48
votes
Japanese workers in their twenties turn to resignation agencies
Link information
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- Title
- "They Ripped Up My Resignation Letter"
- Authors
- Anna Stevens
- Published
- Nov 12 2024
- Word count
- 982 words
I had to chuckle a bit when I saw a recent story about one of Momuri's own employees using (a different) agency to resign. Post from Momuri's own X account here (in Japanese).
that's very amusing!
I'm using a translator because my Japanese is quite beginner level, and I would appreciate any corrections on my impressions if you'd be so kind.
It sounds like they're reflecting on this incident which surprised them, and using the incident as a learning opportunity. I didn't sense any sort of blame being placed on the leaving employee, nor any animosity/regret at helping them leave their previous job nor hiring them. And that perhaps "the role was a poor fit" and perhaps they can do better to communicate role/expectations in the future ? Sounds like a very reasonable company. Of course, this is written by a skilled PR person to pre-empt potentially embarrassing news from coming out of other sources.
What do other people think about this incident?
Having only seen things from Momuri's point of view from their tweets and through Twitter's Japanese to English translation layer, it definitely seems like they feel remorseful for having an employee not just resign but also have that employee use a resignation agency themselves. In one of the replies, they mention that they were a bit surprised by this employee leaving and that if they had come to them directly, they would've let them resign. There were people in the replies blaming the employee for leaving after all the company had done for them. However, in all cases, Momuri would reply in defense of the employee, saying that the company could have communicated about the role better with the employee or worked with them to understand what the company was doing that led to the employee leaving. Reading these replies make me feel like an actual human wrote this and that Momuri are reflecting hard on this incident and want to genuinely improve.
I agreed with your takeaway. It's obviously the official PR account and only one side of the story, but it's difficult to imagine that they wouldn't have let the employee resign if they had gone through the normal channels (due to the reputational risk of that story getting out if nothing else).
I remember first learning about companies in Japan refusing to let people quit and thinking how absurd it is but I definitely understand the "investment" aspect that they mention in the article. One of the engineers that left my team recently had been with the company ever since they were an intern. My manager watched them grow from an intern to a senior engineer so it definitely affected them when that engineer left.
That being said, I'm glad these people have something to help them quit. I've been focusing more on my own mental health recently so I definitely feel for these people and what they have to go through just to be able to leave and find a better environment.
What exactly is the consequence to an employee that quits, and never shows up to work for a company that "won't allow them to quit"?
I'd imagine failing to show up to your job is more disrespectful than merely quitting.
Right but if you say "I quit" and they say "you can't" and then you say "I do though" and then äeace and don't come back, that's still quitting even if they didn't allow it. Are there consequences for that?
Probably depends a lot on specifics. It may violate an employment contract (though idk how Japan handles those), which could cause trouble. But even if it's totally legal, if you plan to keep working in the same industry there's potential for being black-balled or otherwise slandered by the disgruntled previous employers. Plus, I'm not sure how important references from previous employers are in Japan, but they're quite important in some places.
What I was meaning to say is that the consequences are social. I'd imagine failing to show up to do the job you were hired for is more shameful than resigning from it.
"Cool. You now owe company <$$$> as defined in your employment contract due to the resources the company has spent on your training that the company has not been adequately compensated for by your continued employment. Failure to reimburse the company for these costs in X days will result in legal action."
I think, as mentioned in the other thread under your comment, there's a lot of social pressure against just abandoning your post like that. The article also mentions that managers would do home-visits to try and stop you from resigning so I imagine they'd do the same if you abandoned your job like that. They could also spread the word about you abandoning your job and essentially black-ball you from employment.
Amazing how different the culture and cultural expectations are between east and west!
From the article:
Asian agencies sell agency… (by the seashore?)
An aside: I find Japanese work culture—and any culture in general—interesting because victims become the tomorrow’s victimizers.
Surveys show that many Japanese feel overworked and stressed out by work, yet it seems that they also collectively reinforce and perpetuate the norms that lead to overwork.
Similarly in the west, a 40 hour work week is normal, but there’s little natural to it. We just expect it, so we make it so.
It seems to me that most people, when they reach senior positions, just reenact what they know and are familiar with. But a progressive minority push for a gradual shift.
They definitely seem to be trying to change this in Japan but it's very much an uphill battle. In a recent CNN article about the same topic, they write that the Japanese government have started stepping in to try and mitigate the situation. They apparently maintain a list of what are called "black firms", where this high-pressure culture is the norm, these firms are then blacklisted by the labor bureau so people know which companies to avoid.