It's a custom among Japanese corporations to promote someone who knows the company well: people who have been with the company a long time and have transferred to different departments and places. Wom

This is a fallacy. Sexism is rampant in corporate Japan - and everyone knows it. Seriously, why does HR even exist in Japan? At my g/f's company, there are women that have been there for several years, yet a young male joins the company and is promoted within 12 months. The notion being that women in thhe workplace are only good for admin roles. It's disgusting and, with corporate Japan being one giant boys club, I fear it will never change.

The stories I've heard...

Correction: women tend to end up being forced to quit, through a desire to raise a family and give more time to their family life, or simply because they are fed up with a business culture where they have to push and fight, and endure criticisms for their pushing and fighting, just to get half the respect their male counterparts get by default.

Agree with Borax:

Additionally they are often forced or coerced to quit.

My wife worked for a major company (Aramis/Tommy Hilfiger) where she was the manager of her local branch. After we got married and her pregnant, they told her if she wanted to continue her job, she would have to move to Hiroshima (impossible as we're settled in and I have a job with the local university). Additionally, they tried to NOT pay maternity leave because she wouldn't move and therefore would be quitting. We fought that and after several harrowing phone calls got the 1 year as agreed in her contract.

The shop still exists in the local department store.

Basically it's just stupid how women get pushed around to get what is already agreed upon in their contracts.

Amazing logic. In this women demeaning culture, if women quit, then they didn't ganbatta enough, so its their fault, so they're not entitled to complain about how they're treated.

Women tend to end up quitting before experiencing all that.

Yeh, because they get tired of serving tea and having men one-half as intelligent as them get promoted.

This idea of transferring people between departments every couple of years is crazy - you can't build up any expertise.

Women should just learn to sit around and do nothing other than watch the years tick by so they get promoted for just being there like most Japanese salarymen do.

Shame on women for not knowing that its how long you've been part of the office furniture that counts; not any real experience.

Moron. Always some excuse for why women can't get ahead in Japan.

In a Japanese company a young employee will be trained in the different departments and learn every facet of the company operation and in a few years that knowledge will allow the company to be more productive. Undeniably most Japanese companies have a toxic corporate culture and discrimination against women starts at the top. Instead a women needs to seek employment with a multinational corporation and work hard and tell the boss how good you are. You will have to push to move up the ladder but don't appear too pushy and use tact. In other words you have to have a plan and become more aggressive in seeking out promotions and increased responsibility. In the end a good executive will give you an opportunity for people who want to grow with the organization however the chances of it happening in a Japanese company will be slim so don't waste your time and leave.

@Novenachama

In a Japanese company a young employee will be trained in the different departments and learn every facet of the company operation and in a few years that knowledge will allow the company to be more productive.

In theory, yes. However, the longer I live here, the more I've come to realise that it's in fact counterproductive. I mean I've talked to accountants going into marketing, clerks going into HR, HR going into accounting - the list goes on. It defeats the purpose of a "profession", doesn't it? Imagine - a large corporation with accountants involved with the 'creative process' of marketing...

The M-curve means that there is a large gap in lots of womens' career years due to child-raising. It's not like it doesn't exist.

In Silicon Valley nowadays if you have even a year off the recruiters are like "what's up with that?", and are pessimistic on your chances of finding a job. Or so I've heard :). That has got a lot to do with the instant-employee mindset (buy employees like packs of ramen, flashy is good but above all cheapness more important than quality).

I've known a few moms trying to get back in the workplace after good careers prior to kids. Like trying to push rocks uphill.

Given that the Japanese government is the entity worried about declining population, what have they done to make return-to-work better for moms? How about tax credits to business for hiring them?

@sighclops: I have to agree. People spend years training and doing the college thing to be able to do a specific role in a company (sales, working with computers, etc). When employees focus on a specific task, and they enjoy the work/are a good fit for it then they will be very productive. You simply wouldn't want a salesman doing computer programming or an Engineer trying to attract customers (I'm generalizing, I know).

MEANWHILE IN JAPAN....

It is my honest opinion that the shuffling is there to keep employees disposable. It also destroys any possibility of unionizing with fellow workers. If every 2 years or so you get put into a new department with new coworkers it is going to take you a few weeks/months to learn the job and be good at it. Just like a new hire. This takes away power of the workers and removes a worker's ability to build a case of value in the event they ever push for a raise or benefits... god forbid they ask to take off their agreed upon vacation days.

I understand the idea of doing this to groom the next leaders, but most workers are never going to be promoted to anything over section chief.

@kaynide

It is my honest opinion that the shuffling is there to keep employees disposable. It also destroys any possibility of unionizing with fellow workers. If every 2 years or so you get put into a new department with new coworkers it is going to take you a few weeks/months to learn the job and be good at it. Just like a new hire.

A hundred +1s to you, my friend! I had never thought of it from this angle, but it makes perfect sense. We should write a paper together aha!

It's very easy to see why a large majority of 'salarymen' become drones. I had always maintained that the term 'salaryman' was a lazy translation of 'businessman', but it has slowly dawned on my that the two are so far apart that it is in fact a term in itself! Cookie-cutter management policies, cookie-cutter HR training, cookie-cutter employment contracts. Don't be the nail that sticks up!

Japan wants to internationalise its economy but let's face it - it's never going to happen.

To be fair, the whole "permanent amateurism" tactic is much beloved by the United States Armed Forces.

@kazuaki: not so sure that is true. For some of the grunts maybe, but several friends of mine definitely specialized the longer they were enlisted. A good friend of mine got two 4 year degrees while enlisted and was specialized from general infantry to finally a kind if tech (he did electronics for aviation stuff, not quite an engineer but near to it).

The shuffling around is certainly true when it comes to deployment, but I really doubt any soldier in there who re-ups is an amateur. Additionally, (on topic), the shuffling serves some purpose whereas many J companies are just doing it for the hell of it. Waste of resources in my opinion.