23-32
Details
2003 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 23-32
In this paper some, relations between factors in HRM and Telework have been analyzed, based on two my researches.
The first analysis is obtained from the interview research with the venture companies at Silicon Valley in March, 1998 and in northern Virginia, in March, 2002. In these researches two factors on HRM perspective have been recognized in terms of introducing Telework in Japan, and these can give us the reasons about why the venture companies in U.S. are easy to adopt Telework. The first factor is manager's authority for personnel. A U.S. manager can have authority of deciding to hire, evaluate, pay and fire, but he (she) doesn't need to know working hours of his subordinates. This is related to the regulation of 'exempt' worker in the labor law. The second factor is the difference of aim to adopt Telework. In the U.S. Telework is introduced in order to promote employee's quality of working life or family life. On the other hand, Telework has an aim to promote employee's productivity or sales in Japan.
In the second factor, we can find the reason why Telework in terms of working at home cannot be in common in Japan. Working at home often needs added cost, that is inconsistent with promoting productivity.
The second research is the comparison of patterns of Human Resources Management. One has been done between Telework companies and non-Telework companies in Japan (2000), and the other has been done between Telework companies in Japan and the U.S. companies (2002). I have showed two different HRM patterns in Japanese companies, Individualizing HRM and Sharing HRM. The result has been so clear. Telework companies have tendency to introduce Individualizing HRM, but non-Telework companies have tendency to introduce Sharing HRM. As a matter of course, HRM pattern in the U.S. is Individualizing HRM.
From the second research, we can figure out that as the information society will spread out, Individualizing HRM will be in more common. However, one problem that is a disruption of social capital, could happen under this condition.
Social capital can be constructed in a family or a community. Therefore it isn't good for Japanese society in the future that Japanese companies adopt Individualizing HRM and don't pay attention to employee's family life and social life.
I can point out the above problem hidden in our society, from my researches of the relation between HRM and Telework.
