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International Management - Rodchenko VV

Education & Training

Japanese companies teach their employees and give them an education. Learning objectives consist in the development of skills, strengthening leadership skills and increase loyalty. Typically, advanced training occurs on the job, in the workplace. The direct supervisor or instructor teaches you how to perform the work in real life situations. But theoretical education is also important. Japanese corporations are sending their employees in their training centers, seminars outside the company, in the universities and so on. D.

Young employees of the corporation are often sent to universities to study business - usually in the United States or Western Europe because it is considered that there they will become good specialists in international business.

"Quality Circles"

Japanese corporations tend to reinforce the identification of their employees with the companies through the involvement of workers and employees in decision-making. In Europe, the employees involved in the management of means joining some of them in the top managerial staff. These representatives are members of the top management body, such as the board of directors. In Japan, this type of involvement is rare. Usually the Japanese company in order to strengthen ties with its employees and to increase their responsibility organize their participation in decision-making at the grassroots level.

The main method of participation is the activity of so-called self-managed small groups - such as "quality circles". Originally they were created to ensure quality control in the shops, and today are considered as a form of collective action, and an important means of education devotion to the company and to increase the responsibility. Japanese companies transfer decision-making powers to the grassroots (workshop) level of these self-governing groups and through them try to improve management efficiency.

"Quality Circles" - specifically Japanese form of collaboration in enterprises, is undoubtedly related to the cultural and historical traditions of the country. At the same time, this form is largely hidden in it mystifies concrete managerial content. Firstly, proper quality control is not usually an end in itself "circles". The very nature of their function, matters considered by them show their fundamental difference, for example, from the US "zero-defect production groups." Essentially, "circles" oriented as product quality is not much work as a whole. At meetings of the "circles" (from one to four times a month), put questions of increase of productivity, loss minimization, rationalization of work planning, safety, job satisfaction, and so on. D. This requires precise organization of meetings, thorough training to them. Second, the "voluntary" workers' participation in them is only in form. The work is conducted according to the approved annual plan, mostly outside working hours without overtime. And the results of activity in the workers' circles "carefully taken into account when planning their career, the implementation of the rotation. Thus, companies create a mechanism, force employees to participate actively in the work of "quality circles". Third, based on them not only carried out the preparation of proposals, but also carried out virtually without interruption from a group of employees trained production (in particular best practices, information processing methods, the statistical analysis and so on. N.).

The industrial companies have become much more likely to use various forms of collaboration, involving considerable independence group members in addressing economic issues in the workplace. In enterprises, along with "quality circles" are autonomous and semi-autonomous working groups, usually on the basis of workshops and production sites. They are empowered to independently solve various issues: the organization of production, distribution operations and the sequence of the jobs in maintenance of equipment assigned to the group, select the manager, foreman, etc. are established and specific forms of responsibility for the final result, for providing a particular part of the process.. process.

Increased use of collective forms of organization and stimulation of work reflects due to scientific and technological progress underlying trends of development of production management. In the context of rapid technological upgrading, as well as the well-known changes in the content and nature of work of employees, many traditional forms of work organization based on the maximum of its division and specialization, are beginning to restrain production efficiency. Therefore, Japanese managers are searching for better forms of cooperation of labor in enterprises, establishing new relationships between employees, improve the coordination of their joint activities.

Specific forms of collaboration are defined by the nature of the process; they have their own specificity in a continuous, in-line and machine production. The effectiveness of their use also depends on the activity control. In practice, therefore coexist, usually differing in the degree of independence in a circle and covered questions collective form of work.

"Cups quality", as already mentioned, is one of the most common forms of Japan groupware. At the moment their activity is changing under the influence of the requirements of scientific and technological progress. Functions of "circles" considerably widened, which often leads to a blurring of lines between them and the semi-autonomous teams. It is no accident "quality circles" are often referred to specifically Japanese form of transition to teamwork.

Japanese managers are considering the group forms of work organization as a means of stimulating innovation and inventiveness, finding additional reserves of economy and improvement of quality. The saturation of the sphere of production by highly qualified scientific and technical personnel, the coverage of the group form of work of engineers, specialists, and often control - all this creates the basis for enhanced co-innovation personnel.

Teamwork gets institutionalized at the various levels of government.

In-house HR management authorities and line managers carefully monitor the implementation and use of new forms of work organization. Particular attention is paid to their "compatibility" with activities on the technological modernization, introduction of flexible technologies.

If the program is improving the organization of work (working group organization, "quality circles" and so on. D.) Covers the entire company (and Japanese firms carry out such programs very broadly), its implementation is preceded by a long period of preparation and training to work in the new conditions of all staff, including different levels of control.

Despite the meticulous preparatory work, the transition to the new organizational forms do not always go smoothly. Enhancing the role of individual incentives, undermines the system of payment of seniority, it complicates the traditional approaches to group financial incentives.

Often, due to the requirements of a technologically highly regulated authority groups contrary to the established practice "blurred" responsibility and informal mechanisms of decision-making in the organization. Among the managers themselves there is strong opposition to excessive independence teams, choosing the leaders in the group, the revision of the control system of authority, and so on. D. However, modern human resources mechanism with his arms rotation, incentives, clear organizational discipline, as a rule, allows the firm to implement management restructuring activities.

Considerable importance in the improvement of labor organization have specific Japanese factors associated with cultural traditions and the social psychology of the Japanese. Fertile ground for the expansion of cooperation of employees creates a traditional system of education (in the family, school and TP), intensive propaganda "in-house values," supposedly common to all employees of corporations (in particular, it is widely used slogans such as "company - one family!" ). All this is abundantly "flavored" community requirements to personnel group and a pledge calls for maintaining "harmony" in the group, and in the company as a whole. Makes itself felt and deeply rooted in the minds of workers psychology of paternalism.

For numerous examples of every single desire - from the president to the desktop - to work together and improve their company is not only active advocacy work on the formation of the Governing collective loyalty to the company and clan thinking, maintaining "class peace". There appears purposeful work management on the use of the benefits of modern, meeting the requirements of scientific and technological progress forms of organization and management of work for the benefit of the company's strategy, production efficiency and ultimately ensure profitability.

The practical use of the "human factor" in Japanese companies, despite the many myths of harmony and partnership between labor and capital, based in reality on hard principles. Even experts from the USA, a country with a wealth of experience "sweating", come to the conclusion that the Japanese management tools, in spite of appearances, is essentially a much more authoritarian. These tools and techniques are constantly adjusted under the influence of scientific and technological progress, adapt to new conditions of functioning of the companies. Used in Japanese corporations, institutional, economic, psychological levers and incentives ultimately forced workers to spend their maximum intensity as the executive and creative organizational capacity to initiate and agents of innovation. All labor management system is aimed at the subordination of the "human factor" the interests of the modern large corporation, including the needs of its scientific and technological development, the interests of competitiveness and profits. Only in this sense we can speak about personnel management in Japanese firms.